By Astrid Fabinski and Nyah Marquez-Dean
If you’ve ever had an eerie, almost haunting feeling walking down the English hallway, you have most likely felt the presence of Paul Evans. Evans, 35, the sole AP English Language and Composition teacher in the recent absence of Milo Carpenter, is one of the biggest supporters of English students across the school. Evans has been teaching for almost 11 years, with this year marking his seventh at Golden High School. At the previous schools Evans had worked, he was the only English teacher for his grade level in his team. Golden’s English department was a welcome change, as the new environment proved much more gratifying to him.
“It’s just a really good department because every teacher kind of has a different style, and they bring their own personality to the room, and generally seem to be excited about the content,” Evans said of his colleagues.
Originally, Evans had taught English 9 and 11. But, as Mr. Carpenter- the then-sole-AP Lang teacher- approached his eventual retirement from Golden, he asked Evans to take over and he did. For a while, Evans and Carpenter taught Lang in tandem with one another, with Evans learning the ways of Lang.
“The first year after COVID, I took the class, so I was a student in the class remotely. So, every day for my planning period, I logged into Mr. Carpenter’s AP Lang class, so I got a feel for kind of the rhythms of it and the workload and how it kind of runs to prepare me as much as it could to then teach it. So, then I taught it alongside him for two years and then kind of took it on full force this year. So, it’s kind of been a slow release. I started as a student, moved as a teacher, which maybe is a good format for anybody.”
As the teacher of the notoriously work-heavy AP Lang class, Evans navigates the conflict between classwork and the ability to think for oneself.
“If the goal of the class is to encourage students to find their own voice as a thinker and a writer and a reader and just a general human, there’s a lot of work that has to be done, and there’s a lot of corners that can be cut when it comes to entering the world of ideas,” Evans posits about the workload. “So in order to do that, in order to find a voice as a writer you have to write a lot. You have to read a lot, and you have to talk a lot.”
Often, this workload is overwhelming for students and a common complaint about Lang is the sheer amount of homework; but, as Evans stated, the workload is necessary. Evans’ rigorous teaching is a result of his passion for education, not just for the sake of work. Every assignment he gives is planned out to develop the skills of his students and encourage their intrigue in the content.
“I believe in everything that I say in AP Lang and I believe in it being a college-level course because that’s what it should be,” Evans explained. “This is a college-level writing course, and if you get through it you’ll be working towards getting college credit. So I kind of hold myself to that standard in a weird Mike Rose (an American scholar and educator with a focus on literacy, and a staple author in AP Lang homework) kind of way.”
Though you can often find his students in despair and heavily deprived of sleep, Evans has maintained his position as one of the most beloved teachers in the building. He can often be found in the halls of the English wing giving his students literary support and life advice, and this support goes both ways.
“There are things that students say every day in class that stick with me,” Evans shared, “More than just I like hearing student voices, I think I depend on them. Sometimes the world is bleak. And I think I depend on my students for hope.” His dedication to the growth of his students both as writers and as people goes beyond the classroom, influencing their lives in many ways throughout the nearly seven years he has been at Golden. Though his current students may complain about their workload, many of his former students can be found throughout his curriculum, giving solid advice to the current students, and explaining how Lang has changed their lives beyond high school for the better.
Despite the complexities of Evans’ classes, he admits that he hasn’t always had the relationship with literature that we see now.
“I tell my students frequently, I didn’t learn to read until I was 26.” Evans shared, “I knew how to follow words on a page, but I didn’t really understand what reading was. So to say that I’ve been dedicated to literature would be a lie. I think I’m a late bloomer when it comes to literature and reading and even the world of ideas. Which is why I talk so fast. I have a lot of catching up to do.”
The Golden Trident 