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
Oct 16, 2019 • 13min
076: Host a "This I Believe" Radio Show
This I Believe began as a radio essay series and became nationally beloved. For good reason! Listening to people talk about the small things they really care about is inspiring. In this episode, find out how to easily do a "This I Believe" personal writing unit in class, culminating in a live performance event that builds community and gives your students authentic purpose. When I tried this with my I.B. students in Bulgaria, it was a smash hit for us. Some of the kids even had their essays published on the This I Believe website, which you better believe felt great for them! 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!
Sep 24, 2019 • 13min
075: 10 Review Activities that aren't Boring
Review can easily get boring. Why not review with the same kind of dynamic, creative activities that make up your daily lessons? (I know, I know, I'm preaching to the choir). In this episode, get ten ideas for engaging ways to revisit material without lecturing! 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!
Sep 12, 2019 • 12min
074: Try an Infographic Project in your English Classroom
Infographics make an ideal project for your high school ELA classroom. Students combine personal interest and authentic audience in this research-based design thinking project, honing their writing, editing, and artistic skills all at once in a highly real-world relevant way. In this episode, learn how to introduce and complete a design thinking infographics project in your English classroom. It's much easier than it sounds! 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!
Aug 29, 2019 • 37min
073: Help for Harkness Discussions
Heard of Harkness discussions but don't know how to get started? Wondering how they're different from Socratic seminars? Get answers to all the commonly asked questions in this comprehensive guide to using Harkness successfully in your classroom. Harkness is certainly in my top three favorite classroom tools, so I hope this episode will inspire you to give it a try! 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!
Aug 14, 2019 • 22min
072: Connecting your English Classroom to the World
When the lines between classwork and real world work get blurred, it often leads to engagement and deeper learning for our ELA students. This episode is all about finding ways to connect our classrooms to the world beyond them. Listen in for project ideas and tweaks on argument and research papers that can help teach the same vital ELA skills with a real-world relevant lens. 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!
Jul 30, 2019 • 22min
071: How to talk about Equity and Inclusion, with Liz Kleinrock
Learn from Liz Kleinrock, Teaching Tolerance teacher of the year, about how she approaches big conversations about difficult topics with her students. If you wish you had more information about how to safely address issues of race, gender, social justice, and equity in your classroom, 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!
Jul 17, 2019 • 42min
070: Help for Student Apathy, with Dave Stuart Jr.
Want to help your apathetic students become more motivated? Dave Stuart Jr. knows how you feel. In this podcast episode, learn the five key beliefs that help students with their motivation, and discover two specific ways to help banish apathy and inspire your students to be more motivated. 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!
Jul 2, 2019 • 35min
069: 40 Ways to Reduce your Grading Time
Grading doesn't have to be the thing that haunts you as a teacher. There are a ton of strategies out there to help you reduce your grading time and maximize its effectiveness, once you decide to take a stand for yourself. Choosing to use some of them will free up your time to enjoy creating the unique lesson plans you and your students love and to have more balance between home and school. In this episode, discover forty great options and choose the ones that are right 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!
Jun 19, 2019 • 24min
068: Confronting Teacher Exhaustion, with Angela Watson
Ready for an end to the teacher tired? The teacher guilt? The teacher busy? In this episode, I'm chatting with Angela Watson about her work helping teachers become more productive and purposeful in their choices. We're talking about her new book, Fewer Things, Better, and her course, The 40 Hour Teacher Workweek Club. 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 4, 2019 • 21min
067: Look Forward to Teaching Vocabulary
Wish teaching vocabulary in ELA could be more creative and fulfilling? You're not alone. The old "study at home for the quiz" routine can get pretty boring. Try these ten strategies to make studying vocabulary more engaging and the words memorable. It doesn't have to be just something to check off your to-do list every 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!
