The Spark Creativity Teacher Podcast | ELA

Want to showcase Black authors, poets, artists and activists in your ELA classroom? Celebrate Black History Month all year long with these ideas. Black History Month is here, and while it's vital that we celebrate Black poets, authors, leaders, playwrights, and activists throughout our curriculum, this is a great time to put a special focus on spotlighting all the wonderful Black voices in the ELA world. There are so many to choose from!! So today, I want to share some easy ways to do that, today, tomorrow, all through February, and all year long. Start with the free QR code display featured in this episode. This easy display lets students explore the life and work of greats like Langston Hughes and Ralph Ellison alongside contemporary figures like Jason Reynolds, Trevor Noah, and Michelle Obama. You can use the QR codes for bellringers and other activities throughout the month, and send early finishers over to explore. Make your free copy here. Consider printing on cardstock for more durability. Check out the show notes here for more activities and links mentioned on today's episode. Explore Alllll the Episodes of The Spark Creativity Teacher Podcast. Join our community, Creative High School English, on Facebook. Come hang out on Instagram.

Try using graphic novels in your ELA classroom to create powerful reading ladders, launch literature circles, help make the classics accessible, and more! Today on the podcast, you'll find six perspectives on why graphic novels are a GREAT addition to your ELA program, and how you might use them in different creative ways. Each of our five creative guests brings something wholly unique to the table, and I'm so pleased they all took the time to come on and share their experience and innovation. Tune in to this podcast episode for six helpful perspectives on how the graphic novel can ignite engagement in ELA. Find the show notes (with all the links and visuals) here. Connect with our Guests! Follow along with Pernille on Instagram here. Follow along with Ashley on Instagram here. Follow along with Melissa on Instagram here. Follow along with Brynn on Instagram here. Follow along with Jessica and Caitlin on Instagram here. 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!

Want to introduce your ELA students to the creative joys of graphic novels? Find out how to run a quick and productive book tasting to help introduce them to the genre. Maybe you've got some new titles for your choice reading library, a graphic novel or two lined up for First Chapter Friday, or even a graphic novel on the horizon as a whole-class read, and you wish your students were more aware of and excited about the graphic novel genre. Ooooh boy, have I got an easy win for you. Head for the library and bring your brightest Trader Joe's shopping bag along, because it's time for a graphic novel book tasting! Today on the podcast, find out how to easily host a graphic novel book tasting and why it's a great option for your students. Related show: 6 Wonderful Ways you can use Graphic Novels Get book recommendations, a digital bookshelf template, the book tasting takeaways sheet, and more in the show notes at nowsparkcreativity.com. Connect on Instagram! Join the community in my free Facebook group, Creative High School English.

Gareth Hinds has created appealing graphic novel versions of many great classics of English literature, like The Odyssey, The Iliad, Beowulf, and Shakespeare's plays. In this episode, find out how to use them in class to help deepen engagement. Gareth Hinds is an English Teacher's superhero. He takes the most challenging works of classic literature for our students, spends years studying them deeply, and creates graphic adaptations students get excited about reading. I mean, come on! How great is that? With highly regarded adaptations of The Odyssey, The Iliad, Poe's stories, Romeo and Juliet, Macbeth, The Merchant of Venice, Beowulf, and more, Gareth Hinds is quickly moving through the canon to create colorful, accessible, dare-I-say FUN versions of classics students often struggle with. Today on the podcast, we're talking about the visual language of graphic adaptation, how Gareth researches and creates his works, and his top tips for classroom teachers using his adaptations. Honestly, I wish every school in America had copies of his works, and I'm so thrilled he could take the time to talk to us. This is a great episode, and I'm so glad you're here for it! Let's dive in. From Gareth's Website: "Gareth Hinds is the creator of critically-acclaimed graphic novels based on literary classics, including Beowulf (which Publisher's Weekly called a 'mixed-media gem'), King Lear (which Booklist named one of the top 10 graphic novels for teens), The Merchant of Venice (which Kirkus called 'the standard that all others will strive to meet' for Shakespeare adaptation), The Odyssey (which garnered four starred reviews and a spot on ten 'best of 2010' lists), Romeo and Juliet (which Kirkus called 'spellbindin'), and Macbeth (which the New York Times called 'stellar' and 'a remarkably faithful rendering'). Gareth is a recipient of the Boston Public Library's 'Literary Lights for Children' award. His books can be found in bookstores and English classrooms across the country, and his illustrations have appeared in such diverse venues as the Society of Illustrators, the New York Historical Society, and over a dozen published video games." Discover Gareth's Website. Explore his Teaching Guides. Follow Gareth on Instagram. Connect with Betsy: 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!

Worried about the new AI and its repercussions in the world of ELA? In this quick episode, let me share why I think it might actually be a good thing for our profession. For many years now, students who are so inclined have been able to grab a paper off the internet. I remember the paranoia I felt after learning that the students at a new school where I was teaching a decade ago had actually created their own website for sharing work. To hear other teachers tell it, the answers to EVERYTHING any teacher had taught in the past were just waiting to be picked from the digital tree branches over there. Students could grab quiz answers, homework, exam responses, essays, you name it. I actually looked out the windows during an exam once to see if anyone was dangling answers down on strings from the roof. That's how much people prepped me to expect cheating. But that year my students held poetry slams, created a live radio show, performed original one-act plays, and put on an independent reading festival. It wasn't easy to cheat on any of it. And little by little, I stopped worrying so much that they would. While the internet today, and the new AI tools, make it easier than ever for students to cheat on extended writing questions sent home for completion, it's really just a slight level up on what was already available. We've known kids could cheat on extended take-home writing for a very long time, and whether they're doing it by copying and pasting or engaging AI, we know they have the option to engage help they shouldn't. But there are so many ways to design assignments that call for creative work in modern mediums that AI can't do for them. So today I want to share why I'm not worried about the new AI, and why I don't think you need to be either. 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!

Featuring contemporary Indigenous voices in your ELA classroom - on your walls, in your research and writing projects, and on your shelves - can make a big difference in fighting erasure. Help your students of all backgrounds learn about Indigenous leaders, artists, and activists. In today's episode, I'm sharing concrete options to help. Discover the best free posters, leaders to feature in your research projects, strong contemporary titles, an easily accessible poem by our Poet Laureate Joy Harjo, and more. You can find the show notes at nowsparkcreativity.com in the podcast section. While you're there, take a peek at all the free curriculum resources! Text ideas: We are Water Protectors is a beautifully-illustrated children's book to display and use in class (check out episode 148, The Power of Children's Books for Older Kids, with Pernille Ripp, if you need some ideas for how to use picture books). Healer of the Water Monster would be great in middle grade identity book clubs / lit circles or as a choice reading option. I'd suggest The Birchbark House as a whole class read. #NotYourPrincess is a multi-genre anthology of many Native American women sharing photography, art, poetry, songs, and stories about their experiences. I'd recommend every high school teacher have this book available for choice reading, but also to pull short pieces from throughout the year while crafting units around various themes and essential questions. A Snake Falls to Earth is a powerful book blending fantasy, storytelling, and environmentalism with a young Indigenous protagonist. It would make a great feature for First Chapter Friday and in high school book clubs / lit circles. Ceremony is my rec for senior electives or A.P. classes. This is a stunning, powerful, lyrical book dealing in heavy subjects best suited for older kids. Helpful Links: The Indigenous Resistance section (choose it under categories) of Amplifier Art's Free Downloads section features the Thriving Peoples Thriving Places campaign, with dozens of posters you can print for your classroom. From the Project 562 "About" page: "Created by Matika Wilbur, Project 562 is a multi-year national photography project dedicated to photographing over 562 federally recognized Tribes, urban Native communities, Tribes fighting for federal recognition and Indigenous role models in what is currently-known-as the United States, resulting in an unprecedented repository of imagery and oral histories that accurately portrays contemporary Native Americans. This creative, consciousness-shifting work will be widely distributed through national curricula, artistic publications, exhibitions, and online portals." Artist Jaime Black created The REDress Project to bring greater awareness to the many missing and murdered Indigenous women who do not get the national news spotlight other groups 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!

Want to help the independent readers in your ELA classroom enjoy audiobooks? Whether you want to use Audible, Libro FM (do you know about their free educator advance listening program?), Libby, or Sora, in this episode I'll walk you through the process of creating easy access for your students at your own classroom listening station. The bookstores of Bratislava, where I live now, are quite dazzling. In one, an entire wall is made of the open pages of books. A moving portrait – Harry Potter style – sits in the center, occasionally turning its head to watch you read on the pillows below. There's a cozy book nook in one that sits in the center of an enormous circular bookcase – you actually get to read inside a nest of books. I've walked into a bookstore filled with fluttering book page mobiles hanging from the ceiling, and I've walked into a bookstore with an enormous white tree, apparently made of modge podge and pages, holding up the ceiling of the children's section. I love it all. And today I want to share an idea I got from one such inspiring Slovak bookstore. In my favorite one, Martinus – where I sometimes go to drink chai latte and write curriculum for you – there's a large green velvet chair in a little corner. Above it hang fifty or so fluttering bookmarks, and beside it there's an ipad waiting for passersby to plug in their headphones or connect their airpods. On the screen? A couple dozen audiobooks, always ready for a listener. It's an audiobook listening station, and today I want to show you how to add one to your classroom. Related episode: 141 - How to Set up your Classroom Library Go Further: Check out the show notes at nowsparkcreativity.com for visuals and links. 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!

Want to improve your classroom dynamics? Start with relationships, and watch how they can positively impact your daily life as a teacher in so many ways. In this episode, learn fun and easy strategies like post-it compliments and the googly eye connection from our guest CJ Reynolds, from Real Rap with Reynolds. Then watch - as your relationships deepen, your pedagogy will strengthen too. Today's guest, CJ Reynolds, has spent seventeen years teaching high school literature and the history of hip hop in West Philadelphia (just a few blocks from the neighborhood The Fresh Prince left for Bel Air). Six years ago, he started a Youtube channel with his son, and when his son got sick of it, he and his wife started creating the videos he wished he had as a new teacher. Now, he's working on that full time, helping others find and keep their footing in the world of teaching with compassion and creativity. For CJ Reynolds, everything really comes down to building relationships with kids. Those relationships help you teach, show you what references to make, guide you in understanding what kids might be dealing with outside of school. All of this informs your practice as a teacher. So today, let's explore some of CJ's top pieces of advice for building strong relationships with your students. Most of them are fun, many of them are unexpected, and all of them come from many years of practice. Connect with CJ Reynolds When you go check out CJ's Youtube channel, consider starting with this video: "Reaching Every Student." You can also find much more of his work on his website, Real Rap with Reynolds, pick up his book, or tune into his live Sunday sessions on Youtube or Facebook (the replays come out on his podcast right here). Go Further Find the show notes for this episode here. 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!

Looking to engage your secondary ELA students in creative public speaking projects? Try podcasting, debate, mock trials, mini speeches, or genius hour talks! Who hasn't felt a few cold chills at the prospect of public speaking? Teaching year in and year out definitely helps though. As you stand up in front of groups of kids over and over, it starts to feel normal. Not for our students though. Public speaking is so intimidating for them. But we know from our own experience that practice helps, so today I want to share some ideas for building public speaking into your curriculum in creative ways, so it can be something you and your students really look forward to. Go Further: Be sure to visit the show notes at nowsparkcreativity.com for the speech boosting handouts and model podcast ideas. 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!

Find out how veteran teacher Jane Wisdom successfully incorporated a social media twist on the traditional research project, with great results from her students. 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!