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
Jul 25, 2023 • 16min
206: Help Students Consider the Ethics of AI with this Free PBL Unit
AI is here. And everyone is paying attention. Many people are wondering if AI will take over their jobs, others how it can help them do their jobs. Some folks are asking if AI can help us solve global warming, while plenty of people fear that SuperIntelligence might eventually evolve beyond humanity and stop caring about us, dystopian sci-fi style. And what about our students? Maybe they're wondering how it can help them with their work, while still making room for their originality, creativity, and sense of morality. Maybe they're wondering how it will change their future professions, or create the profession that will someday be theirs. Maybe they’ve heard some people say it should never be used in schools, and others say that to shut the door on it is like abandoning the calculator in favor of pencil and paper, except times a million. At this point, the questions on our minds as educators and the questions on our students' minds might not be so different. After I interviewed Ben Farrell from the New England Innovation Academy last spring, and he talked about bringing students into the conversation to let them share their ideas on how AI should be used, I was inspired to create my own version of an AI Ethical Use PBL unit, and now I want to share it with you. I designed this project in consultation with John Spencer, because I've always admired his work in the PBL and Design Thinking spaces. Today on the podcast, we're walking through the whole project, which you can sign up to have delivered free to your email right here. I'll guide you through the steps of the project, and hopefully by the end of the show you'll feel ready and excited to find space for this unit in your curriculum this year.
Jul 20, 2023 • 4min
205: Highly Recommended: Attendance Questions
As the back-to-school season rolls around, attendance questions are a super easy strategy to help you build community and get to know your students. In today's episode, I'll share what they are, how to get rolling with them, and how to use them flexibly throughout the year. Here’s how they work…. At attendance time, instead of calling roll and having students say “here,” have them share their answer to a question. The question should usually lead to a SHORT answer – one or two words – but if your class is dealing with something or reeling from something, you could always take more time. The questions can be serious or funny, asked aloud or projected on an image slide. 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!
Jul 18, 2023 • 35min
204: Students need Diverse Texts and Choice - Here's Help
Today on the podcast, we’re talking about why offering our students diverse texts and giving them choice over their reading is so vitally important. My guests, Dr. Claudia Rodriguez-Mojica and Dr. Allison Briceño, have recently written a carefully-researched and well-crafted book called Conscious Classrooms, all about why students need to be surrounded by diverse texts and how teachers can choose and integrate these texts. While Claudia and Alison share examples in their book from their work with younger children, the research and practices they provide are equally important for students of all ages. We’ll be talking about how to choose diverse texts for your class, why it matters so much, and how to help your students develop a critical lens about representation when they read. You can learn more about the book, Conscious Classrooms, and order a copy of your own, right 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!
Jul 13, 2023 • 6min
203: Highly Recommended: Name Tent One-Pagers on Day One
This week on "Highly Recommended" I’m sharing my absolute favorite way to start school - the name tent one-pager. Long-time listeners to the show will know that my first ever first day of school was an utter disaster. It was probably the day I came closest to leaving the profession. But at least I learned a valuable lesson - NEVER read the syllabus out loud on day one! A few years after my first first day, I discovered name tents. I was struggling so much with remembering my students’ names, and I felt terrible as I saw their disappointment when I was still grappling to remember the right name after a few days. So I started printing name tents for them. Then I let them decorate the name tents. A few years after that, I became pretty obsessed with one-pagers, and realized how easy it would be to turn the name tents I loved into a getting-to-know you activity. With a name tent one-pager, you just divide the name tent half page into sections that correspond to categories, like favorite book, favorite quote, favorite type of project, or whatever else you'd like to learn about students right away. Then, with their permission (and depending on school regulations), you can snap photos of kids holding them up so you can study them at home. But even if you can't do this, you can use the name tents for as long as you need until you get everyone's name down. Name tent one-pagers are a three-in-one deal. They’ll give you something engaging for day one, help you build relationships and community, AND solve your name memorization struggles. 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!
Jul 11, 2023 • 10min
202: Silent Discussions Made Easy
Silent discussions are a handy go-to option for helping every student participate in a discussion. They can help break up discussion ruts, show your classroom community how much quieter students really have to contribute, and let everyone think carefully about a topic before diving into a big oral discussion or related writing prompt. Sounds pretty good, right? I've found them to be gold. So in today's episode, let's talk about three easy ways to try your first silent discussion. Sign up for the colorful (free) silent discussion templates mentioned 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!
Jul 6, 2023 • 3min
201: Highly Recommended: Penny Kittle's "Beautiful Words" Project
Discover the enchanting 'Beautiful Words' project that encourages students to search for and celebrate the beauty of language. Learn how to implement engaging activities like sketchnoting stunning words from readings, fostering discussions, and creating collaborative visual displays. The project sparks creativity and deepens appreciation for writing, making it adaptable for various classroom settings. Plus, ideas for utilizing beautiful words as prompts and even hosting contests add an exciting twist to traditional learning!
Jul 4, 2023 • 13min
200: Do THIS in July to make August Better in your ELA Classroom
I know how it is. One minute you're paddleboarding along the lake, the next your mind is back-to-school as you consider whether to add book clubs in September, buy new plants for your windowsills, or try to fight a Jason Reynolds book into your 9th grade team curriculum (Yes! Do it!). Don't try to tell me that's not you, because here you are, reading this teaching blog in July. It's nothing to feel bad about! Mixing a little fun creative work into summer relaxation is allowed. So is taking the summer 100% completely off of course - whatever works for you! But if you're looking for some ideas, things you can put into place right now this minute so that the year is exponentially easier and nicer, you've come to the right place. Because today, I'm sharing some fun favorites you can put into place now so you can enjoy them all through the school year. Looking for the syllabus templates, attendance questions, and other activities mentioned in the show? Visit the full blog post on the 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!
Jun 29, 2023 • 5min
199: Highly Recommended: Playing the "Whole Game"
A few years ago I read Sarah Fine and Jal Mehta’s book, In Search of Deeper Learning. These two researchers criss-crossed the country, searching out schools, programs, and classes where deeper learning was truly taking place behind the marketing hype about how “innovative” the school aimed to be. One of the key concepts that stayed with me was an idea they shared from another education writer named David Perkins, who argues that students need to “play the whole game at the junior level.” Mehta and Fine found that when students played the whole game, more deeper learning took place. So what the heck does that mean? Think of a baseball game full of six year olds. They don’t really know how to play, right? They could probably spend years just practicing batting, throwing, and catching before their games would be very meaningful. But why do kids want to play? They want to be in games! They come to practice and work on their swing and their fielding and deal with the mosquitos and the occasional boredom BECAUSE there’s a game on Saturday. With cool uniforms and their parents in the stands and maybe chocolate-covered frozen bananas afterwards. Do you think as many kids would sign up for little league if their first game was going to be when they turned 18? I bet you’re already making the connection. When we practice skills with our English students, it helps a whole lot if they can see why they’re practicing those ELA skills and if they’re going to have a chance to put them into action in a way that parallels something they might do later on in the real world. I highly recommend thinking about how you might build a few more “games” into your ELA curriculum, or if you’re already building English units this way, how you might use this powerful research to help explain to others why you do the projects you do. 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!
Jun 26, 2023 • 15min
198: Take One of These Virtual Field Trips with your ELA Students
As I sat in the warm theater watching my son's sixth grade class recount their favorite memories of school last week, I couldn't help but notice how many of them involved a field trip. Probably 95% of the kids' recollections revolved around special, memorable events that didn't happen every week - a trip to Austria, a trip to the river, a trip to a kitchen space where they learned to cook a lunch and then eat it following a project-based-learning unit on restaurant design. I remember field trips from my school experience too - to learn about wolves at Minnesota's Wolf Center in 5th grade, to hike through snowy fields and see the stars on a seventh grade overnight, to examine the inside of a mine on Minnesota's Iron Range when I got older. A field trip is a powerful thing, and it can come in so many forms. Today, I want to share some ideas for field trips you can take without a bus, and without a budget. Because I know both can be hard to come by. But that doesn't mean you can't set up some truly broadening experiences for your students from right within your classroom walls. Let's talk about virtual field trips, because there are a lot more options out there than you might think! Whether they're already curated online, waiting for you to design a webquest around them, or even shared in person over Zoom by a museum curator or an author in their studio. Visit the sites mentioned in today's show... Link: Holocaust Museum of LA Free Virtual Tours for Students Native Knowledge 360 Education Initiative Link: Google Arts and Culture Link: "Discover Civil Rights History," "Risking it All and Riding for Freedom," and "Sitting Down to Take a Stand." Link: Globe Virtual Tour Link: Nat Geo Experiential Learning 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!
Jun 22, 2023 • 3min
197: Highly Recommended: Canva
This week on "Highly Recommended," I’m sharing my absolute favorite tool on the internet, which just so happens to be free for educators - CANVA! So here’s what Canva does - it give you (and your students) the ability to do the kinds of things that only designers used to be able to do. Once upon a time, you needed to spend fifty hours learning Photoshop to layer colors and images, get rid of backgrounds, match image colors to font colors, and so many other small strategies that made a visual project look professional. And now you don’t. You can design handouts, flashcards, games, models, web graphics, and classroom newsletters in a flash using Canva templates. And your students can get results they’ll feel proud of as they create podcast covers, illustrated quotations, graphic novels, children’s books, infographics, social media posts, and more. Canva design has a lot in common with Powerpoint and Slides, they’ve kept the menus relatively simple so you can create without feeling overwhelmed. The best way to learn how to use it is to go in and experiment, and then if there’s something you can’t figure out how to do, you just Google your question “How to remove a background in Canva,” etc. Soooooo many people are using it now that you’ll quickly find answers to your questions, as a million or so other people are asking the same ones. Summer is a perfect time to register for a free account and start experimenting. Visit Canva for Education 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!
