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 23, 2020 • 39min
095: Remote Teaching: Grading, Discussion, and Building Community with Marie Morris and Amanda Cardenas
Trying to plan for remote teaching this fall in your high school ELA classes? In this podcast, we're diving into best practices for grading, discussion, building community, first units and more for distance learning this fall. Join me as we chat with guests Marie Morris and Amanda Cardenas. 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 9, 2020 • 40min
094: Project Lit, Sketchnotes, and Classroom Design with Laquisha Hall
If you’re interested in incorporating Project Lit titles, sketchnotes, the publication of student writing and effective classroom design into your work as an English teacher, you’re going to love this episode with Baltimore City Teacher of the Year, Laquisha Hall. Laquisha shares so many wonderful stories to inspire you. Wait till you hear how she managed to find funding for four copies of all twenty-five Project Lit titles, how she publishes student work anthologies online and guides her students in selling them, and how she designed a classroom space where her students feel they’ve stepped out of the system. And that’s not all! 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 27, 2020 • 19min
093: A Plan for your First Fall Unit in ELA
In this podcast episode, discover a plan for an opening ELA unit that will help you build community in your class and allow you to get to know your students, even if you can't actually meet them in person. 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 12, 2020 • 13min
092: Distance Learning: A Creative End to the Year
It's been a difficult spring term to say the least. But chances are, you still want to find a way to end things on a positive, creative, meaningful note. This episode can 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!
Apr 29, 2020 • 45min
091: Project-Based-Learning in the City, with Laura Deisley of Lab Atlanta
Lab Atlanta is an innovative program connecting students with the resources and richness of Atlanta, and empowering them to make an impact through project-based learning. Find out more in this podcast episode with its founder, Laura Deisley, and start thinking about how you could incorporate aspects of its model into your own ELA teaching. 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!
Apr 14, 2020 • 29min
090: Bringing Transformation to your School, with Trace Pickering of Iowa Big
After a flood ravaged his hometown of Cedar Rapids, IA, Trace Pickering helped lead a transformation in education through his innovative program, Iowa Big. Listen to this interview with Trace for inspiration on how to create deeper learning experiences for students through real-world opportunities. 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!
Apr 1, 2020 • 19min
089: Adventures at Home
Grab a smoothie and let's talk about life under quarantine. In this episode, I'm sharing five tips and resources that have stuck with me from a lot of online conversations these last few weeks, and then sharing a picture of life at our house. I hope it's helpful to 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!
Mar 17, 2020 • 13min
088: Help for Teaching through Coronavirus Closings
Is your school closing due to the coronavirus outbreak? Here are some creative ideas for you to stay connected to your students and keep them working on their ELA skills, regardless of their internet access at home. 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!
Mar 10, 2020 • 16min
087: Easy Ways to use Hexagonal Thinking in ELA
Hexagonal thinking is a powerful way to help students make connections between characters, themes, ideas, other literary works, and current events. But how to get started? This episode will walk you through everything you need to design an easy, successful hexagonal thinking activity for your ELA classes. 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!
Feb 25, 2020 • 47min
086: Take Action for Deeper Learning, with Sarah Fine
Wish your students kept talking about classwork out in the halls? Want to tap into the research when it comes to creating opportunities for deep, meaningful learning in your classroom? Of course you do! In this episode of The Spark Creativity Teacher Podcast, learn from author and researcher Sarah Fine, who visited thirty schools across America with her co-author, Jal Mehta, to discover when and why student learning goes deepest.
