Why my students’ AP scores matter. And why they don’t.

*Ray Salazar writes from the front lines of teaching. The trick he pulls is that while doing that he teaches us. VL

By Ray Salazar, NBCT

NBCT Editor’s Note: Ray Salazar, NBCT,  teaches high school English in Chicago Public Schools and  is an award-winning blogger. The views expressed in this blog are his own

I fight the obsession with testing and over-testing in our classrooms.  Yet, given the choice, I choose to teach AP English Language every chance I get.  After months of intense writing and thinking, over sixty of my students take their AP test this morning.  This is the sixth time I’ve taught this class.  And each year, I value this course—and the experience of teaching it—more and more.

Focused on examining non-fiction and images as text, this class allows high-school students to enter complex conversations that matter to them—or that eventually matter to them. The only request I make of anyone who signs up for this AP class with me is that he or she be ready to write a lot and think a lot.  Every year since I started teaching this class in 2008, my classes are packed.  And when students change their minds after two weeks and want a schedule change, I don’t approve it.  “Too bad,” I tell ‘em.  “We’re stuck writing with each other for the whole year.”

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This story was originally published in The Standard.

Since 1995, Ray has been an English teacher in the Chicago Public Schools. In 2003, Ray earned an M.A. in Writing, with distinction, from DePaul University. In 2009, he received National Board Certification. His writing aired on National Public Radio and Chicago Public Radio many times and have been published in the Chicago Tribune and CNN. For thirty years, Ray lived in Chicago’s 26th Street neighborhood. Today, he lives a little more south and a little more west in the city with his wife, son, and daughter.