The Spark Creativity Teacher Podcast | 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!
Latest episodes
Jun 13, 2022 • 31min
155: 21 Creative ELA Lessons you can use Immediately
Goodbye chapter comprehension questions, hello creative lesson ideas! In today's episode, discover 21 creative lessons, activities, and units you can use in any ELA class. These are the most popular tried-and-true options I've discovered over the last decade! Try blackout poetry, silent discussions, hexagonal thinking, literary food trucks, book tastings, digital poetry tiles, and so many more!
May 31, 2022 • 24min
154: Colorful Vocabulary Activities: Story Tiles, Wordy Decor & More
Looking for creative vocabulary activities that aren't boring? Want students to get excited about using words in interesting ways? Check out these colorful vocabulary options for your secondary ELA classroom. See the images and sign up for the vocabulary quiz templates in the show notes at: https://nowsparkcreativity.com Come hang out on Instagram @nowsparkcreativity.
May 17, 2022 • 19min
153: 6 Powerful Mentor Texts for Secondary ELA
Looking for creative multimedia mentor texts for your ELA students? Check out these options, from picture books to podcasts, videos to poetry, student work to YA novels. Get mentor texts kids will reallys it up and pay attention to! Sign up for Camp Creative: The Roadmap to Student Podcasting here.
May 3, 2022 • 20min
152: 5 Class Podcast Projects for ELA
Want to get started with class podcast projects? Good for you! Get inspired with this creative list of options for your high school English students. Don't forget to sign up for Camp Creative: The Student Podcasting Roadmap coming June 13-15. Visit the show notes at nowsparkcreativity.com.
Apr 20, 2022 • 26min
151: Here's the Teacher Tech that Actually Helps, with Jennifer Gonzalez
Looking for the teacher technology that will really make an impact in your classroom, not just replace processes you use with newer, more complicated ones? In this fun conversation with Jennifer Gonzalez, we talk about the tools and ideas inside her Teacher's Guide to Tech and how they can help in your ELA Classroom.
Apr 5, 2022 • 51min
150: A Quiet Revolution in Reading and Writing, with Penny Kittle
Discover the power of choice reading, modern mentor texts, and writer's notebooks in this actionable podcast workshop with Penny Kittle. Get Penny's tips on gently challenging what's not working at your school. Find out how she integrates choice reading and writer's notebooks to ignite student interest. Discover her favorite choice reads for students right now and the authors who have helped inspire her practice.
Mar 22, 2022 • 26min
149: Two Inspiring Children's Book Projects, with Pernille Ripp
Want to try having students write nonfiction children's books? How about perform plays based on their favorite children's books? Learn all about these two wonderful children's book projects and more in this interview with Pernille Ripp. Let's connect! Facebook Group: Creative High School English Instagram: @nowsparkcreativity
Mar 8, 2022 • 29min
148: The Power of Children's Books for Older Kids, with Pernille Ripp
Picture books have so much to offer readers of all ages. In this interview with literacy dynamo Pernille Ripp (part one of two), find out how to use children's books to introduce big ideas, demonstrate writer's craft, and start important conversations.
Feb 22, 2022 • 27min
147: 6 Fresh Ideas for your Writing Program
Ready to refresh your writing program with new, creative options? In this podcast episode, learn about unique writing prompts, writing alternative endings to fiction, using collaborative writing projects, spiraling writing instruction, building an argument unit around a mock trial, and more!
Feb 9, 2022 • 28min
146: Authentic Audiences aren't Hard to Find
Want to ignite student engagement by bringing their work to real audiences? It's not as hard as it seems! In this episode, explore ten quick case studies and let them inspire new possibilities for connection with audiences in your classroom.
