The Spark Creativity Teacher Podcast | ELA

I never met a short story I liked back in high school. If I was going to read, I wanted to READ. I wanted to get caught up in the plot, get to know the characters, inhabit the action, spend some time in another world. I certainly didn't want to finish half an hour after I began. No matter how lovely the language or innovative the miniature plot. My eyes just drifted over short story sections at bo...

Last year, at this time, I was preparing to move from Bratislava to California when I released the episode we're revisiting today, all about the easiest way to approach the last day in ELA. And it turned out to be the most popular episode I've ever released, with more than 25,000 teachers tuning in. So it seems only fitting that as the end of the year approaches once again, and my life is ONCE AGA...

A few engaging review activities for ELA come in handy around this time of year, as the calendar takes over and students pop off to random awards ceremonies, spirit events, and slideshows. Sometimes you see them for one day in a row, sometimes two, but getting in a groove is definitely a challenge! So, in case you're in search of creative review activities that will get students looking back over...

When it comes to evidence in their argument papers, students have a tendency to mic drop way too soon. "Here's my evidence, BOOOOOOOM!" you can almost hear them saying. Because right after the evidence, they move on. Oops. That's not what we want, and I bet you've written "be sure to analyze this evidence and explain how it proves your point" a few (hundred) times. So what do we do? How do we make...

Sure, there's no one right way to write an argument paper. It can be three paragraphs, nine, or even seventeen. It can be loaded with research. It can be full of voice and personal anecdotes. It can be intensely academic, with a formal objective perspective and thirty-two sources cited with MLA. We want our students to understand the rich palette of tools available to them, and mentor texts, varie...

I have to admit my kids have got me fully invested in "Is it Cake?" At some point in England last year, someone begged for us to watch the show while we ate green pesto pasta on the couch after a long day of hiking in the New Forest, and I said sure. It was the beginning of our "Is it Cake?" era. We've gasped, we've squinted, we've cheered. We all love trying to tell which one is a purse and which...

I miss the Eras tour. Even though it hasn't been that long. My daughter is requesting Wicked songs and Katy Perry in the car all of a sudden, instead of our usual Taylor Swift-a-thon. But I haven't forgotten the joys of the Swiftiverse. And today I want to share a prompt you could use with any poem, short story, or novel that comes from Taylor's music, specifically her approach to bridges. Links M...

It's poetry month, and that means it's time for me to share as many poetry activities, poetry projects, and poetry workshops as I can muster over here! Today, I'm going to walk you through a toolkit of creative poetry options for your ELA classroom.  We'll start with one of my favorite introductory activities for any poetry unit, poetry collage, and then go full steam ahead through poetry one-page...

T his winter, inspired by cool bookish tournament projects by Melissa Alter Smith of  Teach Living Poets and Jared Amato of Project Lit , I decided to launch my own English teacher-y tournament. I wanted to know - of the hundreds of amazing books out there - which were working BEST in the classroom for the teachers in our community? After polling over 2000 teachers over in Creative High School Eng...

If you're teaching Long Way Down (and ready for some Long Way Down lesson plan ideas!), let me just start by saying "YAY!" It's a reader-maker, an incredible book you can teach in a short time with a high impact. Today, I'm going to be sharing some of my favorite ideas and resources for you to pair with this book. We'll talk about discussion formats, project ideas, Jason Reynolds-themed multimedia...

Today's guest, middle school teacher Susan Taylor, has repeatedly gone the extra mile to build a reading program that makes an impact. Not only does she guide her students towards the best books available, she guides her teaching network the same way, through her podcast, Wonder World Book Cafe . Today, we're going to go rapid fire through her favorites to recommend to students, and why she likes...

If you've ever felt stymied over the fact that some of your students aren't sure how to write a thesis while others are ready to tackle counterargument, today's episode is for you. Not so long ago, Kareem Farah of the Modern Classrooms Project was here to share the MCP vision for a differentiated blended classroom, and how it can support all learners (and all teachers!). Today, his founding partne...

It all started with 1984 , as so many things do. I wanted students to see how the ideas in the book were splashed across the world around them - yes, in their magazines and ads, but also in the current events they saw on the news and the news sites covering them. So I asked them to create collages, connecting 1984 to their lives. As we put the collages up across one wall on the classroom, the star...

You've probably heard me talk about my first poetry slam. The project that became my go-to vehicle for teaching poetry every year that followed. The book I was handed - 6 American Poets - was chock full of great poetry. Dickinson, Whitman, Hughes… but I knew that I, like every paper worth reading, would need a solid hook.  That's how I ended up staying up til one in the morning the night before my...

I can still remember the faded, chipped blue print of my childhood game of Memory. The thick cardboard squares we flipped in search of pairs, thrilled when we found a match, frustrated when we accidentally revealed a match to our opponent. I've played a million games now as a parent too, watching my children's eyes light up when they rack up more matches than I do, which is pretty much every time....

Teaching an ELA elective that you've dreamed up yourself is such a joy. Today I want to stir up some ideas together for the next time you've got the chance to put your own spin on an older course or propose a new course altogether. So let's start with a few questions: Would you rather take a course called "Theater" or "Contemporary Theater: The Triumphs of Hamilton & Wicked "? "Creative Writing" o...

Like most of us, Christina Schneider didn't find teaching writing one bit easy at first. Despite her background as a journalist, putting all the puzzle pieces together in the classroom to help her students understand how to build a thesis, introduce and analyze evidence, and express their ideas felt like a pretty tough task. But over time she had one breakthrough after another with her high school...

It's February, the perfect time to feature work by contemporary Black authors in your book talks, poetry clip showings, First Chapter Fridays, book displays, and bulletin boards. It's also a good time to look ahead to next year and consider whether you want to order some of these books for book clubs and whole class texts in the 2025-2026 school year.boo Of course, I know you know every month is t...

How many times have you sat in a PD meeting that didn't apply to you? One where you were learning an 11 letter acronym for a strategy you'd never use, a 3 point plan for a new program that wouldn't fit with your curriculum, or a training you'd already had? A PD meeting that was... irrelevant.  In their book, Disrupting Thinking: Why How We Read Matters, Kylene Beers and Bob Probst use one word to...

I've been reading Kylene Beers and Bob Probst's Disrupting Thinking: How Why We Read Matters this week, and one of their points that has really come home for me is how often the standards and the pressure to boil books down to skills leads to pulling plot-based facts and point-based evidence out of a book, blocking opportunities for students to think about what the book means in the context of the...

This week I want to share a project idea that you can use for a ton of different texts - the mock trial. I'll tell you why the mock trial was one of my FAVORITE projects as a student, and one fun way I used it as a teacher. By the time you finish listening to this quick episode, I hope you'll be excited to put a mock trial into play in your own classroom.  My senior year of high school, my AP Lit...

Open The New York Times today and you'll see photos, headlines, interactive infographics, audio, videos, and text articles. I could name almost any newspaper, magazine, social media platform, campaign website, or brand home page, and say the same. Communication today switches mediums like a chameleon switches colors wandering in a field of Skittles.  Our students know communication has changed. Th...

This week I want to share a piece of advice that really comes from my wonderful husband and it's this: Don't send emails that make your heart race. That email will only make it worse. Let me explain. Just a few days ago I found myself in bed at eleven, eyes wide open in the dark, building an email in my mind. I laid there meticulously building a case in my imaginary email to explain why I was mad...

There's a lot of takes on the New Year and how it fits into our lives. There's the change-everything-starting-January-1 take. The New-Year-Same-Me take. The choose-your-word take. The pick-your-theme-song-take. There are SMART goals and stepping stone goals, personal goals and professional goals. Then of course there's the gentle twist that takes goals and turns them into habits and then stacks th...

Lately, I've been working on gamification. Not the kind where you get points and add custom outfits to your hamster avatar when you advance through a lesson - though don't get me wrong, that seems cool - more the kind where learning takes place through an actual game structure. We're big fans of games at my house - Catan, Parcheesi, Taco Cat Goat Cheese Pizza, Wordle, Uno, Apple to Apples - and so...