AP® Latin 2006–2007 Professional Development Workshop Materials Special Focus: Translating Literally— A Vertical Team Approach connect to college success™ www.com The College Board: Connecting Students to College Success The College Board is a not-for-profit membership association whose mission is to connect students to college success and opportunity. Founded in 1900, the association is composed of more than 5,000 schools, colleges, universities, and other educational organizations. Each year, the College Board serves seven million students and their parents, 23,000 high schools, and 3,500 colleges through major programs and services in college admissions, guidance, assessment, financial aid, enrollment, and teaching and ® learning. Among its best-known programs are the SAT , the PSAT/NMSQT , and the ® ® ® Advanced Placement Program (AP ).
The College Board is committed to the principles of excellence and equity, and that commitment is embodied in all of its programs, services, activities, and concerns Equity Policy Statement The College Board and the Advanced Placement Program encourage teachers, AP Coordinators, and school administrators to make equitable access a guiding principle for their AP programs. The College Board is committed to the principle that all students deserve an opportunity to participate in rigorous and academically challenging courses and programs. All students who are willing to accept the challenge of a rigorous academic curriculum should be considered for admission to AP courses. The Board encourages the elimination of barriers that restrict access to AP courses for students from ethnic, racial, and socioeconomic groups that have been traditionally underrepresented in the AP Program.
Schools should make every effort to ensure that their AP classes reflect the diversity of their student population. For more information about equity and access in principle and practice, contact the National Office in New York. © 2006 The College Board. All rights reserved.
College Board, AP Central, APCD, Advanced Placement Program, AP, AP Vertical Teams, CollegeEd, Pre-AP, SAT, and the acorn logo are registered trademarks of the College Board. Admitted Class evaluation Service, connect to college success, MyRoad, SAT Professional Development, SAT Readiness Program, Setting the Cornerstones, and The Official SAT Teacher’s Guide are trademarks owned by the College Board. PSAT/NMSQT is a registered trademark of the College Board and National Merit Scholarship Corporation. All other products and services may be trademarks of their respective owners.
Permission to use copyrighted College Board materials may be requested online at: www.com/inquiry/cbpermit. Visit the College Board on the Web: www. AP Central is the official online home for the AP Program and Pre-AP: apcentral. ii AP Latin: 2006–2007 Workshop Materials Table of Contents Special Focus: Translating Literally—A Vertical Team Approach Introduction Jill Crooker.
3 Pre-AP Strategies: Analytical Writing and Close Textual Reading Susan Bonvallet. 5 How to Get to Cicero by Close Reading of Prose Victoria Jordan. 26 Pre-AP Strategies Using De Amicitia Helen Schultz. 59 Translating Latin Text Literally and the Uses of a Translation Scoring Grid Jill Crooker.
67 Caesar: A Prose Vehicle for Grammar and Translation Mastery Steve Kline. 75 Turn Poetry into Prose to Ready Students for the AP Latin Courses C. 82 Pre-AP Strategies for Teaching Horace James Yavenditti. 88 Introducing Horace Early Can Help Later in AP Latin Frederick Norton.
93 How to Tackle Aeneid 10. 439-465 Beyond Translation Alone Rosmarie Mastropoalo. 100 Aeneid 12 Leads to Use of Scoring Guidelines Stephen Sullivan. 119 AP Latin: 2006–2007 Workshop Materials Table of Contents Important Note: The following set of materials is organized around a particular theme, or “special focus,” that reflects important topics in the AP Latin: Vergil and Latin Literature course.
The materials are intended to provide teachers with resources and classroom ideas relating to these topics. The special focus, as well as the specific content of the materials, cannot and should not be taken as an indication that a particular topic will appear on the AP Exam. AP Latin: 2006–2007 Workshop Materials Special Focus: Translating Literally— A Vertical Team Approach Introduction Jill Crooker Former teacher and consultant to the New York State Education Department It is a pleasure to welcome you to this first collection of AP Latin professional development workshop materials, Translating Literally—A Vertical Team Approach. It provides you with the combined efforts of both new and experienced teachers for all levels of Latin, from beginning to AP.
The authors of these materials have taken to heart one of the premises of the vertical teaming concept: that an AP course really begins when the student first encounters the subject. They reveal the methods they use to help their students carefully work their way through readings of some of the AP authors. To this end, this collection contains both lengthy feature articles and a series of ready-to-use lesson plans. Some of the lessons use text that has been adapted from the original so that students can have an appropriate early experience with an author.
I acknowledge that some Latinists think that authentic material should never be adapted. Other lessons contain text with multiple-choice questions, in order to give students more ways to practice for Section I of the AP Exam. Again, some of our colleagues believe that multiple-choice questioning is not “reading.” Whatever your experience or opinion, I hope that you will find in these materials ideas for varying your classroom instruction. There is a 12-step tutorial for choosing passages and writing multiple-choice questions on the AP Latin Web site mentioned below.
This collection clearly exhibits the philosophy that students beginning a study of Latin should not have to wait for three years or more to encounter the thoughts and ideas of revered authors. A student’s AP experience relies upon his or her teacher’s desire to continue to learn strategies and methods to ensure his or her success. You have come to an AP workshop, and it is my hope that you will come away invigorated by the things you have learned to make your journey exciting and meaningful. Please visit apcentral.com/latinvergil or apcentral.com/latinlit to find even more ever-changing resources.
isque ubi tendentem adversum per gramina vidit Aenean, alacris palmas utrasque tetendit, effusaeque genis lacrimae et vox excidit ore: “venisti tandem, tuaque exspectata parenti vicit iter durum pietas?. 684-688 AP Latin: 2006–2007 Workshop Materials Special Focus: Translating Literally— A Vertical Team Approach As Anchises welcomed Aeneas, declaring that his devotion would prevail over the rigorous journey ahead, it is with enthusiasm that I invite you to use these materials in your own classrooms; use them as starting points to encounter new methods of understanding and appreciating literature. And by all means, please email me at jmcrooker@aol. AP Latin: 2006–2007 Workshop Materials Special Focus: Translating Literally— A Vertical Team Approach Pre-AP Strategies: Analytical Writing and Close Textual Reading Susan Bonvallet The Wellington School Columbus, Ohio The AP Latin Exams Both of the AP Latin Exams, Vergil and Latin Literature, require students to write essays based on their interpretation of a Latin passage: two essays on passages from the Aeneid syllabus for the Vergil exam; and two essays on passages from the Catullus syllabus plus one essay from either the Cicero, Horace, or Ovid syllabi for the Latin Literature exam.
These are essentially thesis/support essays. The directions for each question, as well as the criteria used to evaluate the essays themselves, make it clear that successful responses are more “analytical” than “descriptive” in their orientation. While this is an appropriately complex task for an AP Examination, it does not involve skills restricted to the AP Latin classroom. In fact, many of the strategies, both for creating a focused interpretation and for using textual support effectively, can be introduced as early as the beginning levels of Latin instruction and developed through the intermediate classes leading to the AP level.
Characteristics of Analytical Writing with Textual Support In essence, every AP essay question asks test-takers to do the same thing: interpret the chosen Latin passage(s) according to a particular set of instructions, using citations from throughout the passage(s) to support the argument. Such an essay response has the following characteristics: 1. A clear analytical interpretative stance: The essay questions on the AP Latin Exams are scored using a holistic rubric on a scale from 0 to 6. The criteria at the higher end of the scale (5 and 6) use terms such as “excellent” and “discerning” to describe the depth of discussion in these essays; those in the middle of the scale (3 and 4) are characterized as being “uneven” or “more descriptive than analytical”; those at the low end of the scale offer an argument that is deemed “vague,” “weak,” or “very general”—at the lowest level, the essay includes “no substantive argument.” “Descriptive” essays reiterate what the Latin says, often by going through the passage(s) sequentially and telling the reader what the characters are doing, what the author is saying, or what images are used.
“Analytical” essays are centered on a AP Latin: 2006–2007 Workshop Materials Special Focus: Translating Literally— A Vertical Team Approach statement interpreting some aspect of the passage(s), rather than summarizing what is said or narrating what occurs. Accurate and effective citation: The directions for each essay question include the instruction to “refer specifically to the Latin” to support the point(s) made in the response. Referring specifically to the Latin requires both an anchor from the Latin passage (line number[s] or specific Latin words written out) and a translation or accurate paraphrase of the Latin cited. The use of these citations must convince the reader that the student understands the Latin text and is not basing statements on general recall of the passage(s).
The effective use of citation mirrors the distinction between “descriptive” and “analytical” essays in the high, middle, and low range of the scoring rubric. Essays in the 5 and 6 range make “liberal use of specific, appropriate references” from throughout the text; those in the 3 and 4 range use textual support that may be “scanty” or “weak”; those in the 1 and 2 range use citation that reflects “limited” or little understanding of the Latin in context. The format of a citation can often contribute to how effectively it is used. For example, writing out every word in an extensive citation and then translating it may cause the reader to lose the train of thought; it may be more effective to cite such a passage by ellipsis (“word.
word”) or by line number[s] and closely paraphrase it. Similarly, when a particular word or phrase is the most relevant portion of the text to cite, writing it out and translating it can help focus the relevance of the citation. Clear connections between the support (citations) and the interpretation: Weaker essays tend to eliminate or blur the connection between textual support and the central argument of the essay, so that it is up to the reader to understand why a particular piece of Latin “evidence” is being used or how this evidence supports the thesis. The most effective essays create an argument that is convincing and coherent because of the clearly discussed relevance of the Latin cited; they not only connect Latin support to the point being made, but they clearly explain the connection.
Close Textual Reading for Beginning and Intermediate Students Virtually every textbook series with reading passages includes a series of comprehension questions keyed to each passage. Very often, teachers ask students to answer these questions in isolation (that is, without noting textual support), and the questions themselves are often exclusively literal. Questions such as these appear even in “AP” texts AP Latin: 2006–2007 Workshop Materials Special Focus: Translating Literally— A Vertical Team Approach (editions that contain the passages on the AP syllabi). While it is obviously important to understand a passage on a literal level so that interpretation will not be based on faulty information, limiting an essay response to only literal information usually will not lead beyond the “descriptive” to the “analytical.