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
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!
Jun 20, 2023 • 35min
196: How Caitlin's Verse Novel Book Clubs Engaged Seniors 'til the End
Today on the podcast, I've got a great story for you. It's the story of how one senior class stayed engaged right up to the end through an incredible book club unit on verse novels. The heroine of this story? English teacher Caitlin Lore. She's about to tell you how she captured her seniors' attention and held it. Wait till you hear about her title selections, her book tasting, her pop-up poetry workshops, her book club meetings, and her poetry Palooza! I think you're going to love this episode! Ooh, one more thing. You'll hear Caitlin mention some special resources she used for this unit from The Lighthouse. If you're listening/reading as this comes out, I want to tell you that The Lighthouse, my teacher membership full of hundreds of creative lessons and projects to inspire you and save you time, is open until tomorrow night. 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 15, 2023 • 4min
195: Highly Recommended: The High School Classroom Library
So here's the thing. High school kids have about 10,000 things on their agenda just above going to the library to pick out a book. And if they do make it to the library, the librarian (through no fault of their own!) likely won't know them well enough to help them get the book that is going to have them flipping the pages at midnight when they know they should be asleep but the plot is just so amazing they can't help but read. These days I see a classroom library as an absolutely essential part of any high school ELA classroom. They can all be books borrowed from the school library - in fact, that's pretty much always what I did when I was first getting started with choice reading. Or they can be books you gather over the years through donations, book sales, garage sales, and Donors Choose projects. Having books right in your classroom that students can borrow and read in your choice reading program makes a huge difference. Especially if you can showcase some of them covers out and incorporate them into your choice reading system with book talks and fun displays. 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 13, 2023 • 27min
194: 4 Graphic Storytelling Activities from Graphic Novelist Laura Lee Gulledge
Today on the podcast we're sitting down with Laura Lee Gulledge, the graphic novelist behind The Dark Matter of Mona Starr. She's an Eisner Award nominated cartoonist, teaching artist, musical librettist, and collaborative muralist based in Charlottesville, VA. Her books include YA graphic novels The Dark Matter of Mona Starr, Page by Paige, Will & Whit, and the interactive Sketchbook Dares: 24 Ways to Draw Out Your Inner Artist. If you've ever wondered where to start with getting students drawing and creating their own graphic stories and mini-comics, today's episode is for you! Laura Lee has generously shared ideas and materials for four different creative lessons you can try with your classes. We're diving into her graphic novel - The Dark Matter of Mona Starr, her creation process, and a wide range of activity ideas for class. Quick Links for two of the storytelling activities: You can find the materials for the mini-comic project on Laura Lee's website here. Laura Lee's "Draw Darkness" (grab it 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 8, 2023 • 7min
193: Highly Recommended: The Libro FM Educator Program
Do you know about Libro FM's free audiobook program for educators? It's easy to sign up - they approved me in just one day! You can register for a free account and sign up here. Once you've enrolled in the ALC program, you'll quickly build an audiobook library in your account. Even if only a few books a month in the educator program feel exactly right for your classroom, that could be 30+ books a year you're adding to your device, for free. Then you can use them for First Chapter Fridays, a classroom audiobook listening station, to preview books you might want to order in paper copy for your library, and just for your own joy! I HIGHLY recommend you take a minute to sign up today, and you can always figure out how to use all your books later. The sooner you sign up, the sooner you can start building an audiobook library to use later on! You might also want to tune into episode 166, How to Build an Audiobook Listening Station for your Classroom. 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 6, 2023 • 12min
192: Who's on your New Pride Month Display?
Interactive wall displays are one of my favorite new things. Adding a QR code to a poster gives students the opportunity to take things further. If you've been hanging out with me this year, you know I've created interactive displays for you to celebrate Black History Month, Women's History Month, and AAPI Heritage month. Now it's Pride Month, and I've got another one for you. Maybe you're already out of school, or maybe you've still got a few weeks left (here's looking at you, New York teachers). Whether you use it now, or put it up to celebrate LGBTQ+ creators throughout the year, this new interactive pride display features ten creative LGBTQ+ authors to share with your students. Today on the pod, I'm going to introduce you to a few of these creators, so you know more about what's behind the display. If you already get my emails each week, you'll be getting this display on Friday. If not, you can sign up for the free display in the blog post here. Here's who we're talking about... Erika Sanchez Becky Albertelli Alice Oseman Rainbow Rowell Adam Silvera REGISTER FOR CAMP CREATIVE NEXT WEEK 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 1, 2023 • 16min
191: Highly Recommended: Jason Reynolds
This week on "Highly Recommended" we're talking about the guy who has been one of my top go-tos for years when someone asks for a book recommendation for a student. Jason Reynolds. In today's episode we're talking about a whole range of his fabulous books, including: Ghost, Lu, Sunny, Patina (The Track Series) As Brave as You Stuntboy in the Meantime Long Way Down - graphic novel or regular All American Boys Stamped Ain't Burned all the Bright For Everyone Check out his website here, where he describes himself like this: "Here's what I do: not write boring books." CAMP CREATIVE: TEACH GRAPHIC NOVELS WITH CONFIDENCE STARTS JUNE 12. SIGN UP TO JOIN US FOR THIS FREE PD 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!
May 30, 2023 • 19min
190: My Top Contemporary Text Ideas for your ELA Classes
I see a lot of posts each month inside our Facebook group, Creative High School English, asking for text recommendations for different courses. What's the best book to teach ninth graders? The best short story to teach tenth graders? The best performance poetry for seniors? I love this type of collaboration, because we all make discoveries at our local libraries and bookstores, and in our own little internet corners. You may not know about my absolute favorite yet, and I may not know about yours. With that in mind, today on the podcast I'm going to share my top favorite recent discoveries. This is going to be my (rather long) answer to the next post I see asking for a great course title to order! We'll be exploring: Poetry and Short Stories Graphic Novels Full-Length Texts This one's not exhaustive by any means, they're just lovely recent favorites that really stood out. I hope you'll find one for your summer TBR and it will wend its way into one of your courses next year. SIGN UP FOR CAMP CREATIVE: TEACH GRAPHIC NOVELS WITH CONFIDENCE, 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!
May 25, 2023 • 6min
189: Highly Recommended: My Shakespeare
This week on Highly Recommended I'm sharing my favorite online tool for Shakespeare, the free website My Shakespeare. So what makes it so great? Well, let's start with the fact that it as FULL texts available for Romeo and Juliet, Macbeth, The Taming of the Shrew, A Midsummer Night's Dream, and Julius Caesar. That give you OPTIONS. You can choose one for a full class text OR have students choose plays that interest them for Shakespearean book clubs. But whole texts are jus the tip of the iceberg. Wait till you hear about all the scaffolds and multimedia pop-outs available right on the texts. You won't believe this amazing resource. Tune in and I'll walk you through it in just a few minutes on this week's short "Highly Recommended" episode. Haven't signed up for Camp Creative: Teach Graphic Novels with Confidence in June yet? Grab your free spot 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!
