The Spark Creativity Teacher Podcast | ELA

Today on the show we’re hearing from Valerie Boehm, who teaches a Dramatic Writing elective in Georgia as part of the state’s initiative to help more students find their way to good jobs in the film industry. So cool, right? This episode is part of our continuing series on electives, which has been SO MUCH fun to record. I hope you’re as excited to be hearing from all these wonderful teachers about the creative things they’re doing with their courses as I am! (Check out past elective episodes on Socratic Seminar, Genius Hour and SciFi & Fantasy). Whether you’re considering a new elective proposal or a new unit in one of your current courses, I think you’re going to be really intrigued by the way Valerie helps students start to understand what goes into a successful piece of dramatic writing, the ten minute play competition her students participate in, and her popular personal logo project.   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!

Join me each week for innovative teaching strategies you can use immediately in your ELA classroom, from choice reading help to book clubs, project-based-learning to AI, student podcasting to genius hour, we cover the good stuff. Whether you're trying to figure out how to engage your eighth graders, trying to help your 11th graders through the college essay, or trying to shepherd you twelfth graders through to the end, you'll find help here! Follow along on Instagram @nowsparkcreativity or visit my website at nowsparkcreativity.com 

On this week’s mini-episode, I’m remembering the moment my 11th graders asked me to please, please, please add a book to our English curriculum that wasn’t so depressing. Maybe you’ve had a similar experience? Let’s talk about what to do when your ELA curriculum is full of death and despair (as it so often is!). We were moving towards spring the year my juniors asked me why all of our books were so glum. My first instinct was to say they weren’t! Then I thought about it for a second. Adultery. Check. Death. Check. Despair. Check. We were reading The Scarlet Letter, As I Lay Dying, Death of a Salesman, and lots of other books that really don’t scream “the joy of being alive in a beautiful world full of possibilities.” As I thought back over my own English classes through college and high school, I realized the same was true. Authors were so often grappling with the difficult big human questions. Sure, there were moments of joy, of enlightenment. There was also a lot of pain.  It got me thinking about how we might showcase more balance in the ELA curriculum, and why that might be important to helping our students thrive as readers and enjoy learning about life from authors.  Have you thought about this too? Have your students brought it up? These days I think it’s easier than ever to build more variety into our English curriculum, with authors taking on issues that feel relevant to our students, but also with authors who are expressing something joyful or even allowing an ending full of hope. I think of a book like Long Way Down, that addresses painful truths but finishes with what feels like the breaking of a sad cycle and a reason to feel hopeful. I think of a graphic novel like The Dark Matter of Mona Starr, that addresses depression and isolation, but then shows a path back towards joy. I think of a poem like Gorman’s “The Things we Carry,” that explores painful American history while also paving the way for a better future.    As you choose the books for your English classes, I know there are so many things to think about. Genres, eras, key authors, and key themes all matter in ELA. But maybe, in the back of your mind, you could also keep in mind a little scale for hope and joy. For me, as a reader, those things really matter, and all those years ago my English students taught me they matter to them too. I’m definitely not suggesting you scratch all your books that deal with serious themes, I just want to highly recommend that we make room for all kinds of stories, including those with happy endings.   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! 

Last night I dreamed I was teaching in a new classroom, except it had layers of stuff on the walls from three other teachers across twenty years of teaching. I couldn't find anything, and I couldn't change the set-up because I didn't know what was important to my colleagues. It was awful. Am I the only one to ever have a classroom set-up nightmare? Maybe. But the thing is, where you teach and how it feels really does help shape your year. So what can you do right now, during this final push to summer, to leave yourself a beautiful, organized space to return to at back-to-school season? Today's episode will give you seven steps you can take right now to make your August exponentially lighter. If you can find time for these steps now, I believe you'll head into summer feeling lighter and more confident about your return later on. Links Mentioned: The Hurried Teacher's Guide to Digital Organization: https://nowsparkcreativity.com/2021/07/the-hurried-teachers-guide-to-digital-organization.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, let’s talk about my favorite online teacher tool, Canva. If you haven’t signed up for their free educator program yet, this summer is the perfect time! You can explore all the design tools this wonderful website has to offer, and be ready in the fall to start using it in class. Plus, I’ve got a free mini course ready to help you do it. Today, let’s do a quick rundown on why I think you should.   Did you know Canva began as a program to help make yearbook advisers’ lives easier? Yep, I learned all about it listening to the founder on NPR’s podcast, How I Built This.  Canva basically provides easy versions of the complex designer tools available in programs like Photoshop. Instead of spending months learning Photoshop or paying a graphic designer, people in a huge variety of positions can now just click into Canva and design whatever they want quickly and easily. By the way, this episode is not sponsored by Canva, although I’m EXTREMELY open to a partnership, lol.  My husband just used Canva to design a t-shirt for our neighborhood triathlon at the cabin this summer. I just used it to create mood boards for our new house. My son just used it to make a restaurant menu for his English class. Even my eight year old loves to design her own bookmarks on Canva.  As an educator, you can use it to create hyperdocs, flashcards, posters, infographics, newsletters, certificates, club t-shirts, project models, project handouts, vocabulary quizzes, slide decks, and pretty much anything else you create for work.  You can also gift your students comfort with the program when you guide them through using it to create research carousels, podcast covers, slide decks, infographics, press releases, review posters, and pretty much anything else they create that requires visuals.  Canva’s tools are not so different from the ones you see on Slides, except they’re easier to use in designs once you get used to them. Will it take a few hours of practice? Sure. But it’s so worth it! My easy mini-course will set you up for success if you’d like a hand, and I’ll be sure to link it in the show notes. Canva has made a HUGE positive difference in my life as an educator, and this week, I want to highly recommend you let it do the same for you. Grab the Canva Confidence Free Mini-Course: https://sparkcreativity.kartra.com/page/getCanvaconfidence    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!   

You want the last day of ELA to be special, but what does that mean exactly? And who has the energy to think up this special plan when you're juggling allll the end-of-year things? If you'd like a fast, easy solution to the last day of your ELA classes, today I'm proposing (ha ha, I just accidentally typed PROMposing) stations. Stations are an easy way to get whatever dots have to be dotted and Ts have to be crossed at the same time as you build in a few fun things and keep everything lively so the time flies. The goodbye speech can only last so long.  Grab the Summer Reading Bookmarks: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/12waoiIk0gdYMVYZPM8DnU17_RgJZhLlFKofqy2oFjM4/copy  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, let’s talk summer school. Because I know that if you ARE teaching summer school, you’d like it to be engaging. Memorable. Creative. Superfantasticaliciousexpialadocious. But of course there’s the issue of you’re tired. And so are your ELA students. And maybe they’re not that excited to be there.  So let’s run through two quick strategies for adding oomph and engagement to July. Here’s my top suggestion - change up your texts, and provide variety. Summer school is the perfect time to experiment in English class with graphic novels, novels-in-verse, podcasts, performance poetry, graphic essays, and contemporary pieces. Get audiobook access whenever you can. Connect kids to electronic books through your local library on Libby so they can translate when needed. Run book clubs, choice reading, mini-units on compelling quick reads.  Next, I want to suggest you try to provide real-world contexts for practicing the ELA skills you want students to develop. Develop units around blogging or podcasting, let them share research through infographics or Instagram-style carousels, dig into a Youtube unit and create video. Build your skill practice around the mediums you think are most likely to engage your students. You can teach argument through a video project in which kids recommend the best sneakers and hot chip brands. You can teach narrative through a suspense fiction podcast. You can practice rhetorical analysis by creating commercials for students’ favorite video games.  While summer school just doesn’t scream fun for most kids, this is your chance to kick that narrative in the teeth. Think of it as your innovative ELA learning lab, in which you and your students will approach the learning goals in new ways that YOU are excited about. It’s your chance to finally run those podcast clubs, teach that Youtube unit, and bring in that graphic novel you love. Free from the restrictions of the regular year, summer school is your chance to teach with your full creative self, and this week, I just want to highly recommend that you do! 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! 

As the sun rises a little earlier each day and the cherry trees in our neighborhood fill with fruit, our three years in Europe are coming to a close. With only a few weeks left of this European family adventure, I find myself thinking back over all that we've seen and done and learned. Highs like winter paddleboarding in Barcelona, nighttime tobaganning in Slovakia and hiking by herds of sheep along the south Coast of Wales together. Eating dark chocolate gelato with whipped cream in Rome and caramelized banana oatmeal in London. Watching Croatian fireworks explode above our balcony on New Year's Eve and Hungarian light shows at the Christmas markets in Budapest. Lows like croup in Nuremberg and COVID in Split, Scarlet Fever in Tuscany, a broken arm in Spain and a CAT scan in an Austrian emergency room. Lows of loneliness that could creep in unexpectedly, anxiety that could catch hold in that moment when I'd realize just how little backup was behind us if we hit a rough patch. So here we are, getting ready to say goodbye, and I just wanted to share a little of this life abroad. Maybe you're thinking of coming overseas yourself, or maybe you've tuned in a bit to our adventure, and you're interested to hear how the story ends. Today on the podcast, let's talk about the good stuff, the medium stuff, and the tough stuff. 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 want to talk about a fantastic podcast for you to use in class if you teach Shakespeare. With dozens of intriguing episodes like "Shakespeare and Game of Thrones," "Shakespeare and YA Novels," and "Pop Sonnets," The Shakespeare Unlimited Podcast, by the Folger Shakespeare Library,  is a great way to bring in modern connections and relevancy to whatever play you're studying. Today I’ll give you a quick rundown on four fun episodes, and then I hope you’ll go exploring on your own to find more episodes that could help your students make connections between your chosen Shakespearean text and modern life.  In “Akala and Hip Hop Shakespeare,” Akala explores how the rhyme and rhythm of Shakespeare as well as the deep meaning  relates to the same components of hip hop. He talks about the traditions of music flowing out of Africa and into the diaspora, and also brings up questions of who education is for and how Shakespeare came to be associated with elite society.  In “Shakespeare and YA Novels,” two novelists talk about how they have used Shakespeare’s work to inspire their own, and how they felt connecting themselves to someone so renowned. In “William Shakespeare’s Star Wars,” one author  explains how and why he came to rewrite the Star Wars series in Shakespearean language. Bet you didn’t see that one coming!  And in “Pop Sonnets,” a popular online writer shares the story of how he came to rewrite pop songs as Shakespearean sonnets. And spoiler alert, they sure did become a sensation!  When integrating episodes like this into class, try giving students a sketchnotes template to provide a little loose structure as they listen. Let them know how you’ll be using the text moving forward, so they have a reason to pay attention. Maybe it’s going to lead into a writing activity, a silent discussion, or a mini-podcast project of your own!  Shakespeare can sometimes feel far away to students, but Shakespeare Unlimited helps bridge the gap. That’s why this week I want to highly recommend you hit follow on their feed and see what wonders you discover.  Links Mentioned: Explore the Shakespeare Unlimited Podcast: https://www.folger.edu/podcasts/shakespeare-unlimited/     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!   

Choice reading can sometimes feel like an out-of-reach dream. I recently heard from a busy teacher who wrote, "I love choice reading, but squeezing it in can be tough!" Yeah, I get that. There's so much going on in ELA. In today's episode, we're talking about how to squeeze more choice reading moments into your busy schedule. Even if you don't have time to hand over 10 minutes in class for reading regularly, you can still build your choice reading program with quick-and-easy additions like these. 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!