Keep up with the reading. As simplistic as it
sounds, this is perhaps the most useful bit of advice.
Our pace, on average, will be about thirty lines of Latin
per class. This means that you should read about ten lines
per day. Don't save it all for the night before. (The
same advice applies to readings in English.)
Review regularly. Again, this seems obvious, but
regular review of past readings, as well as essential
grammar and vocabulary, will save you much trouble later
on. I recommend flash cards or some other mnemonic aid
for vocabulary words.
Read, don't translate. That is, rather than memorizing
an English translation, focus on putting all of the pieces
together in Latin. Along these lines, don't waste time
writing out a translation; rather, make notes on various
points of grammar and vocabulary. The result will be a
closer focus on the Latin—which is, after all, the
primary objective of the course.
Remember the genre. The Metamorphoses and
the Heroides are poetry; as such, each work reads
rather differently from Latin prose, both in terms of
sound and sense. We will of course devote some time to
recalling the differences between poetry and prose; but
you will start off on the right foot by expecting the
unexpected.
