The Spark Creativity Teacher Podcast | ELA

Betsy Potash: ELA
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The Spark Creativity Teacher Podcast | ELA

Want to love walking into your ELA classroom each day? Excited about innovative strategies like PBL, escape rooms, hexagonal thinking, sketchnotes, one-pagers, student podcasting, genius hour, and more? Want a thriving choice reading program and a shelf full of compelling diverse texts? You're in the right place! Here you'll find interviews with top authors from the ELA field, workshops with strategies you can use in class immediately, and quick tips to ignite your English teacher creativity. Love teaching poetry? Explore blackout poems, book spine poems, I am from poems, performance poetry, lessons for contemporary poets, and more. Excited to get started with hexagonal thinking? Find out how to build your first deck of hexagons, guide your students through their first discussion, and even expand into hexagonal one-pagers. Into visual learning? Me too! Learn about sketchnotes, one-pagers, and the writing makerspace. Want to get your students podcasting? Get the top technology recs you need to make it happen, and find out what tips a podcaster would give to students starting out. Wish your students would fall for choice reading? Explore top titles and how to fund them, learn to make your library more appealing, and find out how to be a top P.R. agent for books in your classroom. In it for the interviews? Fabulous! Find out about project-based-learning, innovative school design, what really helps kids learn deeply, design thinking, how to choose diverse texts, when to scaffold sketchnotes lessons, building your first writing makerspace, cultivating writer's notebooks, getting started with genius hour, and so much more, from our wonderful guests. Here at The Spark Creativity Teacher Podcast, discover you're not alone as a creative English teacher. You're part of a vast community welcoming students to their next escape room, rolling out contemporary poetry and reading aloud on First Chapter Fridays, engaging kids with social media projects and real-world ELA units. As your host (hi, I'm Betsy), I'm here to help you ENJOY your days at school and feel inspired by all the creative ways to teach both contemporary works and the classics your school may be pushing. I taught ELA at the 9th, 10th, 11th, and 12th grade levels both in the United States and overseas for almost a decade, and I didn't always get support for my creativity. Now I'm here to make sure YOU get the creative support you deserve, and it brings me so much joy. Welcome to The Spark Creativity Teacher Podcast, a podcast for English teachers in search of creative teaching strategies!

  1. −1 H

    🤍​ Gratitude Week: Revisiting Crucial Advice on Diverse Texts & Choice

    Welcome to day three of gratitude week here at Spark Creativity. Today we’re looking back at an interview with Dr. Claudia Rodriguez-Mojica and Dr. Allison Briceño about just how important it is to provide students with diverse books and choice in their reading experience. I’m grateful that they took the time to talk with us, and to be able to spotlight their work here again.  See the original show notes: https://nowsparkcreativity.com/2023/07/students-need-diverse-texts-and-choice-heres-help.html  Go Further:  Explore alllll the Episodes of The Spark Creativity Teacher Podcast. Grab the free Better Discussions toolkit Snag three free weeks of community-building attendance question slides 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!

    35 min

  2. −1 D

    🤍​ Gratitude Week: Revisiting Dr. Sarah Fine's Advice for Deeper Learning

    Welcome to day two of gratitude week here at Spark Creativity. Today we're revisiting a popular interview with Dr. Sarah Fine, whose insightful work around deeper learning I am so grateful to be able to share with you. She crisscrossed the nation in search of the places and programs where students were truly engaged in deeper learning, and she shares what she found in this conversation.  See the Original Show Notes: https://nowsparkcreativity.com/2020/02/086-take-action-for-deeper-learning.html    Go Further:  Explore alllll the Episodes of The Spark Creativity Teacher Podcast. Grab the free Better Discussions toolkit Snag three free weeks of community-building attendance question slides 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!

    47 min

  3. −2 D

    🤍Gratitude Week: Revisiting Penny Kittle's Quiet Revolution

    This week I’m thinking about how grateful I am for this incredible community - all the creative educators around the world who have tuned into an episode, shared an idea with a colleague, joined me in conversation as a guest, written a review, or sent in a question. Thank you!  Today we’re going to kick off a special five day series revisiting top interviews from the last decade of The Spark Creativity Teacher Podcast. We’ll hear from Penny Kittle, Dr. Sarah Fine, Dr. Claudia Rodriguez-Mojica and Dr. Allison Briceño, Dave Stuart Jr., and Angela Stockman. We’ll explore the power of choice reading, discuss what creates situations of deeper learning, dive into strategies to combat student apathy, and find out how to get started with the writing makerspace. We’re starting with a look back at my interview with Penny Kittle for a show originally titled “A Quiet Revolution in Reading and Writing.” Find the Original Show Notes Here: https://nowsparkcreativity.com/2022/04/150-a-quiet-revolution-in-reading-and-writing-with-penny-kittle.html    Go Further:  Explore alllll the Episodes of The Spark Creativity Teacher Podcast. Grab the free Better Discussions toolkit Snag three free weeks of community-building attendance question slides 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!

    52 min

  4. −6 D

    The Extensive Research to Support Less Grading

    In today’s short episode of “Highly Recommended”, I want to recommend an article I read at Edutopia this week, because it’s chock-full of the research you need to support conversations at your school about grading less. Changing the culture of grading in our ELA classrooms won’t just benefit teachers, it benefits students too. So today I want to share two highlights from the article, “Why Teachers Should Grade Less Frequently,” by Stephen Merrill and Youki Terada, and then give you the link in the show notes so you can go read it and send it to everyone in your department. Seriously. Terada and Merrill share the research around nine reasons that grading less benefits both educators and educatees (students). This is not a both-sides-of-the-story type of article. It is VERY clear about its argument. Less grading for the right reasons is the way to go. Hopefully, if you’ve been around here for long, that sounds like a familiar story. One of my favorite points in the article is #3, “Grading Obligations reduce teacher creativity and innovation.”   According to the research, most teachers are splitting their time between grading and lesson planning, devoting about the same amount of time to each. As a result, and I imagine you’ve experienced this at some point or another, many folks are unable to give the necessary time to the reflection and discovery that would let them unlock their most creative classroom ideas.  Another key idea comes in #6: “Grading reduces opportunities for student practice.” According to the research, repeated practice counts for a lot when it comes to improving writing, and prioritizing feedback over reps isn’t the answer. If teachers feel they must grade everything students do, students won’t have as many opportunities to build the pathways that lead to better writing. The big components of this article are ones our teaching community has been talking about for a long time. But what I love about this article is how it boils the ideas down into a three minute read with clear evidence and research links to back up what teachers have learned through experience. That means you can point to the evidence online as well as the evidence in your classroom when you take these ideas to your colleagues, and explain your methods to parents who think papers are meant to be coated in red ink before they’re returned. Remember, I’m dropping this link in the show notes right now, so be sure to click over and read this great article from Stephen Merrill and Youki Terada! READ THE ARTICLE: https://www.edutopia.org/article/why-teachers-should-grade-less-frequently  Go Further:  Explore alllll the Episodes of The Spark Creativity Teacher Podcast. Get my popular free hexagonal thinking digital toolkit 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!

    3 min

  5. 19 NOV.

    How to use First Book Marketplace to Grow your Library Fast

    If you’re a teacher in a Title I School, you need to know about First Book Marketplace. I’ve heard about it in passing so many times, and this week I decided to dive in and figure out how it works. And boy, does it work. Today I just want to walk you through how this site works so that you can start taking advantage of its many resources as soon as possible. Now, if you’re NOT a teacher in a Title I School, and you’re also trying to find resources to support your wish to bring incredible books to your students, I’m going to refer you back to episode 56, The Dos and Don’ts of Donors Choose, where I’ll walk you through the best way to get funding on that site. OK, for now, let’s dig into First Book Marketplace and how you can get started with it right away. Are you a Title I Teacher? Register for First Book Marketplace: https://www.fbmarketplace.org/register/  Not a Title I Teacher? Check out the "Do's and Don'ts of Donors Choose" post here: https://nowsparkcreativity.com/2019/01/the-dos-and-donts-of-donors-choose-for.html    Go Further:  Explore alllll the Episodes of The Spark Creativity Teacher Podcast. Launch your choice reading program with all my favorite tools and recs, and grab the free toolkit. 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!

    11 min

  6. 14 NOV.

    Fighting the Sunday Scaries

    This week, I want to talk about Sunday nights. If you’re struggling to figure out how you can be a good partner, parent, person, and teacher, and it all seems to come to a head on Sunday nights, I want to offer three ideas. I’m not saying I can solve the teacher work-life balance issue that plagues our profession in one short episode, but I hope one of these ideas will help you feel more free to follow your instincts towards less stress and pressure on yourself, and maybe, just maybe, happier Sunday nights.  #1 Don’t Grade it All I put this one first for a reason. It’s huge. Let’s say your students are doing a ten minute writing prompt each day to practice a specific skill. Maybe you’ve got 30 students, times five days a week, times five classes. That’s 750 writing samples you’re trying to grade every week. Even if you just put a smiley face on top to show that you put your eyeballs on their work, it’s still going to take you hours. Instead, try having them choose the sample at the end of the week that they feel best represents their ability with the new skill, polish it, and turn it in the next week. Now your eyeballs just have to scan 150 writing samples.  Students need way more practice writing than they need detailed feedback. Is detailed feedback amazing? Yes. Is feeling like you have to give it constantly likely to ruin your Sunday nights, your holiday breaks, and eventually, your ability to stay in teaching? Probably.  Not only do I think you should heavily reduce your grading via selective feedback, stickers, stamps, and peer feedback, I think you should start a conversation in your department to help everyone consider these options.  #2 Stop Playing Email Whack-a-Mole Do you open your email every time you have a second and try to get rid of all your new messages? I did too, for sooo long. And it messed with my mood, left me with no time for more major projects, and made me feel like I was always behind.  If it’s possible for you to block off time to check your email once in the morning and once at the end of school, I’d like to plant a flag in your inbox and say hip hip hooray! It’s not your job to give all your attention to others’ priorities every single time you have a second.  Take five minutes between periods to get a breath and set up your next activity in a relaxed manner instead of worrying about a parent’s frustrating message. Spend lunch watching Kristen Bell and Adam Brody while you eat or hanging out with a friend for ten minutes over sandwiches instead of running through emails.  Email never stops, but you’re allowed to. And in case it wasn’t clear, I’m definitely suggesting you don’t have to check it at night and on the weekends too.  #3 Get Help in Key Places There’s help for an awful lot in the world these days. Is laundry a specter that makes you feel terrible all week because you don’t have time to get to it? You can probably hire someone to come in and do it for you - maybe even your teenager who needs extra money.  Is cooking a nightmare for you when you get home after a busy day? Approximately one hundred meal service kit companies would like to help, and so would the ready made section at Trader Joe’s.  Do you hate writing lessons after your kids go to bed? I spend all my time writing curriculum to help with that, and so do a lot of other people. Give yourself permission to join a curriculum membership like The Lighthouse or pick up units that you love and that fit your style from TPT.  OK, my friend. I could definitely keep going, but I wanted to keep this short with three genuinely doable ideas. If you can cut your grading load dramatically, stop playing email whack-a-mole, and choose one stressful area to get significant help, I believe Sunday nights WILL get a little easier.    Go Further:  Explore alllll the Episodes of The Spark Creativity Teacher Podcast. Get my popular free hexagonal thinking digital toolkit Joi

    5 min

  7. 12 NOV.

    Contemporary Playwrights to Spotlight in ELA

    Arthur Miller, Tennessee Williams, and Eugene O'Neill get plenty of spotlight on the ELA curriculum stage. And sure, it's well-deserved! But they aren't the only incredible American playwrights to pick up a pen in the last century. If you're looking for some contemporary plays to share with your students, and you're struggling to find ones that fit your vision AND fit the maturity level of your kiddos, I've got a quick idea for you today. So here it is. You've got your stack of A Streetcar Named Desire or Death of a Salesman ready for your students, as always, AND you have a series of Pulitzer-Prize winning contemporary playwright snapshots to share. It's the classic "yes AND" combination that comes straight from the improv playbook. Each snapshot will let students learn about an award-winning contemporary playwright by exploring their background, learning about the play which won them a Pulitzer, and then watching a little bit of that play. You'll get to showcase a diverse range of writers and topics, and you can avoid moments in the plays which might be too intense or mature for the age of your students. My deep dive down the Youtube rabbit hole leads me to believe that most award-winning plays feature at least SOME scenes that are rated PG. It's a little like First Chapter Fridays, except for plays. You're introducing your students to a much wider world than the single lens on theater that whatever your assigned play can provide (wonderful though it may be!), by showcasing complementary work regularly. At the same time, you can work through a whole class read with rich literary merit (that your school has already purchased and approved.) So how can you get started quickly and easily? That's what today's episode is all about. I'll walk you through how I created some of these snapshots - which I'll share with you - and then you'll be ready to create more of your own if you want to go further. Go Further:  Explore alllll the Episodes of The Spark Creativity Teacher Podcast. Grab the Contemporary Playwrights Snapshots: https://spark-creativity.kit.com/0c32caad5f  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!

    9 min

  8. 7 NOV.

    Easy Acting Games for Better Theater Units

    This week I want to share a fabulous resource I recently discovered, a website full of short video models for acting games you can use in class. The first time I taught a play in class, I sure wished I had more theater background to help my students act out the scenes. Luckily, I was able to connect with a creative theater professional to come and visit my classes for a few days. Soon she had them playing acting games, creating scene sculptures, and generally having a great time while relaxing into the idea of playing new roles.  After that week I always incorporated acting games into my theater units, and they never failed as a community-builder and theater-bolsterer. I bought two books to complement what I learned from my theater guest: Acting Games, by Viola Spolin, and Games for Actors and Non-Actors, by Augusto Boal.  Which brings me to my recent discovery, a website showcasing many of Viola Spolin’s acting games through video demonstrations. With a few minutes on this website, you can easily gather games to use in class and learn how to use them. Let me suggest a short routine similar to what I’ve used, and then I’ll link the activities in the show notes so you can head straight over to the website for the details.  OK, so before I ever asked students to act Prospero or Willy Loman, we’d spend five or ten minutes at the start of class with games that would help them loosen up and trust each other a little more.  I suggest you start by making space in the center of the room by pushing desks and tables to the side. Then invite students to start walking around, trying to keep a bubble of space around them so they fill the room without ever touching each other. Start slow, then invite them to speed up a little, and a little more, then slow back down, then go into slow motion. Then, perhaps start a game of slow motion tag (linked) or start playing with an invisible ball (linked). After a couple of minutes, you might play a game of lemonade (linked) or invite partners to try mirroring each other (linked).  As your students become more comfortable, you can move into more complex games, or you can just stick with this simple routine to break down everyone’s “I’m too cool to pretend to be doing anything I’m not actually doing” facades.  Remember, while acting comes naturally to a few students, many teenagers are just really nervous about embarrassing themselves around their peers. Acting games help everyone get more relaxed before diving into Shakespeare or O’Neill, and this lovely website will help YOU get more relaxed before diving into acting games!  Links:  The Mirror: https://spolingamesonline.org/mirror-follow-the-follower/  Lemonade: https://spolingamesonline.org/lemonade-new-york/  Play Ball: https://spolingamesonline.org/play-ball/  Slow Motion Tag: https://spolingamesonline.org/slow-motion-tag/  Go Further:  Explore alllll the Episodes of The Spark Creativity Teacher Podcast. Snag three free weeks of community-building attendance question slides 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!

    6 min
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Want to love walking into your ELA classroom each day? Excited about innovative strategies like PBL, escape rooms, hexagonal thinking, sketchnotes, one-pagers, student podcasting, genius hour, and more? Want a thriving choice reading program and a shelf full of compelling diverse texts? You're in the right place! Here you'll find interviews with top authors from the ELA field, workshops with strategies you can use in class immediately, and quick tips to ignite your English teacher creativity. Love teaching poetry? Explore blackout poems, book spine poems, I am from poems, performance poetry, lessons for contemporary poets, and more. Excited to get started with hexagonal thinking? Find out how to build your first deck of hexagons, guide your students through their first discussion, and even expand into hexagonal one-pagers. Into visual learning? Me too! Learn about sketchnotes, one-pagers, and the writing makerspace. Want to get your students podcasting? Get the top technology recs you need to make it happen, and find out what tips a podcaster would give to students starting out. Wish your students would fall for choice reading? Explore top titles and how to fund them, learn to make your library more appealing, and find out how to be a top P.R. agent for books in your classroom. In it for the interviews? Fabulous! Find out about project-based-learning, innovative school design, what really helps kids learn deeply, design thinking, how to choose diverse texts, when to scaffold sketchnotes lessons, building your first writing makerspace, cultivating writer's notebooks, getting started with genius hour, and so much more, from our wonderful guests. Here at The Spark Creativity Teacher Podcast, discover you're not alone as a creative English teacher. You're part of a vast community welcoming students to their next escape room, rolling out contemporary poetry and reading aloud on First Chapter Fridays, engaging kids with social media projects and real-world ELA units. As your host (hi, I'm Betsy), I'm here to help you ENJOY your days at school and feel inspired by all the creative ways to teach both contemporary works and the classics your school may be pushing. I taught ELA at the 9th, 10th, 11th, and 12th grade levels both in the United States and overseas for almost a decade, and I didn't always get support for my creativity. Now I'm here to make sure YOU get the creative support you deserve, and it brings me so much joy. Welcome to The Spark Creativity Teacher Podcast, a podcast for English teachers in search of creative teaching strategies!

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