MIDLOTHIAN, Va. — Midlothian High School Latin teacher Amy Petersen has found a way to get her new students excited about an old language.
Her project is taking them to Pompeii in A.D. 62.
"It's like figuring stuff out," says Petersen. "It's old. It's clues and putting a puzzle together. Some of them like that. Some like the mythology. Some like the history."
During the pandemic, Petersen had an idea. She would write a story about a young immigrant artist from North Africa in Roman times to help Latin students build their reading skills from beginner to intermediate.
"Harry Potter is a big draw. Percy Jackson kind of gets them hooked when they're in middle school. And they're like, 'Oh, that's a language you can see in those books.'"
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Petersen's students are recording the story into audiobooks. Since they started a year ago, the site has been seen by other students across the country and around the world, including Angola, Austria, and Australia.
For Jungee Fulmer, the audiobook combines his love of acting with his love of Latin.
"In the first chapter, you have a big dog who's saying 'I'm a big dog' in Latin. That was my very first character. Even though I probably won't speak it in real life, the fact that I'm keeping it alive in some form is really part of the draw for me."
What started out small is erupting like Vesuvius.
"There was a little feed on Reddit about it," says Petersen, "and so that got some interest. People around the world were looking at that and getting into it, so that was really fun."
You can check out the audiobooks on YouTube.
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