The Spark Creativity Teacher Podcast | ELA

Discussion. Theoretically it’s the bread and butter of the English classroom, but sometimes it feels like all crusts and crumbs. How can you get students excited to talk about voice and theme, metaphor and symbolism, when they have a million other things going on? How do you inspire them to dive in together to the ways that literature illuminates life and life speaks back to the page, when they’re already nervous about speaking up in class and afraid they’ll look bad in front of their friends? If a good discussion feels like a distant dream to you on rough days, and a tantalizing almost-there vision on good days, the new discussion series is here to help. We’re starting today with five types of discussion that can work for you, and in the coming episodes, we’ll be going much deeper. 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 late afternoon sun filtered through the windows of our tiny English department office as I ran in to grab the papers I’d just printed. As I waited for them to finish, I examined the old books stacked on the shelf above the printer, brought to our school in  Bulgaria by another ex-pat teacher many years ago, judging by the dust. One caught my eye - William Zinsser’s guide to writing nonfiction - On Writing Well. I snagged it with my papers and headed upstairs. Little did I know, I had just picked up my new favorite writing book, and the one that would give me my most consistent improvement for my own writing. It’s the switch that made me start this podcast with “The late afternoon sun filtered through the windows” instead of “It was late one afternoon.” Did you spot it?  Welcome to the Thursday edition of The Spark Creativity Teacher Podcast, a podcast for English teachers in search of creative teaching strategies. Today we’re talking about a simple but highly impactful piece of writing advice you can give to every student. I heard it first from William Z all those years ago, and now I want to share it with you. OK, here’s the simple rule. English students need to watch out for the verb “To be.” Sure, it’s useful. I just used it. But it’s actually too useful. It can quickly become the driver of any piece of writing with constant lines like: “He was bored,” “they were hungry, “she was late,” “we’re tired.”  When we see writing like this, we might be tempted to launch into a fairly complex explanation of show don’t tell. But it’s even easier to give students a highlighter and ask them to find all the “to be” verbs in their piece. Have them highlight “was,” were,” and “are,” then pause to take in the fact that their whole piece is now bright yellow. Then show them how to flip the switch. Let’s take “he was bored” as our model. How can a kid write “he was bored” without the “to be” construction?  How about this: “After six hours of waiting at the airport gate, Ben had finally mastered the art of sleeping standing up.”  Or we can try “They were hungry,” switching in “Jen and Jenny felt sure they could eat a dozen of the salted caramel cream donuts immediately. Each.”  As you can see, in general the switch away from “to be” leads to far more specific descriptive writing. It’s like a game, shifting writing from black and white to full color.  Will there still be times when “to be” makes sense? For sure. You don’t want kids to change it every single time. But making them aware of the potential can make a huge impact on their writing. I know it has on mine over years of writing for you!  If you’re looking for a way to help students remember this tip, try spending fifteen minutes on a poster project. Invite every student to create a poster featuring a boring “TO BE” sentence in black and white, with the “To be” verb construction in red. Then have them make a second poster for a new version of the sentence with more vivid description matched by more vivid, colorful imagery. Put the best ones up on your wall as a reminder of this tip, then refer back to your models when students are editing their writing.  Such a simple rule, but it makes such a big impact. Remind your students that “to be” can BE boring, and you’ll help them level up their writing game across genres.    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 teach a multigenre essay project? Good! Our students see story splashed across so many platforms these days. Video, audio, visuals, and words all mixed up together in a daily swirl. Understanding how to tell a story across mediums is a highly relevant skill for students, and one they can quickly see the relevance of every time they switch on their phones or pop in their airpods. Enter, the multigenre essay project - a chance for students to tell a story of their own through multimedia details that bring it to life. A multigenre essay project can work in your identity or memoir unit, or provide an alternative path for students who don't want to write a college essay because they've chosen another path. Today, let's break down how you might structure a project like this so the tech doesn't feel intimidating and student stories have a chance to shine. Mentor Texts Mentioned:  Good Morning, my Wife in Heaven, by YingFei Liang and Shumin Wei Enryo, by Jessica Bukowski and Kristin Sato "I've been on a Mission for seventeen years. It's my holy grail." From Humans of New York. 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! 

Welcome to the Thursday edition of The Spark Creativity Teacher Podcast, a podcast for English teachers in search of creative teaching strategies. Tell me if this sounds familiar. You sit down to write a rec letter  after a long fall day of teaching, meetings, coaching, and everything else on your plate. Maybe it’s 9 pm and you’re trying to remember all of Erica’s shining moments from the last three months. But they’re a bit jumbled together in your head with your grocery list, your toddler’s sleep training regimen, and your other 120 students. Your eyes start to droop. The latest episode of Bake-Off just dropped and you are soooo ready to fall asleep on the couch. So you decide to push the college rec to the next day. Ugh. It’s a terrible cycle that can start to feel like it’s dominating your life. And I’ve been there so many times. Today I want to tell you about  the simple switch I pulled that made a big difference.  I hope will help you too. Early in my career, writing rec letters began to feel like my second full-time job. I taught all juniors. I liked them and they liked me, and it seemed like every time I turned around another student was standing in front of me hopefully, eyes wide, waiting to ask me to write their rec.  I found myself sitting in front of my computer at all hours staring at my blinking cursor. Combining dozens of rec letters with my role as varsity tennis coach in the fall soon left me sleepless and strained. I asked for a meeting with my talented colleague in college guidance to find out what was most important to include in my letter, hoping to streamline my process and make my work more effective for my students.  As an English teacher who has probably told your students a million times that they need specific evidence to back up their points, it probably won’t surprise you to hear that the top tip I received was to load my college recs with specifics. Of course, college admissions folks want us to paint them a picture of  our students with anecdotes, project descriptions, amazing moments in class when the student shone. And of course, you want to do your student justice by doing just that.  But adding more specifics was hardly going to save me time. So I started asking every student who wanted me to write their rec to fill in a sheet FULL of specifics. I asked things like: What are you most proud of from my class? When did you feel like you had a breakthrough with your writing, and how did you show it? Can you share about a specific day in class where you really felt like you shone? What’s one project that you feel like showed your ELA skills in top form?  I asked them to be as specific and detailed as possible, to help me be as specific and detailed as possible. And of course, I used their details to remind me of my own take on their work, using my own perspective ultimately to describe their success. But those sheets made all the difference as a shortcut to more effective, quicker recs.  Did all of my student love doing this? No. Some of them complained a bit, but it was a non-negotiable. It helped me write them a better letter, and it helped make it possible for me to fit it in on top of all the other things I was doing in my job. I didn’t feel even slightly guilty about it, and I don’t want you to either.   Grab your copy of the ELA Reflection Sheets Here: https://spark-creativity.ck.page/a8ec1e39d1  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! 

It's no fun announcing an argument paper and being met by groans. If your English students have arrived at your class afraid of essays, you're not the only one. And we all know, buy-in matters. When students are confronted with a task they're horrified by, it's hard for them to access their skills and motivation to do their best work. So what are you supposed to do when you hit the groan skid? Today I want to talk about some on-ramps and side paths to the argument highway. Visual tools and modern mediums to help you help your students realize argument isn't so scary. By the way, an extremely step-by-step process with lots of modeling is a classic go-to for breaking down the essay writing process and making it feel manageable, and I don't want to ignore that. Brainstorming. Outlining. Drafting. Peer editing. Self editing stations. Final drafting. That's all wonderful. But probably you do that already, and you're still here. So let's explore some other approaches you can use to complement that oh-so-valid step-by-step process that just doesn't always work to help ELA students get past their paper-writing fears.   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 you’ve ever felt like you were stuck in a rut doing the same thing day after day, I’ve got a quick mindset shift to help. I do NOT want you to give up on whole class novels, so let’s talk about how to make them work.  In theory, whole class novels are the bread and butter of the English classroom. But if you struggle to get students to read at home and you’re finding the daily routine of covering a few pages every day a total slog, I hear you. You might have heard me talk about this with Amanda from Mud & Ink Teaching last year on the pod, and I really appreciated her ideas, which, combined with hearing from lots of teachers trying to figure out how to run a whole class novel unit successfully, have led me to think even more about this. So here’s my suggestion - create days of the week that are focused on different things, and give that whole class novel a break sometimes. Sounds pretty simple, right? Too simple? Hear me out.  I’ve always been amazed at just how many things English teachers are supposed to cover, and going through every standard from 7th grade ELA to 12th grade ELA last year when I was creating planning materials for The Lighthouse just drove that point home. No doubt you’re trying to figure out how to advance your students’ work in vocabulary, writing forms, reading comprehension, public speaking, and listening. Plus, you’re a creative teacher who wants them to be engaged in real world work with an authentic audience.  Making a shift away from covering each night’s reading the next day in class will help you move forward across your priorities, and give your students more time to read in between text-centered classes.   Maybe on Mondays you spend fifteen minutes on choice reading and then you’re working on podcasts related to the essential question of your whole class novel. Tuesdays you’re doing a quick reading check-in activity and then a Harkness discussions on the chapters students have read across the previous few days on their own. Wednesdays might be focused on 15 minutes of choice reading and then  writing practice, trying a variety of creative prompts around short stories, poems, audio clips, and articles related, again, to the themes of the whole class novel but read right there in class so you know everyone is on the same page. Thursdays might be a deep dive into the whole class novel with small groups or partners engaging in activities like close reading, reader’s theater, mini-debates, theme one-pagers, or whatever else you’re excited to do related to the novel. Then Friday could be for First Chapter Fridays, 15 minutes of choice reading, and some vocabulary work.  This is just one imagined example of how you could structure a week with plenty of variety. The bottom line is, you don’t need to talk about your whole class novel every day to DO a whole class novel.    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 have old books lying around taking up space in your classroom? Books no one is ever going to read again? Recently in our Facebook group, Creative High School English, a fun visual thread erupted all about bookish page displays. So in today’s one minute idea-isode, I want to suggest you try one. You’ll clear space on your shelves, help the earth with your reuse/recycle mentality, and end up with a stunning display. Here’s how… Start by pulling the pages out of some old books. It will feel weird, I know. Save a few for the next time you’re going to do a blackout poetry project, but stack up the rest and head to your bulletin board or wall.  Ideally you’ll now work on a solid color, so paper the back of your bulletin board or choose an area of your wall with nothing on it. Next it’s time to staple or tape your pages up in the design of your choice. You might create a river of pages coming across your bulletin board, paper the bulletin board entirely in pages so it’s filled in entirely, or form the pages into a shape, like a tree, a bird, or a spiral.   Last but not least, it’s time to overlay a bookish quotation on top. Choose from the dozens of wonderful ones out there from the last few centuries of authors. You can cut out letters to make a big and bold statement, or hand letter your quotation onto a big piece of paper you can overlay on the pages.  OK, that’s a wrap on today’s episode. If you’d like more display ideas for your ELA classroom, head to the blog version linked below where you’ll see 10 fun visuals to inspire your next display.  Visit the Full ELA Bulletin Board / Display Ideas Post: https://nowsparkcreativity.com/2024/09/10-creative-ela-bulletin-boards-for-middle-and-high-school.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 want to tell you about a one week unit that has never failed to produce incredible results from my students. I’ve done it with 10th graders and 11th graders, honors students and their counterparts, American students and Bulgarian students speaking English as their second language. And I’ve loved it every. Single. Time. Wow, it’s kind of fun setting up all this suspense, but as you know, Thursday episodes are quick, so we better hop to it. The one week unit I’ve loved every time is a poetry slam unit, and I think you should try it too. Let’s walk through the week. On Monday I introduce the concept of slam. I explain the arbitrary judging, the standing up with your poem and your guts and your dream, and I explain that we’re having one on Friday. I share some of my favorite performance pieces to help kids start thinking through what performance poetry is, and I invite them to score the poems on a 1-10 as if we were having our own slam already. Hilarious disagreements ensue, and everyone quickly realizes that judging is incredibly subjective. As we get ready to prep for our slam on the next three days, I let kids sign up to be on committees that will take care of the Slam venue, the slam judging and P.R., and the slam program and emceeing.  On Tuesday, we roll into poetic devices and performance techniques, looking at, analyzing and scoring more performance poetry and beginning to workshop ideas for their own poems. We write “I am from” poems. We meet in committees. Everything seems incredibly important, because everyone knows they’ll be performing a poem in just three days. On Wednesday, we watch more poems, write more poems, and meet in committees again. At this point, most kids are zeroing in on a poem to perform in the slam. I check in with the venue committee to make sure they are formally requesting use of whatever school space they want to use on Friday and that they get approval. I check in with the program committee to make sure they are getting everyone’s titles, figuring out a fair order, and prepping an emcee who will do the event justice. I check in with the judging committee to make sure they’ve reached out respectfully to possible guest judges in the community and that they are getting some acceptances.  On Thursday, everyone is writing madly and practicing intensely. They perform alone, perform for partners, ask me questions, and keep experimenting. We might watch a few more performances. We’ll definitely meet in committees again. On Friday, everyone arrives ready (and very nervous) for what is always one of the best days of the year. The venue committee has the ambiance dialed in, usually with refreshments, fun lighting, and a surprising location. The emcee steps up to the plate and keeps everything going. The guest judges lend an air of professionalism, and make everything feel higher stakes. The poets tend to surprise themselves. I love it every time!  OK, that’s a wrap on today’s quick episode. I hope I’ve convinced you to try a poetry slam this year when you teach poetry. For me, it’s the mini-unit that never fails to engage kids around poetry in a way they didn’t expect.   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! 

Let's talk about dystopia book clubs, a compelling unit option for ELA. I taught my first dystopian fiction, 1984, to tenth graders in Bulgaria. They had very strong reactions to the way Orwell portrayed communism, since Communist rule had existed in their family's living memories. For some, Orwell nailed it. Others, outraged, clearly thought he was slandering their country's history. For everyone, the line between fiction and fact in the text felt blurry. Perhaps because of its intensity, its emotional nature, its closeness to actual events, they found it didn't read as fiction. Thinking back, I'd now say they felt it was fiction with an agenda. Fiction with a clear argument that used evidence like characterization, setting, tone, and mood to drive home its thesis. That experience has flavored the way I've read all the dystopia I've picked up since - Fahrenheit 451, The Hunger Games, Scythe, Dry... And I think it leads to fascinating questions to bring to kids. How does dystopia wield its influence? Where is the line between art and propaganda? What do dystopian authors have in their writing arsenal that other authors don't? Today I hope to convince you that dystopian book clubs are worth your time, and give you the building blocks to design your unit. We're going to talk texts, activities, and assessment possibilities. Links Mentioned:  1984 Apple Commercial Motorola Empower the People Commercial Dismaland (Maddox Gallery Writeup) Dismaland Video Tour WWI Posters from the Library of Congress   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’d like to challenge you to get your students set up on Canva and help them get comfortable on the platform with a simple assignment that will give you a great fall display, literary travel posters. Have you seen PBS’ The Great Read posters, which are available for free download on the PBS site? I’ll link them in the show notes. They’re fabulous. Each poster invites the viewer into a literary world. “Join Don Quixote on an Epic Quest” is overlaid on a lovely background of receding windmills with a small warning note, “Be Wary of Hulking Giants.” “Visit Wonderland” is fixed above a drawing of Alice falling down between purple mushrooms, with the catchy tagline, “See as many as six impossible things before breakfast!” The series includes Dune, Narnia, Harry Potter, 1984, Huck Finn, Gatsby, and more. They’re stellar additions to your classroom decor, for sure, but they also lend themselves beautifully as visual mentor texts for this little project. Ask students to choose a book that’s been meaningful to them in the past, one with a richly imagined setting. Show them the PBS posters and ask them what components seem consistent across the posters. Ask them to consider which posters they find most appealing and why, then use similar components in designing their own, on Canva.  If you’re new to Canva, I’m going to link a free step-by-step course I made for you so you can easily learn the basics that will help you and your students with a project like this.  Starting with a simple project like this one is a great way to get everyone oriented onto the platform and help students warm up to design work, at the same time that you create a fun book-focused set of posters you can use on your door, in your hallway, or around your classroom library.  OK, that’s a wrap on today’s quick episode. I hope you’re heading over now to set up a free Canva for Education account if you don’t have one yet! And no, I’m still not sponsored by them, but feel free to suggest me to any Canva Executives you know.   Check out PBS' The Great Read Poster Series: https://www.pbs.org/the-great-american-read/resources/downloads/ Take the free Canva Confidence Course: https://sparkcreativity.kartra.com/page/getCanvaconfidence  See an example poster I designed (guess what book it's from!):   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!