The Fresh Queens of ELA IRL ✏️✨

🎙️   Season 2 Episode 5 - Rhetoric is All Around   Today’s episode is all about how rhetoric (like love) is “all around!” Hannah and Ana bring in their favorite ways to set the foundation for introducing rhetorical appeals, and lessons that help students confidently transfer their knowledge to more complex ideas and perspectives.   Hannah’s Favs: - Check out Hannah’s Rhetoric Bundle...

🎙️   Season 2 Episode 4 - For the Love of Books!     In today’s episode, we discuss the philosophy of “windows, mirrors, and sliding glass doors” when it comes to fostering a love of reading in our classrooms through designated SSR and choice reads. Before this episode, we pulled 5 books from our bookshelf at random. We have no idea what the other chose; we simply let destiny run th...

🎙️ Season 2 Episode 2 - How We Romeo and Juliet    One of THE most popular, and right of passage texts for 9th grade students. How do we take this tragic “love story” and make it engaging and accessible to our students?   In this episode, we dive into our favorite ways to bring Romeo and Juliet to LIFE in our classrooms, with ESSENTIALS for setting up the text, keeping engagement hi...

🎙️ Season 2, Episode 2 - “We’re Still Here” - The Benito Bowl On the eve of this episode release, it has been exactly a week since Bad Bunny performed at the 60th Super Bowl, and we have a lot to say about it.  In this episode, Hannah and Ana break down all things Benito Bowl including how to guide authentic conversations that are already happening in the classroom, some of the intentional, i...

🎙️ Season 2, Episode 1 - New Year, New Season, New Ways to Empower Students   Welcome to SEASON 2 of The Fresh Queens of ELA IRL! 👑📚 We’re back, giving you revolutionary ways to bring ELA to life in your classroom.  In this episode, we dive into NEW THINGS exciting us inside the classroom and in our lives, as well as our FAVORITE ways for empowering student thinking and showcasing unde...

🎙️ Episode 7 - Mix & Match Your Dystopia     ✨ What you’ll hear inside: In today's episode (our final episode of Season 1!), we walk you through navigating engagement strategies for teaching a dystopian text in this world that students recognize as dystopian in many ways. We also discuss our thoughts and fave practices for Socratic seminars and having complex conversations with our...

🎙️ Episode 6 - NCTE 2025 Recap: Music, AI, and the Power of Storytelling   ✨   What you’ll hear inside: We're coming to you live and together in the same room in this episode from Denver, Colorado, where we attended and presented at the Conference for the National Council for Teachers of English, and we had an absolute blast! We recap our favorite moments and sparked ideas from the...

🎙️ Episode 5 - A Hero's Journey Remixed: The Odyssey x Stranger Things   ✨   What you’ll hear inside: We are all living the hero's journey in some way, but what IS the hero’s journey? Joseph Campbell, an American mythologist, is credited with popularizing the concept of the hero's journey, or monomyth, in his 1949 book The Hero with a Thousand Faces. There are SEVERAL different adaptati...

🎙️ Episode 4 - Identity, Expectations, and Family Dynamics: Romeo and Juliet x Freakier Friday   ✨ What you’ll hear inside: 60 sec recaps How you can attack this play from multiple lenses Our fave engagement strategies for a little razzle dazzle Tips for tackling several topics/themes Rapid fire recs (also posted below!)      Essential Questions: Journal Prompts...

🎙️ Episode 3 - We’re All A Little Outcast-y Here: Poe x Wednesday x Stranger Things   ✨ What you’ll hear inside: 60 sec recaps Our fave Poe texts + how we brought them to life in our classrooms Wednesday x Stranger Things as supplements to any spooky or outcast-themed unit Extra engagement options for a little razzle dazzle Tips for tackling heavy, dark topics Rapid fire recs (also posted be...

🎙️ Episode 2 - Your English Teacher's Favorite English Teacher: Taylor Swift x The ELA Classroom   We’re Hannah Hazelbach and Ana Perez: best friends, revolutionary ELA teachers, and your new classroom besties. ELA is alive and everywhereee, and when we can connect the texts we're reading in class to trending culture, messy human behavior, and what's popping off in everyone's FYP pa...

🎙️ Episode 1 - Survival of the Fittest: Lord of the Flies x Trainwreck Poop Cruise Welcome to the very first episode of The Fresh Queens of ELA IRL! 👑📚 We’re Hannah Hazelbach and Ana Perez: best friends, revolutionary ELA teachers, and your new classroom besties. ELA is alive and everywhereee, and when we can connect the texts we're reading in class to trending culture, messy human behavior, and...