So you want your students to get better at something, but drill-and-kill is clearly not the answer. Been there, done that, didn't like it. So what's a creative teacher to do? Today I'm going to pull an example of a grammar skill and walk through five different ways to practice it without those groans you dread. While the skill I'm zooming in on may not be the exact one that's your focus right now, you can apply these five different strategies to pretty much anything. I'm hopeful that by the end of this quick show, your mind will be buzzing with new ideas for tackling the next skill your students need help with. 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, I want to share a great way to tie rhetorical analysis into the upcoming Superbowl.  First things first, we know this Superbowl has a hilarious additional wrinkle, in that the world is excited to watch not only the game, but Taylor Swift attending the game. That extra detail may help more students be interested in a Superbowl-related activity this month. So let me explain this rhetorical analysis one-pager activity (by the way, link to this free resource is in the show notes). The activity focuses in on two incredible Superbowl performances of the past - one by Whitney Houston during the war in Iraq, and one by Amanda Gorman during the pandemic. Each performance is uniquely tied to its context, providing students the opportunity to examine rhetorical situation in a way that will really help cement its role in understanding rhetoric. Rhetorical situation can often be more confusing for students than the basics of ethos, pathos, and logos. You can have students choose either of the performances, based on their preference, and then work on the one-pager template to explore the speaker, audience, and context of the performance in three of the sections and then the rhetorical appeals in the heart of the paper, paying attention of course to ethos, pathos, and logos.  These powerful Superbowl performances past are a perfect way to help kids understand how tied rhetorical appeals are to their context, and it will make for a fun lesson connected to what’s happening in the world at the moment. That’s why this week I want to highly recommend you follow the link below to grab this free resource and try it out.  Grab your copy of this Superbowl Rhetorical Analysis Activity here: https://spark-creativity.ck.page/b5d2366aaa 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 second episode of the author spotlight series here at Spark Creativity! In this series, you’ll hear from authors sharing their work directly into your classroom. Today we’re hearing from Matt de la Peña reading his short story "How to Transform an Everyday, Ordinary Hoop Court into a Place of Higher Learning and You at the Podium," from the collection, Flying Lessons. Stay tuned throughout the year to hear from many more wonderful authors, including Victor Pineiro, Payal Doshi, and Nancy Tandon. You can also check out the first episode in the collection, featuring Megan E. Freeman reading from her novel-in-verse, Alone. Today we’re hearing from Matt de la Pena, reading from his short story “How to Transform an Everyday Ordinary Hoop Court into a Place of Higher Learning and You at the Podium,” from the collection Flying Lessons and other Stories. Matt de la Peña is the New York Times-bestselling, Newberry Medal-winning author of seven young adult novels (including Mexican WhiteBoy, We Were Here and Superman: Dawnbreaker) and five picture books (including Last Stop on Market Street and Love). Matt received his MFA in creative writing from San Diego State University and his BA from the University of the Pacific, where he attended school on a full athletic scholarship for basketball. My hope is that you’ll play this episode to your students on an upcoming Friday, sharing the guiding sketchnotes handout below with them so they can jot down their key takeaways as they listen. This short story is utterly fantastic, one of my favorites of all time to share with students! ⭐​ Grab the Sketchnotes to go with this episode:  https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1mxNfVE710zqUkfb8iGBjZGIA9A2aldz71E3VwNkf4do/copy   ⭐​ Project the Youtube version for your students in class: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iajc4RH28Pg  ⭐​​ Learn more about Matt de la Peña and his work: https://mattdelapena.com/

This week, I want to share a quick way to help make your next discussion better. The next time you plan a discussion in class, start it off with this quick warm up. Invite every student to write an open-ended question about the reading or the current book at the top of their notes. Then ask them to pass their notebook to the left and let their neighbor respond for a minute. Then have them pass again. The next neighbor reads the question, the response, and then responds to both. Maybe do it two more times. Now pass all the notebooks back. As you begin your discussion, invite someone to ask a question they responded to to the group. They won’t be taking much of a personal risk, asking someone else’s question. And you know at least two other people have given it some thought at this point. Your class is now primed to talk about the questions on everyone’s mind, since every question on paper has already received some serious thought from several people. When discussion begins to fade on the first question, invite the next.  I usually use warm-ups like this with a student-led discussion format called Harkness. So students know that I am not going to dive into every silence to rescue the group, and they ask the questions on their own. If you’re curious about that method, shoot me a DM on Instagram @nowsparkcreativity and I can do another show about it if you want.  I’ve repeatedly found that 5-10 minute discussion warm-ups make all the difference in creating a richer and more active discussion, so that’s why this week I want to highly recommend that you give one a try! I’m sure you’ll think of lots more ideas once the concept of a warm-up becomes built into your routine.  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!   

We've been talking this month about the paper pile. The work bag shadow. The stack of essays you just might have taken to the ice cream social/Superbowl party/beach vacation/bar/hospital... Today I want to share a strategy I honestly think every teacher can use to save time on grading and actually help kids improve their writing more. This episode is going to be quick and, if you decide to try it, impactful. I'm not going to go on and on, because you'll quickly get the idea and then I'd rather you use your time to go IMPLEMENT. We all know there are certain errors that come up time and time again. If you teach middle schoolers, you've probably used margin space in about a thousand papers to explain again the idea that they need to connect their evidence to their point, making the argument clear. If you teach older kids, perhaps you've walked around the be-sure-your-thesis-is-arguable block so many times you could write the commentary in your sleep. And then there are the little things, like writing in the present tense, how to cite quotations, and using precise language instead of making mention of "things" and "stuff." What I want to suggest is that you never re-write the fixes for these common errors in the margins of students' writing again. Instead, I want you to create a hyperdoc featuring each of these errors and their fixes to refer your students to whenever they make one, and feel free to get as glitzy as you want with color coding and linking and imagery and models. What should go in your Common Errors Hyperdoc? 🔴​​ Maybe they'll see a colorful infographic you've designed to show the elements of an arguable thesis. 🟠​ Maybe they'll have a chance to click on a screencast video of you walking through a model where a student's thesis was not arguable and explaining what the student needed to do to fix it. 🟡​ Maybe they can read four types of model introductory paragraphs (that ChatGPT will be happy to help you write if you don't have student models from the past) introducing theses that ARE arguable. 🟢​ Maybe they'll see a linked video from one of the many excellent University Writing Labs walking them through the process of making sure a thesis is arguable. 🔵​ Maybe they'll see ALL of this. Because you'll be able to create this and add to it over the years as you find new resources, giving it more and more depth as an incredible tool to help your writers. I made you a template and some examples in Canva (try it on for size with this link). 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, I want to tell you a story about pancakes. You might know I love to cook and bake. My instagram stories feature enough pan-banging cookie demonstrations, bread-baking Sundays, and chocolate donut dipping and sprinkling to show my secret food blogger tendencies. So of course, I have a treasured pancake recipe, and my family loves a good weekend pancake morning. But here’s the thing, pancakes take a little bit of forever. Especially these. And I don’t always feel like making pancakes for two hours on a weekend morning, even though I do love making food. So a couple months ago when my son asked me to make pancakes, and I just didn’t feel like I had the hours to give, I suggested that he make them. At first he was a bit stunned. "Me? Make the pancakes?” But I said I would teach him how to do it and make them with him, if he would learn the process so he could start making them.  So that’s what we did. I showed him the recipe, helped him find all the materials, and guided him through it. Everyone loved the pancakes, and we all showered him with compliments. A couple days later, he made them again, and I only helped with egg cracking and butter melting. More compliments. More joy for him. He started making pancakes to warm up on school mornings. He asked to make them for dinner when his grandparents were visiting, and the grandparents loved them. Soon he was cracking his own eggs, and I didn’t even need to be in the vicinity of the kitchen anymore. So why am I telling you this? Well, for almost every teacher and parent I know, time is the great struggle. How to do it all? And sometimes that means letting things go, even if you know you’re good at them and maybe they even feel like a part of your identity. Is it possible you could teach student volunteers to make beautiful book displays in your library each month? And that those students might actually feel really proud and pleased with the job? Might you be able to empower student leaders on a team that you coach to plan part of practice time, give pep talks, or help set up or clean up practice equipment? Might you be able to let go of something in your household that your children or partner might be good at too? Maybe you want to try student-led discussion via the Harkness method, rather than trying to spearhead it every day yourself.  Every time I see my son eating the lovely pancakes he makes, I have to smile to myself. While no one is now complimenting “Mama’s pancakes,” I love to see him feeling good about what he can do and I’m happy to have the time for other things. That’s why this week, I want to highly recommend you ask yourself what kind of pancake project can you launch? (That has nothing to do with pancakes).  So I wonder, is there something you can turn into your own personal pancake 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!   

I'll never forget the "C" I got on my first English paper in college. I was walking across the quad in the warm eucalyptus-scented California air when I confidently pulled my paper from my bag to look at the comments. The day suddenly slid into grayscale as I saw my grade. After a lifetime of "A" and "Great job" written at the bottom of every paper, fresh from winning the English award at my high school awards night, I was totally unprepared for the many, many scrawled notes about the problems in my paper. I walked into class the next day in a daze, and listened to my professor as he went into a terrifying but effective rant. Apparently I wasn't the only freshmen to confidently turn in a paper that wasn't nearly complex enough. His speech has stuck with me. "Your rough draft," he said at one point. "Is a chair." He scrawled an incredibly messy chair on the whiteboard for emphasis. "And you have to take that chair," he sputtered. "And build a boat!" We students glanced at each other, a little overwhelmed. A boat? Today I want to talk about the chair and the boat, and some of the process that happens in between. Because let's face it, most kids (high school me included) really struggle to understand the work that happens between ROUGH drafts and final drafts. And it's perhaps the most crucial part of the writing process. The strategy we're going to dive into now, self-editing stations, can help scaffold editing for  your English students, saving them from falling into the usual traps, allowing you to intervene on behalf of key writing improvements you're trying to help them make BEFORE they turn in their work, and ultimately, saving your commenting time for only the most important personalized suggestions. 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, I want to share a quick resource to help you celebrate Black Artists and Authors in your classroom next month.  Last year I started a project to create heritage displays you can use in your classroom throughout the year for special months like Black History month, Women’s History month, Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, Pride month, and more. Each display has a colorful header and a series of interactive posters featuring artists, creators, activists, and authors. Students can read the bio and scan the QR code on each poster to go learn more about the featured person. February’s display features Zora Neal Hurston, Ralph Ellison, Toni Morrison, Langston Hughes, Maya Angelou, Amanda Gorman, Jason Reynolds, and more. It’s a super quick display to put up - you just print out the pieces and put them up on some colorful paper on your bulletin board, door, or hallway. I’d love to share this free resource with you and help you get ready for Black History Month right around the corner! Then you can snag some books featured in the display to put up on your windowsill, along the top of your shelves, and along your whiteboard tray, and you’ll be ready to rock.  Easy, right? Here's the link to grab this free resource: https://spark-creativity.ck.page/93cae16cef  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!   

I recently polled our community on Instagram about the paper pile. Because let's face it, it's a huge part of an English teacher's life. How many papers will you assign? How will you grade them? When will you grade them? These become defining questions. I heard from teachers who have graded papers at an ice cream social, at the bar, at a Superbowl party, in the emergency room, in the delivery room, in a parent's recovery room at the hospital room, at the beach, and more. I certainly remember the folders of papers always weighing down my bag from my teaching life. And I remember grading past midnight. I'm sure you can relate to all of this. But more than ever lately, are you asking the same question as me? DOES IT HAVE TO BE THIS WAY? The teaching profession has suffered through many difficult challenges of late, and the teacher shortage is the newest on a long list. I see many colleagues leaving the classroom or thinking about leaving, and while I know there are many factors, the crush of grading still feels like one of the biggest. After all, there would be more time to creatively deal with planning, admin tasks, differentiation, parent communication, and everything else if English teachers weren't trying to find four or five hours a week to stare down the paper pile. So today I want to suggest something, just my two cents. I think it would be better to dramatically change the way you grade to give yourself back time, than to be pushed out of the classroom by your paper pile, or made miserable by it. I think this is a conversation we need to be having honestly with our colleagues, and I hope this podcast might lead you to bring it up with your department if you feel you can.  Today on the podcast I'm going to share six ideas for taking back some of your grading time, and then in several upcoming episodes I'll be going deeper with some of these strategies. 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 first episode of the author spotlight series here at Spark Creativity! In this series, you’ll hear from authors sharing their work directly into your classroom. Today we’re hearing from Megan E. Freeman, reading from her book, Alone. Stay tuned throughout the year to hear from many more wonderful authors, including Matt de la Peña, Payal Doshi, and Nancy Tandon. Megan E. Freeman attended an elementary school where poets visited her classroom every week to teach poetry, and she has been a writer ever since. Her bestselling novel in verse, ALONE, won the Colorado Book Award, the Massachusetts, Maine, and Vermont children’s book awards, is an NCTE Notable Verse Novel, and is included on over two dozen "best of" and state reading lists. Megan is also a Pushcart Prize-nominated poet. My hope is that you'll play this episode to your students on an upcoming Friday, sharing the guiding sketchnotes handout featured below with them so they can jot down their key takeaways as they listen. Grab the sketchnotes handout here: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1Ox4NNN9SZOG2oR1AQsHxyf0txLrrcR81gFP1sLbsIo0/copy  You can find the text of the first 60 pages of the book available free on Overdrive. If you'd like to project this episode on Youtube with an image of Megan and her book to give kids a visual as they listen, you can find it here.  Learn more about Megan E. Freeman Megan E. Freeman attended an elementary school where poets visited her classroom every week to teach poetry, and she has been a writer ever since. Her bestselling novel in verse, ALONE, won the Colorado Book Award, the Massachusetts, Maine, and Vermont Children’s Book Awards, is an NCTE Notable Verse Novel, and is included on over two dozen "best of" and state reading lists. Megan is also a Pushcart Prize-nominated poet, and her poetry chapbook, Lessons on Sleeping Alone, was published by Liquid Light Press. An award-winning teacher with decades of classroom experience, Megan taught multiple subjects across the arts and humanities to students K-16, and she is nationally recognized for presenting workshops and speaking to audiences across the country. She studied theater and dramatic literature for many years, earning degrees from Occidental College and the Ohio State University.  Megan is a member of the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators, Northern Colorado Writers, Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers, Columbine Poets of Colorado, and Lighthouse Writers Workshop. She is an Impact on Education Award winner, a National Writing Project fellow , a Fund for Teachers fellow, and a member of the Colorado Poets Center. She used to live in northeast Los Angeles, central Ohio, northern Norway, and on Caribbean cruise ships. Now she divides her time between northern Colorado and the Texas Gulf Coast. Visit her website here.