I suppose I’ll start this post off with a bit of exciting news: I self-studied for the AP Latin exam in the past year, and ended up scoring a 5 . I ended up scoring a 3 in Seminar, but still makes me want to continue to Research. Due to my interest in language (I have studied Latin, French (complete self-study), Spanish, Chinese, and I’m currently self-studying Ancient Greek and having a fabulous time), it is my dream to make some sort of contribution to the field of language study or just languages in general. Originally, I considered doing a project on the issues with the current language pedagogy and how languages can be taught more efficiently in the modern language classroom based on second language acquisition theories. This plan fell through since I was not able to find a professional advisor for the project. Then I considered doing one based on how Classics teachers should be teaching Latin as a living language, due to the pedagogical effects. This would entail the same literature, but the plan fell through as I actually want to learn and prove something. What do you all suggest? I have a strong interest in the way languages are acquired and language change, yet most of my scholarly language experience has been based on classical languages. In fact, Latin was the reason I turned to French and Spanish (comparative linguistic purposes) and Chinese gave me some tonal skills necessary for Ancient Greek as I’m interested in learning the pitch accent, rather than the stress. What should I do as a project? I would love to study language change, but I need questions associated with that school of linguistics.
Love your topics. Don’t have any real suggestions but maybe you can find a college professor mentor?
I think AP seminar /research is very underrated. My son took it since writing /public speaking was his weakness being the stereotypical math engineering kid. He took it to challenge himself. The two year course transformed him into a very capable writer and public speaker. It made college writing a breeze and the research learning he used right away in college.
There is a lot of downtime alone time at the library etc. Use it wisely. Good Luck.