Lector Intende, Laetaberis: A Research-Based Approach to Introductory Latin

Abstract

In the 2019-20 academic year, we undertook a full redesign of our introductory Latin curriculum at the College of the Holy Cross in order to provide students with a more meaningful encounter with the Latin language. We primed our students to work with real, unedited Latin texts within their first year of study by highlighting Latin grammatical concepts that were frequent, complex, and unfamiliar to English speakers, which meant introducing topics like the passive voice, the subjunctive, third-declension adjectives, and indirect statement that are foundational to the Latin language much earlier than we had previously.