The Spark Creativity Teacher Podcast | ELA
Betsy Potash: ELA
Want to love walking into your ELA classroom each day? Excited about innovative strategies like PBL, escape rooms, hexagonal thinking, sketchnotes, one-pagers, student podcasting, genius hour, and more? Want a thriving choice reading program and a shelf full of compelling diverse texts?
You're in the right place!
Here you'll find interviews with top authors from the ELA field, workshops with strategies you can use in class immediately, and quick tips to ignite your English teacher creativity.
Love teaching poetry? Explore blackout poems, book spine poems, I am from poems, performance poetry, lessons for contemporary poets, and more.
Excited to get started with hexagonal thinking? Find out how to build your first deck of hexagons, guide your students through their first discussion, and even expand into hexagonal one-pagers.
Into visual learning? Me too! Learn about sketchnotes, one-pagers, and the writing makerspace.
Want to get your students podcasting? Get the top technology recs you need to make it happen, and find out what tips a podcaster would give to students starting out.
Wish your students would fall for choice reading? Explore top titles and how to fund them, learn to make your library more appealing, and find out how to be a top P.R. agent for books in your classroom.
In it for the interviews? Fabulous! Find out about project-based-learning, innovative school design, what really helps kids learn deeply, design thinking, how to choose diverse texts, when to scaffold sketchnotes lessons, building your first writing makerspace, cultivating writer's notebooks, getting started with genius hour, and so much more, from our wonderful guests.
Here at The Spark Creativity Teacher Podcast, discover you're not alone as a creative English teacher. You're part of a vast community welcoming students to their next escape room, rolling out contemporary poetry and reading aloud on First Chapter Fridays, engaging kids with social media projects and real-world ELA units.
As your host (hi, I'm Betsy), I'm here to help you ENJOY your days at school and feel inspired by all the creative ways to teach both contemporary works and the classics your school may be pushing. I taught ELA at the 9th, 10th, 11th, and 12th grade levels both in the United States and overseas for almost a decade, and I didn't always get support for my creativity. Now I'm here to make sure YOU get the creative support you deserve, and it brings me so much joy.
Welcome to The Spark Creativity Teacher Podcast, a podcast for English teachers in search of creative teaching strategies!
You're in the right place!
Here you'll find interviews with top authors from the ELA field, workshops with strategies you can use in class immediately, and quick tips to ignite your English teacher creativity.
Love teaching poetry? Explore blackout poems, book spine poems, I am from poems, performance poetry, lessons for contemporary poets, and more.
Excited to get started with hexagonal thinking? Find out how to build your first deck of hexagons, guide your students through their first discussion, and even expand into hexagonal one-pagers.
Into visual learning? Me too! Learn about sketchnotes, one-pagers, and the writing makerspace.
Want to get your students podcasting? Get the top technology recs you need to make it happen, and find out what tips a podcaster would give to students starting out.
Wish your students would fall for choice reading? Explore top titles and how to fund them, learn to make your library more appealing, and find out how to be a top P.R. agent for books in your classroom.
In it for the interviews? Fabulous! Find out about project-based-learning, innovative school design, what really helps kids learn deeply, design thinking, how to choose diverse texts, when to scaffold sketchnotes lessons, building your first writing makerspace, cultivating writer's notebooks, getting started with genius hour, and so much more, from our wonderful guests.
Here at The Spark Creativity Teacher Podcast, discover you're not alone as a creative English teacher. You're part of a vast community welcoming students to their next escape room, rolling out contemporary poetry and reading aloud on First Chapter Fridays, engaging kids with social media projects and real-world ELA units.
As your host (hi, I'm Betsy), I'm here to help you ENJOY your days at school and feel inspired by all the creative ways to teach both contemporary works and the classics your school may be pushing. I taught ELA at the 9th, 10th, 11th, and 12th grade levels both in the United States and overseas for almost a decade, and I didn't always get support for my creativity. Now I'm here to make sure YOU get the creative support you deserve, and it brings me so much joy.
Welcome to The Spark Creativity Teacher Podcast, a podcast for English teachers in search of creative teaching strategies!
Episodes
Mentioned books
Sep 14, 2023 • 5min
221: Highly Recommended: Ask for What you Want
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!
Sep 12, 2023 • 21min
220: Try Teaching The College Essay like This
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!
Sep 7, 2023 • 3min
219: Highly Recommended: Vocaroo
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!
Sep 5, 2023 • 19min
218: A Beginner's Guide to using Podcasts in the English Classroom
So you've heard the buzz about podcasts, and you're intrigued. You want to play an episode in your English classes, but you wonder what that would even look like? What would kids do while they listen? What would they do after they listen? Which show would be best? How would it fit into everything else you're up to? Yeah, I hear you. It's a whole new genre and you might be the first English teacher on your hall to use it. A few easy wins to help you get started wouldn't hurt! So today on the podcast, I want to help you get started with... podcasts! I know you know they can be a great resource for learning, because here you are, listening to one. So let's talk about how to try one out in class ASAP. Strategies and Links Mentioned: Play a Podcast and Practice Sketchnotes Episode 46 with Mike Rohde Episode 140 with Sylvia Duckworth Popular free sketchnotes templates Play an Episode and use it as a Prompt Baths vs. Showers from Smash Boom Best Episode one of The Unexplainable Disappearance of Mars Patel Feature Podcasts on an Interactive Bulletin Board Play a Podcast Episode to Provide Helpful Information Active vs. passive voice from Grammar Girl Episode 160 of this very podcast - The College Essay Workshop Play an Episode to Introduce an Author Hip Hop and Shakespeare, or the Pop Sonnets episode of Shakespeare Unlimited This short episode from "A Little Happier" about Trevor Noah's memoir Interview with Jerry Craft Play an Episode and Use it as a Mentor Text Sign up here for the free mini-course on Student Podcasting 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!
Aug 31, 2023 • 4min
217: Highly Recommended: Research with a Twist
This week let's talk about research, and the ways it shows up across the world these days. Because I'd like to highly recommend you build some research activities into your class this year that don't end in papers. I vividly remember my seventh grade social studies class, where we sat in groups at rounded tables trying to look cool and learned about how to take notes on a single source using a notecard. We built up our notecard stack over time, then arranged and rearranged our research into our first ever research paper. Teaching the research process is just as important now as it was back then, but there are a lot more ways to help kids show off what they've learned. You can practice the skills of finding good sources, taking notes, analyzing information, and sharing and citing that information with student podcasts, Instagram-style carousel posts, or infographics, as well as papers. This will allow you to weave research into more arenas, and give kids more creative variety in showing what they've learned. So this year, as you think about building in research skills, I highly recommend you consider having students share their takeaways in a new medium. Something that incorporates visuals or audio as well as writing. Try a quick infographic assignment, a 5 minute research-based podcast, or my favorite, the Instagram-style carousel, where kids create a connected series of square images that teach their viewer about their topic through both writing and visuals. 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!
Aug 29, 2023 • 23min
216: Let's Talk Graphic Novels with Jerry Craft
Today on the podcast, I'm so excited to bring you the first writer ever to win three very important prizes in literature - the Newberry Award, The Kirkus Prize, and the Coretta Scott King Award - for a single book. Would it surprise you to know the first person to win all of these for one amazing book is a graphic novelist? That's right, today we're talking to the creator of the new Kid Series, which now includes New Kid, Class Act, and School Trip. This is a special episode designed to be played right to this special author's favorite audience - students. My hope is that you'll play this episode - or a part of it - in class. I've designed a sketchnotes sheet for you that students can use while they listen (make your copy here). Check out all three of Jerry's popular graphic novels for middle schoolers here. Explore Jerry Craft's website 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!
Aug 25, 2023 • 5min
215: Highly Recommended: Book Trailers
This week I want to share a super simple strategy for building more book recommendations into your classes in just two or three minute installments, book trailers. I first heard the idea of "Book Trailer Tuesdays" from Abby Gross, over at Write On with Miss G. I loved the idea right away, as a companion to First Chapter Friday or as its own unique program. But even if you're not doing Book Trailer Tuesdays, book trailers are an amazing thing to build into your class. Maybe you have a bookmarked list of trailers ready for those odd days when your lesson randomly ends five minutes earlier than you expect. Maybe you change up your book talk routine now and then and show a trailer for a book or two that you have featured in your library. Maybe you show a few trailers to help introduce a new genre, like novels-in-verse, or graphic novels. Maybe after all this book trailer fun, you have students make book trailers of their own and start building a collection you can show to your students in future years! I hope you give book trailers a try this year! 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!
Aug 24, 2023 • 15min
214: Build a Bridge to the Library this Year
Librarians can help classroom teachers in sooooo many ways, and classroom teachers can return the favor by reminding kids they can always go further than the classroom library to the larger collection at the school or local library, and tap into their librarian's intricate knowledge of the collection to find even more books to love. Forming a bridge between the work you do in class and the life of your school or local library will help kids be connected to book sources and experts beyond the time they spend in your classroom. So today I want to dedicate a full episode to talking about the power of this collaboration and sharing creative options. If you're thinking sadly that your school doesn't have a librarian, or that your school librarian is frantically trying to serve the needs of thousands of kids with a tiny budget and no staff, then remember that many community librarians would love to get your call and help you bring more books into your students' lives. 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!
Aug 17, 2023 • 4min
213: Highly Recommended: The Unexplainable Disappearance of Mars Patel
This week I want to share a fast-paced and fun podcast for middle schoolers, The Unexplainable Disappearance of Mars Patel. It's a peabody-award winning mystery podcast, stuffed full of cliffhangers and featuring a full cast of professional actors - most of them middle-schoolers. The plot unfolds in bits and pieces as we follow a group of middle school kids who don't quite fit in, and don't know why their friends keep disappearing one by one. The show is frequently broken up by "announcements" from the show's eccentric (fictional) billionaire sponsor, Oliver Pruitt, with his take on things or with commercials for his "special" school, Pruitt Prep. This show would make a great text for middle school - there's so much you could talk about from a podcasting perspective in the way that it builds suspense, incorporates plot layers through the asides with Oliver Pruitt, and weaves in sound elements. But it could also make for great writing prompts, listening skills practice, and discussion or debate fodder. I highly recommend listening to just one episode to see what you think, and I bet you won't want to stop there! 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!
Aug 15, 2023 • 16min
212: The Step-by-Step Guide to Creating Digital Bookshelves
So you want to share your favorite books with your students to help them love reading. Excellent! But maybe you lack the budget to keep up with their growing love of reading. Maybe you're wishing you could order about 25 different graphic novels (that waiting list for Heartstopper isn't getting any shorter) or your best Jason Reynolds and Kwame Alexander Titles keep disappearing. I hear you! These problems are only a sign that you're doing great things with your choice reading program. But what can you do, besides add to your Amazon Wishlist and apply for grants? Well, you can get your students connected to electronic books and create recommended reading digital shelves for them. And it's actually so much fun. Today on the podcast, I'm walking you through the step-by-step, nitty gritty details so you can start building your shelves immediately. I've had a lot of questions around this strategy, and my goal is to answer every single one so you can feel confident in your success. 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!
