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
Jan 3, 2019 • 24min
056: Get Funding with Donors Choose (Dos and Don'ts)
If you're spending too much of your salary to equip your (public school) classroom to meet your students' needs, find out how to leverage Donors Choose to get what you need. Starting a project on Donors Choose can help you update your library, gather books for a novels-in-verse or graphic novels book club, purchase new technology, or whatever else you need for your clasroom! But there are ways to go about it that will help your project be more successful, and ways that will sink your funding ship. So let me help! Follow these eight easy tips for Donors Choose success. 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 18, 2018 • 30min
055: Hyperdocs, Authentic Audience, and Screencastify with Kristy Louden
So many stellar ELA strategies on tap for today! We're talking about how to use hyperdocs to teach writing more effectively, giving kids a truly authentic audience for speech projects, and how to use Screencastify to save so much time. This one's action-packed! 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 4, 2018 • 17min
054: Winter Holiday Activities for ELA
Sick of trying to compete with holiday madness in December? Stop trying! Bring the holidays in and enjoy teaching all your usual ELA skills in a new context. My favorite option? Gingerbread house short stories! Listen in for the details. 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 20, 2018 • 11min
053: How to Plan an ELA Unit in 30 Minutes
Need help planning your ELA units? I hear you. Let me take you through my personal strategy for planning units, weeks, and days for English classes in three simple steps. Starting with the big picture makes it soooo much easier. 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 7, 2018 • 11min
052: The Easy Guide to Blackout Poetry
If your students would rather eat a ghost chili than dive into poetry workshop, blackout poetry is your new best friend! In this episode, I'll teach you the simple steps you can use to guide them in creating stunning blackout poems. You can dive straight in and do them tomorrow! This is one of the easiest and most effective poetry workshops for ELA across many grade levels. Without the blank page to scare them, writer's block drifts away for most students as they get busy with their Sharpies. 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 24, 2018 • 29min
051: Mock Trials and E-mail Etiquette with The Daring English Teacher
Want to try mock trials with your ELA students? Wish they didn't email you things like "hey i need to know what my grade is tonight if possible thx"? Wondering if there's really a way to use board games in class that will help kids learn? Christina from The Daring English teacher is here to help! Learn about how to get started with mock trials, a funny way to teach your students to write a good e-mail, how to wrap up a unit with a board game final project and much more in today's jam-packed episode. 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 10, 2018 • 19min
050: The Power of Imperfect Action
If you've ever felt like you just didn't have time to learn enough about something new you want to try in your classroom before rolling it out, this episode is for you. It's time to take action, even if it isn't perfect. 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 26, 2018 • 45min
049: Get Creative with Google Classroom, with Matt Miller
In this episode of The Spark Creativity Teacher Podcast, learn how to leverage Google Classroom to create more creative, more organized lessons, and to make your feedback process faster and more effective. Matt Miller brings a wealth of expertise and experience to this conversation, so get ready to dive deep with how Google Classroom can help ELA teachers with their workflow and lesson planning. 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 19, 2018 • 15min
048: Reading Program Accountability that doesn't Ruin Everything
Keeping students accountable to some expectations while helping them fall in love with reading is not easy! I know you know. Reading logs or book reports are not the way to go. But that doesn't mean you're not allowed to check in with your ELA classes about their reading at all. After all, you want to hear about what they're taking away from their books so you can help them if they need you. In this show, discover four creative ways to check in with your readers in a way that won't make you feel like the book police. 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 6, 2018 • 32min
047: The Power of the Writing Makerspace, with Angela Stockman
Guiding students in using maker elements to build their arguments and ideas leads to greater complexity in their thinking and writing. Plus, it helps overcome writer's block! Their are sooo many ways to incorporate the writing makerspace in your writing curriculum, and Angela Stockman is here to help you get started! Get ready for more engagement and enthusiasm for writing in 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!
