The Spark Creativity Teacher Podcast | ELA

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!

On this week’s mini-episode, I want to answer a question from our community about reading in class. Here it is “ Hi all. Next year my middle school will be implementing a 45-minute every-other-day reading block for all students. All teachers (ELA or not) will be required to cover the class. I am wondering…what you do with it…” In today’s episode, I’m going to weigh in on how I would use a gift like this. If you give kids time to read in class, hopefully you’ll find some helpful ideas in how you can structure it so you all enjoy that time and benefit from it as much as possible. The most important thing in my mind would be to make sure every student has access to a good book during this reading block. You could make bringing your book the only grade for this block, but even if you do, it’ll be essential to have wonderful books available during this time because no matter what you do, some kids will forget their book. I’d work with your librarian or department to make sure that there is a shelf of great age-appropriate reads available in every room. Then, as much as possible, I’d try to integrate some book recommendations. That could mean coordinating with the English department to create recommended reading posters, sharing short videos of authors reading from their work - similar to a First Chapter Friday - inviting a couple of kids to share what they’re reading if they’re loving it,  And probably putting together some kind of curated digital access so students can hook into great e and audiobooks that others have enjoyed. The English department could also be the ones to help every student pick out their first book at the start of the program to get the ball rolling productively.  This type of program, like any choice reading program, is going to build in momentum over time. Kids will likely struggle to sit in silence for 45 minutes at a time to read, especially if they don’t have a book they like. As much as possible, the early days of reading blocks should involve plenty of book PR in all its wonderful forms, and PLENTY of fantastic books available in audiobook, electronic, and physical format. Provide graphic novels, novels-in-verse, amazing series books, fantasy, scifi, and other popular genres alongside the classics. Ideally, every teacher monitoring this block could have a bit of training in watching for unengaged readers, so they can step over and suggest switching to a different book if a student’s current read is clearly boring them. Over time, as your reading culture grows and their reading muscles are strengthened, it will get easier.  Anytime you can get time to let kids read at school, in my mind it’s a win. But a quiet room and the opportunity to read will only delight a handful of students at first. This week, I want to highly recommend that whether you’re working on a whole school program or a short reading block for your own class, you remember that it takes time and sustained, enthusiastic book PR to help build a culture of reading where none exists. Keep curating great titles, offering recommendations, putting up posters, and connecting kids with whatever book will get them started on the 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! 

What would you do if you had nine weeks to help ELA students imagine the real-world use of ELA skills? Inside the unique elective wheel program at Lisa Jones' school, students explore each discipline for nine weeks before moving onto the next. To show them literacy in action, Lisa has crafted an elective with three real-world projects to help them imagine how they might use their ability to communicate across modern mediums. Listen (or read) on to dive into these three real-world projects with us. Whether you'd like to create a Literacy in Action elective of your own, or just add more real-world projects to one of your other courses, you'll find plenty of ideas in the show today. 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!   

This week let’s talk about careers. I don’t know if you can relate, but I graduated from high school with a general awareness of maybe six careers - law, medicine, teaching, ministry, science, and business. Let’s talk about how we can show our English students a broader view of what’s out there - and build in some ELA skills to the process.  A fun way to start any ELA careers unit is with a careers scavenger hunt,  an easy form of research students can do as they move through their days. Just ask your students to begin noticing the careers they’re interacting with, making a list of every career they can think of that relates to what they do for one day. Challenge them to come up with at least twenty-five.  For example, they wake up and check their phones (social media influencer, programmer, designer, app creation, phone sales), pick up coffee (coffee shop manager or owner, organic coffee farmer, pastry chef, interior designer, contractor, advertising agent), go to school (teacher, administrator, politician, secretary, department chair, electrician, engineer), head for the mall (clothing designer, clothing buyer, social media for clothing lines, marketer, photographer, restaurant manager, chef, furniture buyer, urban planner etc.). As students begin to think about all the different jobs associated with their own daily routines, it’ll help open their eyes to the many careers out there.  Similarly, you can help your English students begin to think beyond the surface by having them write down a field they’re interested in and research to discover  twenty-five different jobs in that field. What jobs are connected to film director? SO many. To doctor? To teacher? To chef? This is a really fun activity to stretch student’s imaginations. Then have students walk around to see each other’s lists, jotting down the one career on each other list that most appeals to them.  Diving a little deeper, one unique way of approaching a careers unit is to start a class careers blog, inviting each student to shadow someone whose line of work interests them and then make a contribution to the blog based on what they learn. The contribution could be a video they make about the experience, a narrative profile they write about the person they shadow, a Q & A style written interview, a photo essay, or something else. If you’re going to publish the careers blog online so that all students can access the many wonderful resources they create for each other, and so that other students can add to it in the coming years, be sure to get the permission of those being shadowed to publish their image and story online.  Another lower stakes project is to let students create timelines of start-up companies, based on NPR’s show, How I Built This. Let students choose an episode based on a company they’re actually interested in, and create timelines to show how the company grew (generally slowly, with lots of setbacks and lots of commitment and creativity from the creator!). Then share these timelines in a gallery walk or with mini-presentations so students get a taste of many different stories.  Similarly, you could create a class podcast, having each student contribute by recording an interview with someone about their career. Students could learn to reach out with inquiries, write interview questions, and record sound clips. So many valuable real-world skills here!  Hopefully after completing a few of these fun ELA activities, your students will have a broader view of the working world and a little more motivation to care about the skills they’re learning in your classroom. After all, restaurant owners need to be able to write e-mail newsletters these days. Business owners may draw clientele through podcasting and social media captions.  App designers must be able to pitch their ideas through strong presentations to venture capitalists. You know what I’m getting at.  A careers unit has the potential to be incredibly engaging - who isn’t curious about their life options? And it also has the potential for plenty of ELA skill practice - research, interview skills, writing and speaking. So today, I just want to highly recommend that if you’ve got a little hole and a lot of students who don’t really know what they want to be - you consider adding a creative careers unit to your lineup.   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 on the show, we’ll find out what happened when an administrator attended a student’s genius hour project presentation about a new elective she wanted to see proposed Teaching African American Literature. Spoiler alert, magic. We’re continuing our elective series today, and I’m delighted to tell you we're hearing from passionate veteran teacher Bethany Yuninger. She'll be sharing her African American Literature Elective, and wait til you hear the story of how this elective came to be - it's incredible!   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 answer a question sent in by a member of our community. Here’s what she writes: Hi Betsy, I have classes of 10th graders who are SO divergent in skill levels. Some are reading Murakami for fun, and some are reading at a 5th grade level. I am struggling to differentiate for them and provide challenge for the strong and support for the others.” Today on the show, I’m going to offer some ideas for this listener, and I hope they can help you too, if you find yourself in the same boat. My first thought with this class is to suggest trying hard to have a range of whole class texts, book clubs, podcast clubs, choice reading units, and choice-based projects with lots of final product options. I recently finished reading Katie Novak and her team’s Book, Universal Design for Learning in Language Arts, and so much of what she talks about in that book would apply here.  Universal Design for Learning - which by the way I would highly recommend exploring -  suggests that when you plan bearing the needs of all your learners in mind, you better serve every learner. By providing the options and scaffolds that will help one group of students, you’ll actually be serving up a stronger learning experience.  One of my favorite quotes from the book is “UDL lives in the OR.” So let’s talk about how you might apply the choices inspired by UDL to a unit with a highly varied group of readers. Let’s say you’re going into book clubs about identity. You want to provide options that can engage every reading level, without simplifying the content since you know your students are mature thinkers.  Maybe you also have several students who have trouble decoding print and several emerging bilinguals who recently immigrated from Latin America. So as you design your book clubs, keeping all these kids in mind, you choose two graphic novels that weave memoir together with stunning illustrations that help to tell the story, one verse novel that is both engaging and accessible, a longer historical fiction novel that you also have the audiobook for, and a contemporary award-winning YA novel that’s available both in audiobook and ebook on Libby, which has an option to translate into fifteen other languages including Spanish.  You’ve now created a lot of different paths into texts that approach identity, providing options for readers and learners with different strengths and challenges.The audiobook version may benefit a student with a high reading level that’s incredibly busy caring for his siblings, as well as a student who has trouble decoding print. The graphic and verse novels may help readers who need a ladder back to books, and also open up new genres for your advanced readers. The idea in UDL is that every student benefits from all this “or,” all these choices. Now let’s say you’re moving into a whole class text - The Odyssey. Again, if you consider the needs of every learner, you can gather different access points for the text. You can make several copies of Gareth Hinds’ Graphic Novel version available to check out as well as look at during class time. You can help connect students to electronic versions they can translate. You can look for the best audiobook version of the best translation out there. And you can practice close reading both visual and print passages with your students in class, modeling the strategies all readers need to dig deep into the meaning behind the pages. Then there’s choice reading, and you probably know what I’m going to say here. Building a thriving choice reading program is an incredible way to support your readers on every level. When you provide a huge range of options, from picture books to graphic novels to novels-in-verse to short stories to fantasy to the classics, you’ll be able to meet your readers where they are and help them progress. I’ve got a lot of episodes out about this already, so I won’t dig in too far. But you can build whole units around choice books, letting kids read what feels right to them and still creating a class curriculum built around the development of skills you want to see improve and projects that offer many choices.  OK, I’m going a bit long on what is supposed to be a mini episode! But if this is an issue that is always on your mind - as it is for so many educators - today I want to highly recommend you remember that one simple phrase, “UDL lives in the OR.” And maybe grab yourself a copy of Universal Design for Learning in Language Arts. It’s a quick read, and I’m giving it all the gold stars.   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!