This week let’s talk about careers. I don’t know if you can relate, but I graduated from high school with a general awareness of maybe six careers - law, medicine, teaching, ministry, science, and business. Let’s talk about how we can show our English students a broader view of what’s out there - and build in some ELA skills to the process. A fun way to start any ELA careers unit is with a careers scavenger hunt, an easy form of research students can do as they move through their days. Just ask ...
Jul 11, 2024•7 min•Season 9Ep. 308
Today on the show, we’ll find out what happened when an administrator attended a student’s genius hour project presentation about a new elective she wanted to see proposed Teaching African American Literature. Spoiler alert, magic. We’re continuing our elective series today, and I’m delighted to tell you we're hearing from passionate veteran teacher Bethany Yuninger. She'll be sharing her African American Literature Elective, and wait til you hear the story of how this elective came to be - it's...
Jul 09, 2024•20 min•Season 9Ep. 307
On this week’s mini-episode, I want to answer a question sent in by a member of our community. Here’s what she writes: Hi Betsy, I have classes of 10th graders who are SO divergent in skill levels. Some are reading Murakami for fun, and some are reading at a 5th grade level. I am struggling to differentiate for them and provide challenge for the strong and support for the others.” Today on the show, I’m going to offer some ideas for this listener, and I hope they can help you too, if you find yo...
Jul 04, 2024•6 min•Season 9Ep. 306
Today on the show we’re hearing from Valerie Boehm, who teaches a Dramatic Writing elective in Georgia as part of the state’s initiative to help more students find their way to good jobs in the film industry. So cool, right? This episode is part of our continuing series on electives, which has been SO MUCH fun to record. I hope you’re as excited to be hearing from all these wonderful teachers about the creative things they’re doing with their courses as I am! (Check out past elective episodes on...
Jul 02, 2024•11 min•Season 9Ep. 305
Join me each week for innovative teaching strategies you can use immediately in your ELA classroom, from choice reading help to book clubs, project-based-learning to AI, student podcasting to genius hour, we cover the good stuff. Whether you're trying to figure out how to engage your eighth graders, trying to help your 11th graders through the college essay, or trying to shepherd you twelfth graders through to the end, you'll find help here! Follow along on Instagram @nowsparkcreativity or visit...
Jun 21, 2024•2 min
On this week’s mini-episode, I’m remembering the moment my 11th graders asked me to please, please, please add a book to our English curriculum that wasn’t so depressing. Maybe you’ve had a similar experience? Let’s talk about what to do when your ELA curriculum is full of death and despair (as it so often is!). We were moving towards spring the year my juniors asked me why all of our books were so glum. My first instinct was to say they weren’t! Then I thought about it for a second. Adultery. C...
Jun 06, 2024•5 min•Season 9Ep. 304
Last night I dreamed I was teaching in a new classroom, except it had layers of stuff on the walls from three other teachers across twenty years of teaching. I couldn't find anything, and I couldn't change the set-up because I didn't know what was important to my colleagues. It was awful. Am I the only one to ever have a classroom set-up nightmare? Maybe. But the thing is, where you teach and how it feels really does help shape your year. So what can you do right now, during this final push to s...
Jun 04, 2024•10 min•Season 9Ep. 303
On this week’s mini-episode, let’s talk about my favorite online teacher tool, Canva. If you haven’t signed up for their free educator program yet, this summer is the perfect time! You can explore all the design tools this wonderful website has to offer, and be ready in the fall to start using it in class. Plus, I’ve got a free mini course ready to help you do it. Today, let’s do a quick rundown on why I think you should. Did you know Canva began as a program to help make yearbook advisers’ live...
May 30, 2024•4 min•Season 8Ep. 302
You want the last day of ELA to be special, but what does that mean exactly? And who has the energy to think up this special plan when you're juggling allll the end-of-year things? If you'd like a fast, easy solution to the last day of your ELA classes, today I'm proposing (ha ha, I just accidentally typed PROMposing) stations. Stations are an easy way to get whatever dots have to be dotted and Ts have to be crossed at the same time as you build in a few fun things and keep everything lively so ...
May 28, 2024•9 min•Season 8Ep. 301
On this week’s mini-episode, let’s talk summer school. Because I know that if you ARE teaching summer school, you’d like it to be engaging. Memorable. Creative. Superfantasticaliciousexpialadocious. But of course there’s the issue of you’re tired. And so are your ELA students. And maybe they’re not that excited to be there. So let’s run through two quick strategies for adding oomph and engagement to July. Here’s my top suggestion - change up your texts, and provide variety. Summer school is the ...
May 23, 2024•5 min•Season 8Ep. 300
As the sun rises a little earlier each day and the cherry trees in our neighborhood fill with fruit, our three years in Europe are coming to a close. With only a few weeks left of this European family adventure, I find myself thinking back over all that we've seen and done and learned. Highs like winter paddleboarding in Barcelona, nighttime tobaganning in Slovakia and hiking by herds of sheep along the south Coast of Wales together. Eating dark chocolate gelato with whipped cream in Rome and ca...
May 21, 2024•18 min•Season 8Ep. 299
Today I want to talk about a fantastic podcast for you to use in class if you teach Shakespeare. With dozens of intriguing episodes like "Shakespeare and Game of Thrones," "Shakespeare and YA Novels," and "Pop Sonnets," The Shakespeare Unlimited Podcast, by the Folger Shakespeare Library, is a great way to bring in modern connections and relevancy to whatever play you're studying. Today I’ll give you a quick rundown on four fun episodes, and then I hope you’ll go exploring on your own to find mo...
May 16, 2024•5 min•Season 8Ep. 298
Choice reading can sometimes feel like an out-of-reach dream. I recently heard from a busy teacher who wrote, "I love choice reading, but squeezing it in can be tough!" Yeah, I get that. There's so much going on in ELA. In today's episode, we're talking about how to squeeze more choice reading moments into your busy schedule. Even if you don't have time to hand over 10 minutes in class for reading regularly, you can still build your choice reading program with quick-and-easy additions like these...
May 14, 2024•10 min•Season 8Ep. 297
Today I want to talk final exams, and specifically, one I’ve really enjoyed giving when I had the leeway to skip the sit-down exam. If you don’t have to involve any Scantron sheets in your final, you might love it too, so let’s dive in. Maybe you’ve seen some of the great graduation speeches floating around the internet - maybe you even analyze some of them with your students when you’re teaching public speaking or rhetorical devices. I haven’t had time to dive in yet, but I hear good things abo...
May 09, 2024•5 min•Season 8Ep. 296
Do your students think of the revision process as a combo of spellcheck and Grammarly? Tend to peer edit by scrawling a compliment and circling two sentences that are missing periods? Yeah, they're not alone. Honestly, I didn't really get the revision process as a student either. It sort of felt like I wrote the paper I was going to turn it in, then I'd "polish" it a little by fixing any tiny surface mistakes so I could turn it in. Students are busy people, juggling family, friends, sports, clas...
May 07, 2024•12 min•Season 8Ep. 295
Today I want to talk about a subject I’m sure you’ve thought a lot about - how much are you willing to do for your job? And what do you do when you’ve hit your wall? I want to start by taking you to the dusty steps of the duplex I shared during my first year of teaching. It’s dusk, and I’m crying. I recently won the award for excellence in new teaching at my school, receiving many hugs and congratulations, as well as a raise and kind compliments from my head of school. I should be feeling great,...
May 02, 2024•8 min•Season 8Ep. 294
With exam season coming up, you're probably looking for some creative ELA review activities. Whether your school requires that students sit a traditional exam, or you have room for something like the graduation speech final or another type of final project, it's helpful to look back over the big concepts, themes, and texts you've covered as the year draws to a close. So what options do you have besides printing out a 20 page review packet and giving students time to study it? A lot, as it turns ...
Apr 30, 2024•10 min•Season 8Ep. 293
Today, I want to highlight a useful tool Amanda Cardenas shared earlier this year on the show called The Sesame Street Quiz. It’s so versatile, so fun, and so helpful that I feel it deserves a show of its own, so here we go. Amanda has already shared with us how these work, back in episode 267. Here’s a quick review: A Sesame Street Quiz gives students four items. Three are connected and one is an outlier. For example, if you’re reading Chapter 2 of The Great Gatsby, you might give students the ...
Apr 25, 2024•4 min•Season 8Ep. 292
Have you ever wished you could get students excited about genius hour, then immediately wondered what you’d do if half of them couldn’t think of a topic? Well, today on the podcast, creative teacher Melissa Moser is here to talk about one of her favorite electives to teach - Genius Hour, and exactly how she sets students up for success - even the ones who just don’t know what passion to pursue when it comes to a passion project. This is a topic near and dear to my heart, and I think you’re going...
Apr 23, 2024•29 min•Season 8Ep. 291
Welcome to the Thursday edition of The Spark Creativity Teacher Podcast, a podcast for English teachers in search of creative teaching strategies. Whether you’re new to the show or a long-time listener, I’m so glad you’re here for this week’s mini episode. Today, I want to share a fun visual trick for helping students vary their sentence structure. I never really thought about sentence length until I was writing professionally. Sure, I knew to avoid run-on sentences, how to wield a semicolon, an...
Apr 18, 2024•5 min•Season 8Ep. 290
Book talk podcasts can provide gentle choice reading accountability, target presentation of knowledge and speaking skills, and build a library of book recommendations for future students. Not bad, right? Today on the podcast I'm going to walk you through how to launch a book talk podcast with your students, and why it will be fantastic. Example Script: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1Aj__-O8kwEJTXr_-3o7AU9B15sSQYIIFyn-cy-HSkUQ/edit?usp=sharing Go Further: Explore alllll the Episodes of T...
Apr 16, 2024•10 min•Season 8Ep. 289
Welcome to the Thursday edition of The Spark Creativity Teacher Podcast, a podcast for English teachers in search of creative teaching strategies. Whether you’re new to the show or a long-time listener, I’m so glad you’re here for this week’s mini episode. Today, as earth day inches closer, I want to share a favorite find, Amanda Gorman’s video poem “Earthrise.” This beautiful poem could fit in so many different places in your curriculum, so let’s talk about them. First of all, let me tell you a...
Apr 11, 2024•5 min•Season 8Ep. 268
It’s never a bad thing when your classroom innovation lands you at a press conference with your state’s department of education! That’s what happened to today’s guest, Erica Kempf. She decided to try out the project-based-learning unit I designed about the ethical use of artificial intelligence, and along the way she and her students made it their own and became the go-to sources for AI in their district. They learned a lot in the process, and I’m so excited to have Erica here to share her story...
Apr 09, 2024•29 min•Season 8Ep. 277
Welcome to the Thursday edition of The Spark Creativity Teacher Podcast, a podcast for English teachers in search of creative teaching strategies. Whether you’re new to the show or a long-time listener, I’m so glad you’re here for this week’s mini episode. Today, I want to talk about a much-debated subject - when it comes to choice reading, what counts and what doesn’t? If you’ve been here with me for long, I bet you can imagine that a lot of books were involved in the early life of my own child...
Apr 04, 2024•4 min•Season 8Ep. 276
We’re about to dive into an elective that combines Beowulf, The Hobbit , Ursula Leguin , graphic novels, and contemporary YA! What holds all these threads together? That’s what repeat guest and creative teacher Caitlin Lore is about to tell you as we continue our series on creative electives across the country. Get ready for the big reveal in just a moment. Go Further: Explore alllll the Episodes of The Spark Creativity Teacher Podcast . Join our community, Creative High School English , on Face...
Apr 02, 2024•13 min•Season 8Ep. 275
Welcome to the Thursday edition of The Spark Creativity Teacher Podcast, a podcast for English teachers in search of creative teaching strategies. Whether you’re new to the show or a long-time listener, I’m so glad you’re here for this week’s mini episode. Today, I want to talk about Youtube, and how we can use students’ love for it to our ELA advantage. One of my goals for this year is to create the curriculum for an elective based on Youtube. I’ve recently watched my son go through the transit...
Mar 28, 2024•3 min•Season 8Ep. 274
Welcome to the author spotlight series at Spark Creativity. In this series, you’ll hear from authors sharing their work directly into your classroom. So sit back and listen in. Today we’re hearing from Nancy Tandon, reading from her book, The Way I Say It . Nancy has worked as an elementary school teacher, a speech-language pathologist, and an adjunct professor of Phonetics and Child Language Development, all of which helped plant seeds for stories about awesome kids doing brave things. Her debu...
Mar 26, 2024•7 min•Season 8Ep. 273
Welcome to the Thursday edition of The Spark Creativity Teacher Podcast, a podcast for English teachers in search of creative teaching strategies. Whether you’re new to the show or a long-time listener, I’m so glad you’re here for today’s edition of “Highly Recommended.” Today, let’s talk Ken Liu’s short story, “The Paper Menagerie,” one of the best I’ve ever read. “The Paper Menagerie” might also be the only scifi short story I’ve ever read. Did you know it won the Hugo award, the Nebula award,...
Mar 21, 2024•6 min•Season 8Ep. 272
You know how we feel here at Spark Creativity about Book PR. Basically it's the best. We're all about bookish posters, displays, podcasts, guest readers, First Chapter Fridays, book trailer Tuesdays, and book tastings. If it helps kids get excited about books, we're all in! Recently I saw a lovely post over in my Creative High School English Facebook group from a teacher who hosted a Bookface competition, and it reminded me of just how much I love this idea! Bookface isn't new , but there's a re...
Mar 19, 2024•10 min•Season 8Ep. 271
Today, let’s talk about March Madness, and how to harness all that awesome enthusiasm to get your students excited about poetry. Last year I worked with Melissa Alter Smith from #teachlivingpoets to create a March Madness bracket for The Lighthouse, and I learned a lot from her in the process! This is such a fun and easy way to bring more voices into your curriculum and help kids see a lot of different sides of poetry. You can set up your poetry bracket on your white board or on Google Slides. T...
Mar 14, 2024•5 min•Season 8Ep. 270
