The Spark Creativity Teacher Podcast | ELA

In this podcast, discover NINE creative ways to bring Taylor Swift's music into class. Find out how to have students create their own eras, practice public speaking on song-inspired topics with song-inspired tones, build book bracelets or character playlists, practice rhetorical analysis through songs and music videos, and more. Special thanks to ALL our wonderful guests - Ashley from Building Book Love, Amanda from Mud & Ink Teaching, Delia from @mrsreganreads, Allie from @bayeringwithfreshmen, Meredith from Bespoke ELA, Melissa from Reading and Writing Haven, and Krista from @whimsyandrigor. Helpful Links: The Eras Project: Make your copy of the Canva template here Bookish Bracelets: See an example in this reel Practice Rhetorical Analysis with Songs: Grab the free rhetorical triangle templates here Practice Character Analysis with Eras: Pick up the free resource Teach Narrative Terms with "Love Story": Grab the free resource Help Students create their own Antiheroes: FREE anti-hero character sketch chart Guide Students to Practice Tone when they "Talk Swiftly": use this link to download the free teaching tool Go Further: Explore alllll the Episodes of The Spark Creativity Teacher Podcast. Join our community, Creative High School English, on Facebook. Come hang out on Instagram. Enjoying the podcast? Please consider sharing it with a friend, snagging a screenshot to share on the 'gram, or tapping those ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ to help others discover the show. Thank you!

This week I've got a productivity tip to give you so much more focused time in your classroom. Let's talk about email, and how often you check it. I can still remember the exact feeling of sitting in my kneeling desk in my first classroom, watching red flags spring up in the eight different inboxes in my First Class email dashboard. No sooner would I zero out my personal inbox than there would be a new announcement to teachers, or request to coaches, or task for advisors. It was like playing whack-a-mole, trying to respond to everyone all day long. But I worked hard at it. Every time I was free before school, between classes, before lunch, after lunch, and before practice, I'd quickly log in so I could reduce the stacking emails in every conference. Whack. Whack. Whack. And so it went on for years. Want to know how much I check my email now? Once a day. Unless I really can't get through it all, then I might follow up later after turning my attention to another project that needed me more. Here's the thing. In my experience, your inbox will be as demanding as you let it be. If you feel you must respond to everyone within 20 minutes, that's what they'll expect from you. But really, for almost everything, a day is a totally reasonable turnaround time. Sitting down to respond to emails when you really have the time and energy, instead of task switching in and out of your inbox constantly just to "make progress" can be a huge time saver for you. Not to mention energy and mood saver. The last thing you want is to feel frustrated and angry starting class after getting a problematic email, or to walk into lunch with your mind overwhelmed by an announcement you just read. Try saving email for one chunk of focused time in the day, and see if you begin to feel more free - in your mood and with your time - for other aspects of your day that are more rewarding and interesting to you. So, if you've ever felt like you're caught in an email hamster wheel that never ends, this week I highly recommend you try an experiment. Check it once (or if you must, twice) a day for a week instead of 10 or 15 times. See if it's a win for you. Go Further: Explore alllll the Episodes of The Spark Creativity Teacher Podcast. Join our community, Creative High School English, on Facebook. Come hang out on Instagram. Enjoying the podcast? Please consider sharing it with a friend, snagging a screenshot to share on the 'gram, or tapping those ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ to help others discover the show. Thank you!

As Banned Books Week kicks off, I know not every teacher is in a position to showcase it. In some places, it's simply too dangerous for an educator to display banned and challenged books and talk about intellectual freedom with students (the Fahrenheit 451 realities are overwhelming). But for those in a position to share about this with students, today I want to give you some options. Choose the ones that are right for your classroom and community. As usual, it's not about telling our students what to think, it's reminding them that this is an important thing to think about. The American Library Association has compiled a lot of great data about censorship and challenges taking place around the country. In 2022, there were 1,269 attempts to ban or censor library books or resources. This is the highest number in the last twenty years. You can get a concise picture of the statistics and related issues on this page of the ALA website. Banned Books Week: Display Ideas One of the easiest ways to raise student awareness of book censorship is to put up a display for Banned Books Week. Again, the ALA has amazing resources for ideas. Check out their Pinterest page here for dozens of ideas, or try one of the easy options below. Try a Fahrenheit 451 theme for a quick and easy Banned Books display. Cut large orange and red paper flames to line your shelves and/or small ones to stick into the pages of your books, then add a sign that says "Read Banned Books" and perhaps a few quotations from Ray Bradbury. Another easy option for a Banned Books display is to put up caution tape, or, if you can't easily get any, print out strips of text saying "caution" on yellow copier paper and tape them up to look like caution tape. Banned Books Week: Free Posters for your Display To complement your displays of banned books, try adding one of these free poster resources. I loved this idea I saw on the ALA Pinterest page so much I had to try making my own version for you. Rachel Moani created an amazing book display for the Lacey Timberland Library featuring characters holding up signs showcasing the insane reasons their books had been banned. You can make your copy of my easily printable version here if you'd like, or make your own. I didn't try to include every reason each book had been banned or challenged, but I included one or two. The Alexandria Public Library has some great free posters waiting for you to download as well! Check them all out here. The National Education Association has a "Freedom to Read" poster available here if you need something more subtle. These two infographics from the American Library Association can help students get a clearer picture of what's going on. You can download and print them from the ALA website. Go Further: Explore the full show notes and alllll the Episodes of The Spark Creativity Teacher Podcast over at nowsparkcreativity.com. Join our community, Creative High School English, on Facebook. Come hang out on Instagram. Enjoying the podcast? Please consider sharing it with a friend, snagging a screenshot to share on the 'gram, or tapping those ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ to help others discover the show. Thank you!

This week I want to talk about getting you in front of an audience this year. My first year in the classroom I had an amazing mentor. Anne, my department chair, invited me to her house for lunch regularly. I brought pastries, she made fruit salads, and then over oatmeal-raisin scones and papaya, she listened to me talk about everything I was learning and doing. She nodded and smiled, and focused on supporting my enthusiasm rather than telling me what to do. If only everyone had a mentor like that in their lives. I remember one piece of wonderful advice she gave me then, and that was to start publishing. She suggested a local teaching newsletter that I could submit an article to, and I did, and it was accepted. Even though I was 22 and in my first year of my first teaching job. That got me started thinking of myself as someone who could share my ideas with others. I submitted an awful lot more articles after that, and began applying to present on what was going well in my classroom. Sometimes I presented to a crowd at some lovely hotel. Sometimes I presented to my colleagues at my own school. Both were satisfying, and pushed me to see my classroom as a place for trying new things, analyzing the results, and sharing what I learned. So today I want to give you the same advice my mentor gave me nineteen years ago. Put your work out there. Ask to present to your department, your whole faculty, or at a local or national conference. Submit a presentation proposal to your state council of teachers of English conference or to the annual NCTE conference. Write about what you're doing and send it off to English journal, Read Write Think, We are Teacher, or Edutopia. Pitch yourself as a podcast guest! Send in an Op Ed to the New York Times. Whatever feels like a good step to you, do it! I believe you'll start to see your work in a new light when you share it. You're a change-maker, an agent of creativity in a profession that is lucky to have you. And I highly recommend you share your best ideas with as many other people as you can. Go Further: Explore alllll the Episodes of The Spark Creativity Teacher Podcast. Join our community, Creative High School English, on Facebook. Come hang out on Instagram. Enjoying the podcast? Please consider sharing it with a friend, snagging a screenshot to share on the 'gram, or tapping those ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ to help others discover the show. Thank you!

There are so many reasons why a student may be quiet in class. The language may be difficult. They may need more time to think than the pace of discussion allows. They may not have been able to read because of other things happening in their lives that they can't control. They may be really shy. But there are ways to help quiet students build confidence and begin to participate. In today's episode, I'll share what I learned over many years putting a strong focus on student-centered discussion in class. We'll talk about discussion warm-ups, individual conversations with kids who are dominating, discussion role cards, and my favorite strategy for student-centered discussion, The Harkness Method. To grab the free resources that complement this episode, sign up for the Better Discussions Toolkit right here (coming by email Friday if you're already on my list!). Go Further: Explore alllll the Episodes of The Spark Creativity Teacher Podcast. Join our community, Creative High School English, on Facebook. Come hang out on Instagram. Enjoying the podcast? Please consider sharing it with a friend, snagging a screenshot to share on the 'gram, or tapping those ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ to help others discover the show. Thank you!

This week let's talk about a unique masters program - and the one I did - The Bread Loaf School of English. Quick Details: Summer Program out of Middlebury College M.A. In English, but almost all participants are teachers, so there's a teaching angle! Campuses in Vermont, Oxford (England), and California Unique Classes and Activities (Opera, "Discovering the Imagination," and my Independent Study on Travel writing were three of my personal favorites...) Learn more here: The Bread Loaf School of English Go Further: Explore alllll the Episodes of The Spark Creativity Teacher Podcast. Join our community, Creative High School English, on Facebook. Come hang out on Instagram. Enjoying the podcast? Please consider sharing it with a friend, snagging a screenshot to share on the 'gram, or tapping those ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ to help others discover the show. Thank you!

Have you reached for a turtleneck sweater yet? Bought one of those big pumpkins or bright purple mums at the stand along the road? Sipped your first spiced latte? It's that time of year again! As the leaves turn and we move into the flow of the school year, it's a nice time to sprinkle in a little holiday fun for Halloween. Today, I've got a creative buffet of options for you, and I hope you'll find a few you can't wait to surprise your students with next month. In this episode, we'll talk about murder mystery parties, escape rooms, spooky podcasts, creepy poetry, and more. Find the Links: Make your copy of the Halloween writing prompts here. Explore episode 31, when Amanda from Engaging and Effective shared several year's worth of experience crafting a wildly successful high school themed classroom murder mystery lesson. Check out the full post about student-designed escape rooms. Read the full step-by-step instructions and pick up my free student guide to creating a blackout poem here. Grab the easy printable Halloween book display set - Make your copy here. Go Further: Explore alllll the Episodes of The Spark Creativity Teacher Podcast. Join our community, Creative High School English, on Facebook. Come hang out on Instagram. Enjoying the podcast? Please consider sharing it with a friend, snagging a screenshot to share on the 'gram, or tapping those ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ to help others discover the show. Thank you!

This week let's talk a different kind of topic, asking for what you want in education. When I was five, my mom took me to a raspberry farm. I leaped out of the car, basket in hand, ready to harvest heaps of my favorite berry. Only to see a closed sign. I headed back to the car, distraught. "Well," said my mom. "Let's just ask if we can pick. It can't hurt." I watched with very little hope as she knocked at the farmhouse and made her request. Soon we were piling up berries in the sunshine. I've always remembered that day. The power of asking for what you want. It stuck with me in my teaching career. I've asked for... ...classroom art supplies ...a season off from coaching when I was pushed past my max. ...admin guests to judge my poetry slams. ...books from the library for my choice reading program. ...budget for a visiting theater professional to give workshops for a week. ...to run a PD day for my entire school and gotten it. Help from my tech team to run a podcast project. ...to present at CATE and write for ECIS and spend a week learning Harkness and go to graduate school… The answer to all these requests was yes. Do I always get everything I want? No. But just think if I had never asked So today, I'm highly recommending that YOU ask for what you want. Ask your local librarian if they can help with your classroom reading program. Ask your department chair if there's budget for 10 new graphic novels. Ask your local paper to come and cover your 11th grade poetry jam. Ask parents to come and speak during Career week. Ask if you can paint a wall of your classroom with chalkboard paint. Ask your colleagues if they want to go speak to the school board about something important to you. Ask if you can present on hexagonal thinking at a PD day. Ask the ice cream shop to donate prizes for your debate contest. Don't be afraid to ask for whatever it is that you need. For budget, for PR, for time, for support. Isn't it worth a try? I know it is, because I can still remember those big perfect raspberries. Go Further: Explore alllll the Episodes of The Spark Creativity Teacher Podcast. Join our community, Creative High School English, on Facebook. Come hang out on Instagram. Enjoying the podcast? Please consider sharing it with a friend, snagging a screenshot to share on the 'gram, or tapping those ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ to help others discover the show. Thank you!

I have to admit that even though I wrote three college essays, got into college, went to college, got my graduate degree in English and taught English for many years, I never really understood the college essay until a year ago. When I listened to this workshop on this very podcast, given by two high school college counsellors and two experienced university admissions officers. Sure, I knew that the essay was a chance for kids to show off their writing skills and share about themselves. I knew that specific, vivid examples and clear writing were important. But I didn't really understand the one message that came through in all caps from the workshop - that students should write about what they actually care about - there's no secret mystery topic that colleges are actually hoping to hear about. So it won't come as a surprise to you that I think you should start your college essay unit by playing this workshop, but then what? Once student know what colleges ACTUALLY want from their essay, how can you help them write it? Well, that's what THIS podcast is for. To give you a step-by-step plan for helping kids write their essays this fall. By the way, I've created a curriculum set to help you out with teaching the college essay. You can sign up for the free kit right here. Mentor Text Links Mentioned: "Enryo" and a piece from the online collection Humans of New York Go Further: Explore alllll the Episodes of The Spark Creativity Teacher Podcast. Join our community, Creative High School English, on Facebook. Come hang out on Instagram. Enjoying the podcast? Please consider sharing it with a friend, snagging a screenshot to share on the 'gram, or tapping those ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ to help others discover the show. Thank you!

This week let's talk about the simplest audio recording tool out there for students, Vocaroo. Getting into activities like student podcasting, multigenre projects involving audio, or film projects with audio overlay can feel really intimidating. But not with Vocaroo. Vocaroo is actually a website you can visit on Chrome. In the middle of the page there's a big red button. Student simply click it and start recording. Then when they're done, they click to download the audio file. It's that easy. With this one simple (free) tool, you can have students record short podcasts, poetry or personal narrative to overlay on a video, documentary scripts, or anything else you want. You don't need a mic, and you don't need to dive deep into the details of programs like Garageband and Audacity, though those might be great steps for someday. So next time you get a great idea for a project involving audio, I highly recommend you calm those nerves and head over to press that big red button and try Vocaroo for yourself. It's the easiest route to student audio, and it takes just ten seconds to master. Go Further: Explore alllll the Episodes of The Spark Creativity Teacher Podcast. Join our community, Creative High School English, on Facebook. Come hang out on Instagram. Enjoying the podcast? Please consider sharing it with a friend, snagging a screenshot to share on the 'gram, or tapping those ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ to help others discover the show. Thank you!