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
Dec 21, 2020 • 18min
115: 5 Creative Digital Poetry Activities
Teaching a poetry unit? Need engaging poetry unit ideas you can roll out easily in Google Classroom? Today we're talking about digital poetry tiles, digital book spine poetry, online blackout poetry, spoken word, and digital "I am from" poem galleries. You'll love these easy wins! 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!
Dec 15, 2020 • 20min
114: Easily Reduce your Digital Paper Pile
Is your digital paper pile keeping you up at night? Google Classroom work may not fill your workbag, but it sure can weigh on your mind. Check out this episode for three easy ways to cut down your online grading time. 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!
Dec 8, 2020 • 47min
113: Breakout Rooms, Community Building, and Grading Policies for Online Teaching
In this episode, get ideas for better breakout rooms, building community in the remote classroom, teaching writing online, and much more with my guest Christina, from The Daring English Teacher. 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!
Dec 1, 2020 • 18min
112: An ELA Teacher's Gift Guide
In search of fun, creative gifts this holiday season? Discover sixteen ideas in this first annual Creative English Teacher's Gift Guide episode. From teacher tees and wine labels to the best places to shop for books while supporting independent bookstores, this gift guide has great options to make shopping for your colleagues and friends (and maybe yourself) easy for you. 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!
Nov 24, 2020 • 41min
111: Creative Uses for Jamboard, with Matt Miller
Want to try Jamboard, but not sure how? In this episode, discover creative classroom options for Jamboard, and learn how to avoid the common pitfalls. Guest Matt Miller from Ditch that Textbook shares creative uses for ELA! 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!
Nov 17, 2020 • 23min
110: Take Your Writing Workshop Digital (It's Easy), with Amanda Werner
Wanting to experiment with online writing wokrshop? Let Amanda teach you how! Writing workshop translates easily and simply to the online classroom. Find out how to use recorded mini-lessons, easy check-in strategies, and lots of student choice to help students thrive in your online workshops. 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!
Nov 10, 2020 • 15min
109: How to Make Digital "Magnetic" Poetry Activities
In this episode, learn how to make a digital poetry tile set around any theme in three easy steps. Try this creative poetry writing activity on Google Slides if your students need a little break or as part of a poetry unit. You can sign up for your free gratitude digital magnetic poetry kit at nowsparkcreativity.com in the show notes. 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!
Nov 3, 2020 • 14min
108: Try a Virtual Travel Research Project
Build research into a fun virtual travel project. Who doesn't want to get away from it all sometimes in the middle of the year- this fun ELA project uses key ELA skills of research, curation, and multi-modal creation with a topic kids can get excited about. Students will research a far-off destination they're interested in, curate and create the pieces of an online showcase to share the place with others, and then create QR-code based posters to put up around your school or community. Passers-by can scan the codes to experience virtual travel, courtesy of your 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!
Oct 28, 2020 • 17min
107: Virtual Discussion Problems? Try this
Online discussions not flowing as they should? It's tough leading a virtual discussion in your ELA classes, especially with mics muted and videos off. Try digital discussion warm-ups to help. 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!
Oct 13, 2020 • 29min
106: Doing a Podcast Project? Let me be your Guest Speaker
Podcasting is an ideal ELA project for students right now. If you're diving in, let me be your guest speaker! In this unusual episode, I'm answering student questions about what it's like to be a podcaster. My hope is that you will share this show with your students in the midst of an upcoming podcast unit. 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!
