How does a teacher prepare to teach an AP Latin course?
How does a teacher choose a textbook?
What are some of the curricular patterns of AP Latin?

How does a teacher prepare to teach an AP Latin course?
Because the AP Latin Exams require students to read, translate literally, scan, analyze, interpret, and otherwise deftly handle a text, it is essential that teachers have access to appropriate resource materials. If your school's library does not have the necessary reference and research tools, and funds are not available for their purchase, you may be able to obtain the materials you need from community public and university libraries and interlibrary loan programs. The lack of extensive support materials need not hinder a teacher from preparing and delivering a challenging and satisfying AP Latin course.

The most important thing you can do is to plan, because the AP Latin curriculum is, by most standards, very challenging in its volume. The amount of Latin that AP students must read is great and their progress is typically slow at first. Even as students' ability and rate of progress increase over the course of the year, the AP Exams in May always seem to come too soon. Experienced teachers tend to leave time for review sessions before the date of the exams. Teachers who are new to AP Latin should consider following the guidelines of the AP Latin syllabus in a regular Latin class for a year before offering the AP course the next year. The syllabi presented in the print version of the Teacher's Guide show a variety of ways that both secondary school teachers and college professors organize their courses. Always keep in mind that, as is the case for all AP courses, you are involved in a college-level undertaking.

How does a teacher choose a textbook?
The most important ingredients in a textbook for an AP Latin class are good, understandable, and complete notes, because students will constantly need and seek explanations of the Latin. Many textbooks for the AP Latin authors are available (see the bibliographies in the print version of the Teacher's Guide); you may want to examine several in order to determine which one best suits your individual tastes and needs.

Keep in mind that the AP Latin courses are subject to periodic revision. While it may be possible to find abridged texts that contain all of the reading required by a particular syllabus for a given author(s) for that year, there is no guarantee that the required reading will remain the same from one year to the next. For those teachers who do not have the opportunity to select new texts on an annual basis, it may be prudent to choose a complete text.

What are some of the curricular patterns of AP Latin?
In schools where there are not sufficient numbers of qualified and willing students to warrant offering two separate AP Latin courses, many teachers elect to offer them on a rotating basis, teaching Vergil and Latin Literature in alternating years. In such cases, eleventh and twelfth graders are combined in a single class, thus giving every student the chance to read both curricula. In schools where enrollments are more robust and more than one section of AP Latin is scheduled, AP Latin Literature teachers have the opportunity to offer students a choice of authors (Horace, Ovid, or Cicero) to complement the anchor readings in Catullus.

The problem of small enrollment is more common, however. In this situation, many teachers are faced with the additional challenge of teaching students of widely mixed abilities; strong Latinists, who are fully capable of meeting the challenge of AP work, sit next to classmates for whom this task is far too difficult. In such cases, many teachers choose to follow the AP syllabus, perhaps at a slower pace than they otherwise would, and augment the training of the more motivated and talented students with auxiliary instruction.

The most important thing to remember is that it is the experience of reading some of Latin literature's greatest authors -- Vergil, Catullus, Horace, Ovid, and Cicero -- that can truly enhance the intellectual, emotional, and even spiritual lives of young people. The AP Latin courses offer teachers and students a proven framework for making this laudable and increasingly popular goal a reality. The AP Exams are an important assessment of how well a student has mastered a range of significant academic skills, but of equal importance is how much a student's life has been enriched by the experience of coming face-to-face with great literature.