On this week’s mini-episode, I’m sharing the coolest discussion warm-up I’ve ever learned, which I picked up at the Exeter Humanities Institute one week after my first year of teaching and the same week that I met my husband. You’re going to love it!  As you know if you listen to the podcast much, my favorite discussion method is called Harkness, and it was first invented and pioneered at Phillips Exeter Academy. If you’re interested in diving deep with Harkness, there are several past episodes you could explore, including number 8 and number 73. But today I just want to share this super simple discussion warm-up I learned there, which I’ve used and riffed off of dozens of times since and love.  Here’s the idea. As you roll out the runway to discussion, you invite students to write down a discussion question about the reading. Something they’d like to hear from others about - something that goes deeper than plot. Easy, and I know, not exactly revolutionary. But here’s the twist. Then you have all your students put their questions into a hat, and pull out someone else’s. They now have a new question to consider and contribute, and someone else is in charge of theirs. Now, you still might want to do a quick “turn to a partner and talk about your questions for two minutes” or even a quickwrite on the new question, but the main thing is, students will suddenly have a whole new motivation to bring up the question they’re holding in the discussion.  After all, they aren’t putting their own question under public scrutiny. And I think they feel a little sense of responsibility to the person whose question they picked up. Now when you say “who wants to get things rolling by reading their question out loud?” there’s very little to lose in kickstarting the conversation. Similarly, when the discussion hits a bump, and you encourage kids to continue it with new questions, you’re more likely to have takers. It’s such a simple idea, but I’ve loved seeing it play out in conversations in class after class, so this week, I want to highly recommend that you give it a try too. And then maybe dive a little deeper into Harkness yourself and see if you love it as much as I do. Maybe you’ll even want to go to the Exeter Humanities Institute one summer too - it’s pretty amazing, and I’m not just saying that because I met my husband there.   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! 

The first time I really understood what flow meant I was barefoot in salty sand, building a beach sculpture in Mexico alone in the sunshine. Two hours seemed to disappear in moments as I gathered water-smoothed scraps of painted tile and bright shells and arranged them into swirls and towers underneath the cliffs. Take a second here and ask yourself - when do you feel that amazing feeling, where you are completely immersed in the thing you are doing so the rest of the world falls away? When do you think your students do? We’ve all noticed the challenges our students are facing right now in focusing their attention. They’ve got addictive technology, constant social FOMO, and a streaming feed of big world problems competing for their attention every moment of the day. So how are they supposed to find their flow, or even their focus? Today’s guest, Angela Watson, has turned her attention carefully to this matter in recent years. She’s here today to talk with us about how we can help our students find their way back to focus, and we all know how important that is right now. So let’s dive in! Go Further with Angela Watson Angela Watson is a National Board Certified Teacher with a master’s degree in Curriculum and Instruction. She has 11 years of classroom experience and over a decade of experience as an instructional coach. Angela’s mission is to help teachers live a more purposeful and conscious life. Through her mentorship, countless teachers have learned to take charge of their time and energy so they can prevent burnout and stay in the profession they love for years to come. Check out her new curriculum for middle or high school at Finding Flow Solutions. Explore her website, Truth for Teachers.   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!   

On this week’s mini-episode, I want to give my answer to a question I see all the time in our  Facebook community, Creative High School English, and it’s this: What’s the best way to spend a teacher budget? So let’s dive into five great options. .  Classroom Poster Printing Over the years I’ve seen a lot of wonderful classroom poster creation from fellow educators and artists across the world. And they look beautiful in framed 8 1/2 X 11. But what if you took your digital download and went bigger? Larger 18 X 24 inch posters in a glossy finish are just $15 when you print them through Canva, and then you can frame them, if you wish, in relatively inexpensive poster frames from Amazon. Larger scale decor in your classroom draws the eye without being overwhelming. Choose colors and art that you love and you can use it year after year. Maybe you want to print stylized book covers, the free PBS Great American Read travel-inspired posters, free digital downloads from Amplifier art, author posters, posters from your favorite Etsy or TPT designer, or something of your own creation.  Classroom Printer and Ink While the school photocopier is perfect for everyday handouts, a color printer or your own is a huge asset for all. The. Rest. Gameboards, escape room elements, station signs, bulletin board pieces, library signs, and everything else.  Plants While I’ve never had a green thumb, I’ve learned over the years that bringing nature into a space actually boosts productivity and health while providing a sense of calm. Your budget might give you the perfect opportunity to hang some plants by your windows or add a plant stand in the library corner.  Books If you’re struggling with restrictions on your library, a budget might allow you for more controlled choice when you order novel-in-verse or graphic-novel book club selections. If you’re happily located in a state where reading is still unrestricted - I hate that I’m even having to write this - then your budget is a wonderful opportunity to shore up your library shelves with new titles your students are drawn to. Maybe your copy of Long Way Down never came back last year, so you buy three more. Or you go ahead and dive in with the whole Heartstopper series. Whatever works in your library, budget gives you the chance to go for it. Art Supplies If you like integrating sketchnotes, one-pagers, open-mind activities, and similar forms that combine visual and written communication, having a stock of art materials you can pull out at the right moment will be a major asset.  Of course, there are a million ways you might spend your teacher budget, and you know your classroom best! But if you’re looking for ideas, this week I recommend you consider the big five of posters, printing, plants, books, and art supplies as stellar options.    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!

Today I’d like to share one of my favorite episodes from the Spark Creativity Teacher Podcast archives. In this special episode, I invited five creative guests to give their take on impactful classroom design. This back-to-school season felt like the perfect time to share it again. I’ll be back with a full episode on Thursday, but at the moment I’m in the throes of a 6,000 mile move with my two kids and our cat, and my office is basically a giant pile of boxes. So please forgive the change in routine, but I think you’re going to love this wonderful episode! See the full blog post with all the links: https://nowsparkcreativity.com/2021/07/130-build-connection-with-your-classroom-design.html   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!   

On this week’s mini-episode, I just have a very quick idea for you and it’s this. As back-to-school hits, it’s easy to immediately become isolated in your classroom. You’ve got a million to-dos for your space and your students. But the school year is going to feel better if you feel connected to the teacher across the hall, the teacher next door, and the teacher upstairs. Know what I mean? So this week I want to recommend that you host your department for something this back-to-school season. And I’m going to give you a few quick ideas for what that something might be, though really, the what doesn’t matter nearly as much as the why.  One super simple way to get the department together would be to suggest a lunch potluck in your classroom during the return week. Just send a nice email out saying you’d love to catch up with everyone and you’ll be there with some kind of shareable food. Invite everyone to come, bringing their own shareable food. Emphasize that a veggie tray or chips and dip are just fine - no need for anyone to spend hours making homemade strawberry rhubarb pie unless they WANT to. (That would be me, I would want to). Feel free not to even bring up work at this little lunch bash, just welcome the new folks and chat with the returners and generally take a second to remember that you’re going into fall as part of a team.  Another easy option would be to suggest an ice cream or Boba or even afternoon tea after work outing, following up on one of the teacher workdays. Again, very little prep needs to be involved as the “host.” Simply choose a venue and send out an invitation. If you want to use a fun Canva template for your invites, so much the better, but there’s no need to spend more than five minutes on it when you’re already busy.  Last but not least, a third option is to invite your colleagues to a pedagogy breakfast. Now, you may laugh, but I’ve actually done this quite a few times, and it was fun. In this case, either choose a coffee shop or bakery near your school and invite your department to gather there in the morning before work for half an hour. You could invite everyone to share an idea they’re excited about that they found over the summer, something that worked well the year before, or something around a particular theme on everyone’s mind, like AI in the classroom or how they’re promoting choice reading.  Of course, there are dozens of other ways you could get together for some no-fuss department bonding. Bowling? After-work swim at the lake? Happy hour? My goal today is just to say that as you turn your attention toward building community and connection with your students this fall, you might also want to think about some easy ways to do it with the adults you work with. Feeling like part of a team, maybe one that shares fond memories of the oatmeal-raisin scones down the road or the time Diana rolled three strikes in a row to defeat Shonda, will only help you feel safer and more supported at work. Maybe your decision to host a no-fuss gathering now will also lead others to sprinkle in team gatherings of their own throughout the year.   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!   

Back-to-School season is the perfect time to set up your reading program for success throughout the year. Heading into the school year with a well-organized library, a plan for routines like First Chapter Friday and Book Trailer Tuesday, a kickoff book tasting, an appealing book display, and a regular time to read will help so much in inspiring your students to read for joy throughout the year, and hopefully for the rest of their lives. Lately I've been thinking about a well-run reading program like a reading escalator.   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!    Helpful Links:  Grab the Free Bookface Challenge Kit: https://sparkcreativity.kartra.com/page/bookface  How to Make Digital Bookshelves: https://nowsparkcreativity.com/2023/08/the-step-by-step-guide-to-creating-digital-bookshelves.html  The Ultimate Guide to First Chapter Friday: https://nowsparkcreativity.com/2022/09/the-ultimate-guide-to-first-chapter-friday.html 

On this week’s mini-episode, I want to answer a question from our community about lesson planning. Here it is: “How do you plan? I’m struggling to put together a series of lessons that culminate into a bigger assignment. For example, if I want my students to end up writing a persuasive essay, what would I plan to prepare them to write it? Do you go with a theme? Make it part of a novel study? I’m struggling!” OK, this is a big question, but I’m ready for it.  In today’s episode, we’re digging into planning and demystifying the process. You’ve probably heard the phrase “plan with the end in mind.” The concept of backwards design, now widely used for planning, comes from Jay McTighe and Grant Wiggins’ book, Understanding by Design. The University of Illinois’ “Center for the Advancement of Teaching Excellence” online site has a useful quick summary. Let me give you the speedy version here: First, you figure out what you want your students to be able to do. Then you figure out how they could show that they can do it. Then you plan the activities and assessments that will get them there.  So let’s apply this planning frameworks  to today’s problem - how do you plan a unit around a persuasive essay? The goal is to have students write a strong essay, presumably with some specific characteristics appropriate to their level. Along the way, they can show their mastery of elements of the final work through smaller argument practices, then they’ll show their overall mastery in the essay. But what would be good activities to build in along the way?  The easy go-to for preparing for an essay would be to write lots of short pieces throughout the unit, which really could be centered on anything. You could embed work like this into a novel study, a deep dive into short stories, book clubs, poetry, or even podcasting. This will give you an inviting structure  in which to situate your writing practice. You can practice thesis statements, introductions, text analysis paragraphs, and conclusions based on your larger unit. And you can think about how to come at each one from different angles and with different types of prompts to help students stay interested. You can share mentor texts, incorporate peer review, station work, and writing makerspace elements. There are so many ways to practice these skills.  Here’s how I might plan the first week of a poetry unit focused on a final product of a persuasive essay.  Monday I might do a deep dive on a contemporary poet, sharing two of her performance pieces and doing some creative writing around her work with my students. Then I might share an online article about this poet, arguing that she should have been the winner of a prestigious spoken word poetry competition and ask student to identify the thesis statement in the article and discuss, in partners, whether or not they find the argument convincing.  Tuesday I might look at a contemporary poem in both its written and spoken form, and have a mini debate about which format feels more compelling. Then dive into a mini-lesson on thesis statements and have kids practice writing a thesis for the question we just debated, plus gather two pieces of evidence that could help them make their argument.  Wednesday we might start by trading those theses and giving each other feedback based on a checklist, then move into a pop-up poetry workshop and create performance pieces of our own.  Thursday we might look at a performance piece and work on annotating a text version of it, then again practice developing a thesis statement about it and gathering evidence.  Friday we might start with a mini-lesson on writing a full  introduction and then write a practice introduction around that thesis statement looking at several models, before moving into our regular First Chapter Friday program for choice reading.  Now I’ve planned one week of the unit building toward my final assessment but also moving through a poetry unit that I find valuable for both engagement and other types of learning goals, and continued with my choice reading program as well. In the following week, we can practice text analysis paragraphs and conclusions, and look at some more mentor texts involving poetry-related arguments, as well as continue exploring the work of contemporary poets and furthering our choice reading goals.  Planning a unit means juggling a lot of different pieces - the learning goals, the types of activities that can engage and support many learners, the meaningful, ongoing programs you want to be consistent about, and of course, engagement. It gets easier the more you do it! This week, I highly recommend keeping backwards design in, well, the back of your mind, the next time you go to plan a 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!   

Maybe you've heard the story of how I almost quit teaching on my first first day of school. Despite the fact that I had spent three months preparing moment-by-moment lessons for fall. Despite the fact that I was wearing my super cool white embroidered top from Bass and carrying my first ever leather shoulder bag. Despite the fact that I had asked all my friendly, talented and kind new colleagues what I should do on the first day. I totally blew it, big time. And I want better for you. I want you to feel happy and confident on day one, so you hit the school year running instead of crawling like me. Because I almost quit that day. But then I didn't. Today I've got some stories, and some advice...   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!   

On this week’s mini-episode, I want to share my top strategy for taking the pressure off you while delivering a great experience for parents on back-to-school night, stations.    Back-to-school night, like the first day of school, can be a stressful time. You’re trying to get a lot of information across quickly, and it can feel like the only way to get that accomplished is by talking fast and furiously for the eight or so minutes you have with your rapidly moving parents.  A colorful presentation that you love is great, if that works for you, but if you’d prefer to go interactive, why not try stations? It takes a lot of pressure off you, and it’s easy to repeat in session after session without losing your voice or sweating through your fancy schmancy parent meeting clothes.  With stations, you can get parents up and moving around your classroom, get them the information they want, and even create a chance to chat and answer questions informally. If you want to try this method, here’s how I’d break it down.  Have your stations set up around the room before parents enter. Throw a welcome slide up on the board with your name, a fun photo (or collage) from classes past, and your contact information. Once parents are all inside, welcome them and invite them to move around the room to the different stations, letting them know how much time they have to move around so they can pace accordingly. At each station, they should find an obvious sign telling them what to do, as well as any supporting papers they need to pick up or fill out.  Here are some ideas for stations: #1 Info Sheet + Q & A With you: At this station, parents can grab a paper with your name, course description, contact information, and a QR code that takes them to any website or LMS you’d like them to have access to. You can hang out here and chat with them, answering questions and getting to know them a bit.  #2 Slideshow + Examples of Student Work: At this station, set up a computer or iPad to run a digital slideshow of student work from past years. Scatter a few great projects here too. This will give parents a sense for the type of work their kids will do in your class.  #3 Tour the Library: Invite parents to browse the shelves in your library. Maybe they’ll find a title they once loved and it will inspire them to talk books with their students. By focusing on this important space in your classroom, they’ll realize that reading is going to be an integral part of your class. #4 Learn how to Support Students: If there are certain things you wish parents would do, like set their kids up with a library card, ask them what they’re studying, remind them to leave their cell phones in their lockers, etc., create a station with these tips. Then leave out some post-its and invite parents to add their suggestions of what has worked well for them in supporting their child’s learning.  #5 Write a Note: At this station you could go one of two ways. Invite parents to write a note of encouragement to their child that you can then share at a key moment. Or invite parents to write you a note letting you know how they feel you can best reach their child. That might mean telling you about a project their child loved in the past, about their favorite books, about their favorite subjects, about important events in their lives that are impacting their school time, etc. You can always add more stations or choose just a few of these. You could also pair the stations with a short talk from you at the beginning. There are lots of recipes for a successful parent night – just choose what makes you feel comfortable and confident introducing them to all the wonderful work their kids will be doing. Back-to-School Night can be stressful, but this week I just want to highly recommend you create an experience that makes you feel relaxed and confident. 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!   

If I told you the ELA elective we’re about to dive into has an “awkward party” unit, would you believe me? Well, it does, and I can’t wait for you to learn about it and start planning an awkward party lesson of your own. Today on the show, we’re continuing our creative electives series with veteran teacher Lisa Blake, who's been teaching for 33 years in Northern California. She's built a life skills elective to give her students confidence in how to learn new skills, not just to teach the skills themselves. As she empowers them to explore and discover paths to success, she's not just teaching them to cook, sew, and manage the small talk at an awkward party, she's teaching them to believe they can tackle an area they know nothing about. And you can do the same for your students, whether it's through an entire elective like Lisa, or a smaller life skills unit. So let's dive in and learn how!   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!