You’ve probably heard me talk about my first poetry slam. The project that became my go-to vehicle for teaching poetry every year that followed. The book I was handed - 6 American Poets - was chock full of great poetry. Dickinson, Whitman, Hughes… but I knew that I, like every paper worth reading, would need a solid hook. That’s how I ended up staying up til one in the morning the night before my poetry unit was set to kick off searching for poetry slam clips without swearwords. Eventually I fou...
Mar 05, 2025•5 min•Season 9Ep. 368
I can still remember the faded, chipped blue print of my childhood game of Memory. The thick cardboard squares we flipped in search of pairs, thrilled when we found a match, frustrated when we accidentally revealed a match to our opponent. I’ve played a million games now as a parent too, watching my children’s eyes light up when they rack up more matches than I do, which is pretty much every time. I think my daughter was beating me consistently by the time she was four. The memory game seems to ...
Feb 26, 2025•8 min•Season 9Ep. 367
Teaching an ELA elective that you've dreamed up yourself is such a joy. Today I want to stir up some ideas together for the next time you've got the chance to put your own spin on an older course or propose a new course altogether. So let's start with a few questions: Would you rather take a course called "Theater" or "Contemporary Theater: The Triumphs of Hamilton & Wicked "? "Creative Writing" or "Writing for Change across Platforms"? "Film & Literature" or "How the Oscars got it Wrong"? "Argu...
Feb 19, 2025•19 min•Season 9Ep. 366
Like most of us, Christina Schneider didn't find teaching writing one bit easy at first. Despite her background as a journalist, putting all the puzzle pieces together in the classroom to help her students understand how to build a thesis, introduce and analyze evidence, and express their ideas felt like a pretty tough task. But over time she had one breakthrough after another with her high school students in California. She figured out how to meet them where they are and guide them through the ...
Feb 12, 2025•26 min•Season 9Ep. 365
It's February, the perfect time to feature work by contemporary Black authors in your book talks, poetry clip showings, First Chapter Fridays, book displays, and bulletin boards. It's also a good time to look ahead to next year and consider whether you want to order some of these books for book clubs and whole class texts in the 2025-2026 school year.boo Of course, I know you know every month is the perfect time to feature these books in all kinds of ways. But today let's talk about five authors...
Feb 05, 2025•12 min•Season 9Ep. 364
How many times have you sat in a PD meeting that didn't apply to you? One where you were learning an 11 letter acronym for a strategy you'd never use, a 3 point plan for a new program that wouldn't fit with your curriculum, or a training you'd already had? A PD meeting that was... irrelevant. In their book, Disrupting Thinking: Why How We Read Matters, Kylene Beers and Bob Probst use one word to describe a key component we need in our in our curriculum in order to keep students' attention: relev...
Jan 29, 2025•14 min•Season 9Ep. 363
I've been reading Kylene Beers and Bob Probst's Disrupting Thinking: How Why We Read Matters this week, and one of their points that has really come home for me is how often the standards and the pressure to boil books down to skills leads to pulling plot-based facts and point-based evidence out of a book, blocking opportunities for students to think about what the book means in the context of their lives. How it might change them, influence them, give them something new to think about in the wa...
Jan 21, 2025•24 min•Season 9Ep. 362
This week I want to share a project idea that you can use for a ton of different texts - the mock trial. I’ll tell you why the mock trial was one of my FAVORITE projects as a student, and one fun way I used it as a teacher. By the time you finish listening to this quick episode, I hope you’ll be excited to put a mock trial into play in your own classroom. My senior year of high school, my AP Lit teacher thought of a wonderful way to spice up our Madame Bovary unit. She had us re-enact Gustave Fl...
Jan 16, 2025•4 min•Season 9Ep. 361
Open The New York Times today and you'll see photos, headlines, interactive infographics, audio, videos, and text articles. I could name almost any newspaper, magazine, social media platform, campaign website, or brand home page, and say the same. Communication today switches mediums like a chameleon switches colors wandering in a field of Skittles. Our students know communication has changed. They need practice sharing ideas in different mediums and weaving those mediums together. Enter, one-pa...
Jan 15, 2025•35 min•Season 9Ep. 360
This week I want to share a piece of advice that really comes from my wonderful husband and it’s this: Don’t send emails that make your heart race. That email will only make it worse. Let me explain. Just a few days ago I found myself in bed at eleven, eyes wide open in the dark, building an email in my mind. I laid there meticulously building a case in my imaginary email to explain why I was mad at a person who was mad at me. Soon I was bathed in the midnight glow of my screen, writing the emai...
Jan 09, 2025•4 min•Season 9Ep. 359
There's a lot of takes on the New Year and how it fits into our lives. There's the change-everything-starting-January-1 take. The New-Year-Same-Me take. The choose-your-word take. The pick-your-theme-song-take. There are SMART goals and stepping stone goals, personal goals and professional goals. Then of course there's the gentle twist that takes goals and turns them into habits and then stacks them, á la James Clear.r. But what - she said with a gentle chuckle - about sneaker goals? Yep, today ...
Jan 07, 2025•8 min•Season 9Ep. 358
Lately, I’ve been working on gamification. Not the kind where you get points and add custom outfits to your hamster avatar when you advance through a lesson - though don’t get me wrong, that seems cool - more the kind where learning takes place through an actual game structure. We’re big fans of games at my house - Catan, Parcheesi, Taco Cat Goat Cheese Pizza, Wordle, Uno, Apple to Apples - and so I’ve had a lot of fun brainstorming ideas. But today I was zeroing in on brackets. You know, tourna...
Dec 19, 2024•3 min•Season 9Ep. 357
If the work week is starting to feel like a blurry hand sanitizer-scented haze at the moment, you're right on schedule. The crush of holiday to-dos (fun and not-so) alongside the slow but insistent slip of student attention spans, plus the inevitable wave of illnesses you're trying to avoid makes these last few days a challenge. So today I'm hoping I can help by giving you all the moving pieces for an easy and awesome last day. Grab the Free Winter Book Tasting Kit Here: https://spark-creativity...
Dec 17, 2024•6 min•Season 9Ep. 356
This week I’m thinking about those moments when the system collapses. Your toddler wakes up at 3 am and stays awake until 7. Your careful planning for a poetry slam explodes when you feel a sore throat lurking the day before and you get one of those icky awful chills on your way out to the parking lot. Your partner has to work overtime when you were counting on him to do dinner and bedtime while you graded 100 papers and prepped the next day. Today’s one of those days for me, with my partner on ...
Dec 12, 2024•5 min•Season 9Ep. 355
Ever struggle to get students to stop talking? Keep their phones put away? Stay focused during the lesson? Stop whispering during an assembly? Engage with the classwork? Classroom management can sometimes feel like death by a thousand distractions. Today’s guest can help. Claire English is an experienced Australian secondary English teacher and senior leader, specializing in supporting students with complex social, emotional and mental health needs. Over her career, she has worked across the Uni...
Dec 10, 2024•57 min•Season 9Ep. 354
In today’s short episode of “Highly Recommended”, I’m here to tell you it’s time to try a poetry video project! Harness students’ excitement over the creator economy and the survival of TikTok and get them interpreting poetry through a medium that only keeps getting MORE relevant to communication today. First things first, let’s talk mentor texts. There are some VERY cool poetry videos online that take their interpretation in wildly different directions. I suggest taking a look at Amanda Gorman’...
Dec 05, 2024•5 min•Season 9Ep. 353
So you want to give the nod to the season, but you also want to make sure all your students feel included. Good for you! I've been privileged to see the holidays I celebrate centered in The United States for much of my life, but I've also had a lot of opportunities to see what it's like beyond this glow. I've lived in four other countries where some of the holidays I am used to are not very important at all. At one of my schools, I had the role of international-student coordinator. As part of th...
Dec 04, 2024•19 min•Season 9Ep. 352
Welcome to day five of gratitude week here at Spark Creativity. Today, on our final day, we’re looking back at an interview with my friend Angela Stockman about how to get started with her innovative writing makerspace concept. She is a force of creativity, hope, care, and innovation in the education world, and I’m grateful to know her and to share her work with you. Check out the original show notes: https://nowsparkcreativity.com/2018/09/the-power-of-writing-makerspace-with.html Go Further: Ex...
Nov 29, 2024•32 min•Season 9Ep. 351
Welcome to day four of gratitude week here at Spark Creativity. Today we’re looking back at an interview with Dave Stuart Jr. about how to help fight apathy in the classroom. I’m grateful for Dave’s hopeful voice in the world of education, and glad to share his ideas with you today. Check out the original show notes: https://nowsparkcreativity.com/2019/07/070-help-for-student-apathy-with-dave_16.html Go Further: Explore alllll the Episodes of The Spark Creativity Teacher Podcast . Grab the free ...
Nov 28, 2024•42 min•Season 9Ep. 350
Welcome to day three of gratitude week here at Spark Creativity. Today we’re looking back at an interview with Dr. Claudia Rodriguez-Mojica and Dr. Allison Briceño about just how important it is to provide students with diverse books and choice in their reading experience. I’m grateful that they took the time to talk with us, and to be able to spotlight their work here again. See the original show notes: https://nowsparkcreativity.com/2023/07/students-need-diverse-texts-and-choice-heres-help.htm...
Nov 27, 2024•35 min•Season 9Ep. 349
Welcome to day two of gratitude week here at Spark Creativity. Today we're revisiting a popular interview with Dr. Sarah Fine, whose insightful work around deeper learning I am so grateful to be able to share with you. She crisscrossed the nation in search of the places and programs where students were truly engaged in deeper learning, and she shares what she found in this conversation. See the Original Show Notes: https://nowsparkcreativity.com/2020/02/086-take-action-for-deeper-learning.html G...
Nov 26, 2024•47 min•Season 9Ep. 348
This week I’m thinking about how grateful I am for this incredible community - all the creative educators around the world who have tuned into an episode, shared an idea with a colleague, joined me in conversation as a guest, written a review, or sent in a question. Thank you! Today we’re going to kick off a special five day series revisiting top interviews from the last decade of The Spark Creativity Teacher Podcast. We’ll hear from Penny Kittle, Dr. Sarah Fine, Dr. Claudia Rodriguez-Mojica and...
Nov 25, 2024•52 min•Season 9Ep. 347
In today’s short episode of “Highly Recommended”, I want to recommend an article I read at Edutopia this week, because it’s chock-full of the research you need to support conversations at your school about grading less. Changing the culture of grading in our ELA classrooms won’t just benefit teachers, it benefits students too. So today I want to share two highlights from the article, “ Why Teachers Should Grade Less Frequently ,” by Stephen Merrill and Youki Terada, and then give you the link in...
Nov 21, 2024•3 min•Season 9Ep. 346
If you’re a teacher in a Title I School, you need to know about First Book Marketplace. I’ve heard about it in passing so many times, and this week I decided to dive in and figure out how it works. And boy, does it work. Today I just want to walk you through how this site works so that you can start taking advantage of its many resources as soon as possible. Now, if you’re NOT a teacher in a Title I School, and you’re also trying to find resources to support your wish to bring incredible books t...
Nov 19, 2024•11 min•Season 9Ep. 345
This week, I want to talk about Sunday nights. If you’re struggling to figure out how you can be a good partner, parent, person, and teacher, and it all seems to come to a head on Sunday nights, I want to offer three ideas. I’m not saying I can solve the teacher work-life balance issue that plagues our profession in one short episode, but I hope one of these ideas will help you feel more free to follow your instincts towards less stress and pressure on yourself, and maybe, just maybe, happier Su...
Nov 14, 2024•5 min•Season 9Ep. 344
Arthur Miller, Tennessee Williams, and Eugene O'Neill get plenty of spotlight on the ELA curriculum stage. And sure, it's well-deserved! But they aren't the only incredible American playwrights to pick up a pen in the last century. If you're looking for some contemporary plays to share with your students, and you're struggling to find ones that fit your vision AND fit the maturity level of your kiddos, I've got a quick idea for you today. So here it is. You've got your stack of A Streetcar Named...
Nov 12, 2024•9 min•Season 9Ep. 343
This week I want to share a fabulous resource I recently discovered, a website full of short video models for acting games you can use in class. The first time I taught a play in class, I sure wished I had more theater background to help my students act out the scenes. Luckily, I was able to connect with a creative theater professional to come and visit my classes for a few days. Soon she had them playing acting games, creating scene sculptures, and generally having a great time while relaxing i...
Nov 07, 2024•6 min•Season 9Ep. 342
My son and I love a few certain characters from the books we've read aloud over the years. Gum-Baby, from Tristan Strong , Boots, from Gregor the Overlander , Maniac Magee. For my daughter, it's Junie B. Jones and Ramona from their named series collections . For me, it was always Anne (of Green Gables) I returned to growing up, and Jo from Little Women . Oh, and of course, Calvin from Calvin and Hobbes . Incredible characters are everywhere we turn in literature, and they make such an impact on ...
Nov 06, 2024•14 min•Season 9Ep. 341
Grading discussion can feel like juggling cats. How can you be present in a class discussion while also trying to grade thirty people’s comments? But over the years, I’ve tried three methods that that have worked for me without causing too much strain. I call them the bump, the challenge, and the chart. In today’s mini-episode, I’ll walk you through all three so that the next time you feel you need to give credit where credit is due during a discussion, you’ve got a plan that doesn’t feel like a...
Oct 31, 2024•6 min•Season 9Ep. 340
We’ve all been in a discussion hurtling off the track and into the canyon, far, far below. Chances are, you’ve been in this type of discussion as a student AND as a teacher, and it’s no fun in either scenario. So how do we prevent it? And what do we do if it’s already happening and glaze is washing over our students’ eyes? In today’s episode, the fifth in our discussion series, we’re diving into how to deal with discussions that go off the rails. Because even if YOU prepare in all the ways, thos...
Oct 29, 2024•18 min•Season 9Ep. 339
