The Spark Creativity Teacher Podcast | ELA

Ever wanted to put on a class play with your ELA students? With an audience and costumes and programs?  Don't be intimidated, it IS possible!  In this episode, Danielle from Nouvelle ELA, theater guru, shares her structure for a successful class play. This awesomely engaging activity is more doable than you might think, and OH so much fun. 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!

Book clubs are such a great way to give students choice and include a wider variety of books in your curriculum! Try novels-in-verse clubs, graphic novel clubs, memoirs, coming-of-age stories, or whatever theme suits you.  But how do you get started? And what will kids do in class during your book clubs unit? And is there a difference between book clubs an lit circles besides the name?  Join me as I talk to special guest Melissa Kruse of The Reading and Writing Haven all about book clubs. Get the information you need to get started with a successful book club program immediately. 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!

STEM, STEAM, or is it STABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPEAM?  STEM gets a lot of attention, but we all know the ELA skills play a huge role for scientists, engineers, and technology leaders.  In this episode, discover how to create interdisciplinary bridges between STEM and ELA  through creative novel projects, nonfiction articles that will peak student interest, the ELA makerspace, and social media campaign projects for change. 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!

In this episode, I'll give you the roadmap for using genius hour in ELA.  Find out how it fits the standards, how to structure it, how to grade it, and where you can find an amazing free resource set to get you started using genius hour in your English classroom. 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!

Teaching Shakespeare? So often we're trying to help our students understand the language and context of the era, and make a real connection to the Bard. So whether you're teaching Romeo and Juliet, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Macbeth, Hamlet, or one of his others, there are certain solid go-tos you can weave in to help your students get excited about reading a Shakespeare play. In this episode, find six creative new ideas for writing and performance activities that will work for ANY Shakespeare play.  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!

Want to engage your students with murder mysteries? Make them laugh while they learn with SNL clips? Hook them with great Ted Talks? Uh, yeah, of course! Learn more about all these great strategies in this popular episode with special guest Amanda from the "Engaging and Effective" blog. I think you're going to love Amanda's fresh take on engaging students and helping them to buy in to your curriculum. 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!

One-pagers combine visuals with text to make ideas come alive in students’ minds and memories. But it’s easy for students to struggle with one-pagers if they're not naturally inclined toward art and have not previously been encouraged to represent their ideas this way. They may feel they're being graded unfairly on their artistic abilities. Some students will hear directions to create a graphic representation of a reading and dive right in. Others will moan and mutter things about “ridiculous art projects.” But if students can get over their hang-ups, they really learn a lot from processing what they’ve read in visual form with a one-pager.  This episode is all about how to make this powerful activity successful, whether or not the majority of your students love art. 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!

When I took a job in Sofia, Bulgaria, I honestly wondered if I would be able to see out my contract. I was so new to the world of living abroad, and I had only just learned where Bulgaria was on a map of the world.  By the time we left Bulgaria, my husband and I had learned so much about teaching in a new place, and we'd traveled to over 20 countries along the way! Now, a decade later, we live in Bratislava with our two children.  If you've ever considered teaching abroad, I hope you'll listen in to this episode so I can share what I've learned along the way with you.  Let's talk about how to get a job, what challenges you'll face, and what strategies will help you succeed. 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!

Do you ever feel like you’re pursuing engagement, not empowerment, in your classroom? Do you ever feel like you’re doing more work than your students?    John Spencer used to too. But now he’s all about empowering students to pursue their passions and helping teachers make that happen. Whether he’s sharing “10 Creative Risks to Take with your Students this Year” via podcast, or adding video writing prompts and maker challenges to his youtube channel, you’re going to be amazed by what he puts out into the teaching stratosphere.    Once a middle school teacher who carefully wove creative practices into his packed schedule wherever he could, John Spencer now teaches teachers. In his own words, “I want to see teachers unleash the creative potential in all their students so that kids can be makers, designers, artists, and engineers.”   In his book, Empower, he talks about a mindset shift in the creative teaching world from engaging our students to empowering them to learn and do what they truly care about.    I think you’ll recognize your own teaching journey in what he described. The incredible amount of work required to differentiate projects and outline details so that students would produce just what you hoped. The exhaustion of your teacher song and dance to be constantly introducing something new, something amazing, something your students can’t help but love doing under your careful supervision. 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!

In this episode, Jenna Copper from Doc Cop Teaching and I dive into one of her most successful and engaging classroom strategies, a discussion format in which students rotate between the roles of discussion panelists and audience tweeters. 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!