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Stage II · Summer Intensive · Emerson Latin
Eight Weeks. Every Required Text.
Forsan et haec olim meminisse iuvabit.
Perhaps one day it will bring joy to remember even these things. — Vergil, Aeneid I
Every required letter. Every required book. Every question the examination demands. By August, the student who sat before Pliny and Vergil in June has completed not a preview but a course — and returns to school in the autumn with a command his peers have not yet begun to build.
Stage II is the AP Latin Sequence. Grammar has been mastered; authentic Roman prose and poetry awaits. Every course in Stage I — however a student arrived at it, by whichever method he pursued it — was preparation for this encounter: the Latin of Pliny the Younger, the Latin of Vergil. Not simplified. Not adapted. The originals, complete, in all their difficulty and their reward.
AP Latin Prose and Poetry is offered during the Summer Intensive as two concurrent courses across eight weeks — one devoted entirely to prose, the other entirely to poetry. It is the capstone toward which the entire Emerson Latin curriculum has been directed from the beginning.
Year-round students at Emerson Latin take AP Latin Prose and Poetry during the academic year, as part of their regular course sequence. The Summer Intensive is for the visiting student — from a boarding school, an independent day school, or a rigorous home program — who wishes to complete the course thoroughly before returning to school in September.
Sic fac, mi Lucili: vindica te tibi.
Do this, my Lucilius: claim yourself for yourself.
Seneca, Epistulae Morales — a spirit that animates all study of Roman prose
The student this course demands has already done the difficult work. He arrives having mastered the whole of Latin grammar and syntax and having read, in the original, at least one full academic year of authentic Latin prose and poetry — the real thing, unadapted and unabridged. He knows what it is to work through a text that does not yield easily and to arrive, sentence by sentence, at understanding.
He comes most often from a boarding school or independent day school on the American East Coast or Mid-Atlantic. He is preparing for the AP Latin examination and wishes to arrive at school in the fall not as a student beginning the course but as one who has already completed it — thoroughly, rigorously, and with nothing left unaddressed. His school may offer AP Latin, but he has not yet taken it; this course is his first and complete exposure to the AP Latin curriculum before the academic year begins.
What all such students share is a foundation — and the readiness to use it. He arrives in June with Pliny and Vergil ahead of him. He departs in August with them behind him.
Across the boarding schools and independent schools of the American East Coast and Mid-Atlantic — and beyond — AP Latin has undergone a quiet retreat. Many schools of considerable reputation have ceased teaching it altogether. Those that have retained it often proceed through the required texts in fragments, without direction, without completeness, and without the full range of examination demands the course actually requires.
This is not a failure of intelligence. It is a failure of structure, completeness, and rigor. The student is not unequal to the task. He has simply never been given the full task.
Emerson Latin's AP Latin Prose and Poetry does not preview the required texts. It covers them completely — every required letter of Pliny, every required book of the Aeneid — and works through each one with the thoroughness the examination actually demands. The teacher's choice types of readings, studied with comprehensive and abundant practice. Every question type practiced, not once, but throughout the course. Scansion until the ear and the eye agree. Socratic seminar, in both courses, until the student can argue a position and defend it with Latin evidence.
Every required passage in both prose and poetry, examined in its entirety. No required letter and no required book left aside. The examination holds no surprises about what has been covered.
Every essential word, phrase, and clause parsed and analyzed. Grammar and syntax identified, not merely translated past. The student can account for the Latin, not simply render it into English.
Multiple choice, translation, short answer, analysis, short essay, summary, interpretation, and scansion — all practiced throughout the course, as they appear on the examination.
The teacher's choice selections — the types of readings from which the unseen passage on the examination is drawn — are studied comprehensively and abundantly, so that what the examination presents as unseen has, in practice, already been encountered in preparation.
Socratic seminar addresses the ideas — in Pliny, the duties of the educated gentleman; in Vergil, the questions of duty, happiness, fate, and freedom — that the short essay demands the student argue.
Prose and Poetry taken together, as the College Board intends. Six meetings per week across eight weeks. Each discipline informing the other, the whole course advancing as one.
Nusquam est qui ubique est.
He who is everywhere is nowhere.
Seneca — on the necessity of directed, complete study rather than diffuse survey
Both courses are taken concurrently during the same eight weeks. Prose and Poetry advance alongside each other, six meetings per week, until both are complete.
AP Latin Prose
Pliny the Younger — lawyer, magistrate, and one of the most elegant letter-writers in Roman history — left behind a correspondence that opens a window on Roman intellectual and social life at its most cultivated. His letters to Tacitus, to the Emperor Trajan, and to friends and colleagues are the required prose of the AP Latin examination.
AP Latin Poetry
Vergil's Aeneid — Rome's greatest epic — follows Aeneas from the fall of Troy to the founding of the Roman race. It is a poem about duty and its cost, about the grief of empire, about fate and the will that struggles against it. It is also the most demanding Latin poetry on the AP examination.
On the AP Latin examination, the student encounters multiple question formats across both prose and poetry. Many students who have studied Latin for years have never practiced several of these formats at all. At Emerson Latin, each required passage occasions every relevant question type — so that the examination, when it arrives, presents no unfamiliar demands.
Comprehension, grammar, and interpretation
Literal, precise, syntactically aware
Grammar, vocabulary, and contextual meaning
Argument with Latin evidence, cited and discussed
Rhetorical and poetic devices in context
Accurate paraphrase demonstrating comprehension
Dactylic hexameter, practiced to mastery
Thematic reading grounded in the Latin text
Six to eight targeted questions per passage, prose and poetry
Nouns by number, gender, and case; verbs by tense, mood, and voice
The AP Latin examination's unseen passage is drawn from a body of prose and poetry approved by the College Board — the teacher's choice selections. These are the types of readings from which the unseen passage is drawn on the examination. All prose and poetry passages selected by Emerson Latin as teacher's choice have been audited and approved by the College Board, which designs and administers the AP Latin examination. Students who arrive at the unseen having never practiced with these authors are, in effect, encountering the examination unprepared at its most decisive moment. At Emerson Latin, both AP Latin Prose and AP Latin Poetry include comprehensive and abundant practice with these selections.
Prose — Teacher's Choice Authors (College Board Approved)
Poetry — Teacher's Choice Authors (College Board Approved)
The two courses meet on alternating days throughout the summer: Prose on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays; Poetry on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. This structure — which mirrors the way the AP Latin examination is itself organized — allows each discipline to advance steadily while the two courses inform and reinforce each other across the week.
Instruction is live, conducted with a single teacher, in the tradition of the tutorial — the close, Socratic engagement with a text that no passive medium can replicate. Sessions are focused, demanding, and cumulative. Each meeting builds on the last.
This weekly pattern repeats across eight consecutive weeks. The total structure — complete required texts, thorough analysis, full practice with all examination question types, and Socratic seminar in both disciplines — constitutes a full, rigorous AP Latin course, taken before the academic year begins.
AP Latin Prose and Poetry — taken as a Summer Intensive before the academic year — places the visiting student ahead of his peers when he returns to school in the fall. He arrives having completed a full, rigorous AP Latin course. His school's AP Latin class, when it begins, holds no surprises; he has already covered the ground.
Command of the whole of Latin grammar and syntax, achieved through any of Emerson Latin's Stage I programs or equivalent rigorous preparation. The indispensable foundation for everything that follows.
Introduction to authentic Latin literature — the first encounter with real Roman prose and poetry, unadapted and complete. Students develop the reading skills and literary awareness required for AP-level work.
Eight weeks. Every required text. Every question type. The complete, structured AP Latin course, taken in full before the academic year begins.
The student arrives at the examination in May not as someone who has previewed the course but as someone who has completed it. He knows the texts. He has practiced every question type. He has argued the ideas in Socratic seminar. The examination holds nothing he has not already faced.
He returns to school in September not as a student who has previewed a course but as one who has completed it. His peers are beginning. He is already ahead.
The prerequisites for AP Latin Prose and Poetry are not formalities. They exist because the course is demanding and presupposes a solid foundation in Latin grammar, syntax, and authentic literature. A student who arrives without that foundation will not be served well by enrolling prematurely; the course will not carry him to it. These prerequisites must be genuinely in place.
Students who are uncertain about their preparation are invited to inquire. A brief conversation will determine whether the course is the appropriate next step or whether additional preparation would serve them better first.
No. Emerson Latin's year-round students take AP Latin Prose and Poetry during the academic year, beginning in the fall, as part of their regular course sequence. The Summer Intensive is designed for the visiting student — from a boarding school, an independent day school, or a rigorous home program — who wishes to complete the AP Latin course thoroughly before returning to his school in September.
AP Latin Prose meets on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. AP Latin Poetry meets on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. A student enrolling in the Summer Intensive takes both courses simultaneously across the eight weeks, just as the College Board's examination structure anticipates — one discipline reinforcing the other, the two courses advancing together as a single, integrated preparation for the AP Latin examination.
Both courses are available individually. However, students who wish to prepare fully for the AP Latin examination are strongly advised to enroll in both. The examination draws on both prose and poetry, and the two courses are designed to complement each other. Enrolling in only one leaves half the examination unaddressed in the structured preparation the Summer Intensive provides.
AP Latin Prose and Poetry at Emerson Latin is, for nearly all visiting students, their first and complete exposure to the AP Latin curriculum — taken before the academic year begins, so that they return to school in the fall with the course already behind them. This course has been popular and well-attended by boarding school students from the American East Coast who wish to arrive at school in September with a thorough head start, rather than beginning the course alongside their peers in the fall. Whether a student's school offers AP Latin or not, the question is the same: does he wish to enter the fall term having already completed a full, rigorous, and structured preparation for the examination? If so, this is the course.
Yes. Each required passage — in both prose and poetry — occasions the full range of AP question types: multiple choice, translation, short answer, analysis, short essay, summary, interpretation, and scansion. Students do not encounter the examination format for the first time in the examination room. By the end of the course, every question type is familiar, practiced, and expected.
The AP Latin examination includes a passage drawn from the types of prose and poetry the College Board designates as teacher's choice — approved authors and texts beyond the required Pliny and Vergil that teachers may select to develop at-sight reading skills. All prose and poetry passages selected by Emerson Latin for teacher's choice preparation have been audited and approved by the College Board, which designs and administers the AP Latin examination. Students who arrive at the unseen passage without comprehensive practice in these types of readings encounter it at a serious disadvantage. At Emerson Latin, both AP Latin Prose and AP Latin Poetry include comprehensive and abundant practice with the teacher's choice selections, so that the unseen passage, as a category of reading, is thoroughly familiar by the time the examination arrives.
Socratic seminar is structured discussion in which the student is asked to develop and defend a position — not to summarize what the text says but to argue what it means and why, with evidence drawn from the Latin itself. In AP Latin Prose, seminar addresses the philosophical themes in Pliny's letters: the nature of friendship, the conduct of public life, the meaning of a well-lived Roman existence. In AP Latin Poetry, seminar addresses the questions Vergil raises and refuses to resolve neatly: whether duty justifies the sacrifice of happiness, whether Aeneas is a hero or a victim, what Rome's founding cost and whether the cost was paid. These are the questions the AP Latin short essay requires the student to argue. Seminar develops the capacity to do so.
The prerequisites are: completion of any Emerson Latin Stage I program, or demonstrable command of the whole of Latin grammar and syntax through equivalent preparation; and completion of Emerson Latin's Foundational Latin Prose and Poetry, or one full academic year of authentic Latin literature. Students who are uncertain are invited to inquire directly. A brief conversation will address whether the preparation is in place and whether the course is the appropriate next step.
Families interested in enrolling a student in the AP Latin Prose and Poetry Summer Intensive are invited to begin with a consultation. Questions about placement, course structure, and fit for a particular student will be addressed directly. Follow the link below to schedule.
Macte nova virtute, puer; sic itur ad astra.
Go forth with new valor, boy — thus is the way taken to the stars.
Vergil, Aeneid IX — spoken to young Ascanius, son of Aeneas