The Spark Creativity Teacher Podcast | 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 t...
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397: The Humble Webquest Levels Up (How-To + Templates)
I've got more and more respect, these days, for the humble webquest. Slash hyperdoc. Slash game board. Slash immersive digital multimedia experience....
396: Try these Inviting Alternatives to the Research Paper
Recently I had to learn APA citation. Oof. It was a heavy lift, after a few decades with MLA. It gave me a refreshed sense of how overwhelming student...
395: The American Dream: A Multimedia Introduction Lesson for ELA
If you teach American literature, chances are you're touching on the theme of the American Dream somehow, through book clubs, a poetry unit, a look at...
394: Quick Win: Build your Reading Culture with this Fun Fall ELA Display
I worked at the cutest little bookstore coffee shop last week. In that small space, the collection had to be heavily curated, with just one or two boo...
393: Research-Based Practices to Ignite Creativity, with Dr. Zorana Ivcevic Pringle
We know employers want creative thinkers. We know creative thinking is necessary to solve the problems we see everywhere in our world. We know we want...
392: A Mentor-Based Grammar Lesson Blueprint
When it comes to teaching grammar, the research is clear. Drill and kill is not what we're looking for. You don't want to march through a series of gr...
391: A Done-For-You Literary Food Truck Lesson 🎁
Think of your favorite book.
Now think of your favorite food.
Now match those two together - your favorite book and your...
390: A Lesson for Book Clubs with a Genius Hour Twist
Have you been hooked by the idea of book clubs lately? Wondering how you can integrate book clubs with essential questions, supplementary short storie...
389: A First Week Project Lesson: Building Research Skills + Community
Today's request for "Plan My Lesson" is from a teacher searching for a first week project that helps students get to know each other AND introduces a...
388: A Low-Stress (Dare I say Fun?) Lesson Plan for Day One
If there's one thing I want for your first day of school, it's for the pressure to be off you. You've got enough to worry about without needing to pul...
387: A Summer Reading Lesson with Clear Creative Purpose
A summer reading lesson is a nice chance to start off the year with a creative tone, while creating some of the norms you want to establish. For today...
386: An Essay-less Argument Lesson Tapping Humor & Visuals
Students need to be able to make a great argument to find success at school, and in many professions. They need to come up with an idea, find evidence...
385: Re-engaging Rusty Readers: A Stamina Building Lesson
There's a lot of conversation happening lately around student reading stamina. Rose Horowitch's Atlantic article, "The Elite College Students who Can'...
384: A Lesson for "The Paper Menagerie"(and the Cultural Revolution)
Ken Liu's short story, "The Paper Menagerie," is an easy and powerful add to your curriculum. Not only does it explore family relationships, The Ameri...
383: Bleeds, Ghosts, & Flash Verse: A Lesson for Long Way Down
It’s a rare curriculum book that inspires NO negative comments. Ever. To hear, month after month, year after year, that a certain book turns kids into...
382: An Action-Packed Born a Crime Lesson Especially for Gen Alpha (Bet That)
Trevor Noah's Born a Crime is trending, and for good reason. I'm seeing the evidence everywhere.
This spring, as I ran our curriculum bo...
381: What if We're thinking Too Small When it Comes to Short Stories? (And Sometimes, Not Small Enough)
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...
380: The Easiest Last Day in ELA (Community Favorite)
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 easie...
379: 6 ELA Review Activities for a Strong Finish
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 cere...
378: Improve Student Evidence Analysis: Meet Mr. Skeptical
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...
377: Teaching Students to Write an Argument Introduction with Easy Puzzle Pieces
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...
376: Gamifying Argument Basics
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...
375: Try this Engaging Swift-Inspired Prompt with any Text
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...
374: 5 Top Poetry Activities Worth Trying
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...
373: The Most Popular Books to Teach 9th and 10th Graders (Tournament Results)
This winter, inspired by cool bookish tournament projects by Melissa Alter Smith of Teach Living Poets and Jared Amato of Project Lit, I decided to l...
372: Teaching Long Way Down? Flash Verse, Colorful Character Analysis, and Outside-the-Box Discussions
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...
371: Top Middle School Book Recommendations (A Teacher's Perspective)
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 s...
370: An Easy Win for Differentiating Writing Instruction: Video Lessons
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 counterargumen...
369: Highlight Real-World Connections for Any Book with this Easy Activity
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, i...
368: The Glue: One Thing You Need in Every ELA Unit
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.
...
367: Gamify ELA Review with a Colorful Memory Game
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...
366: ELA Electives with a Twist: Outside-the-Box Ideas to Inspire You
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 c...
365: 3 Easy Ways to Help Kids Build Better Arguments
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 puzzl...
364: Contemporary Authors to Feature this Black History Month (and all year long)
It's February, the perfect time to feature work by contemporary Black authors in your book talks, poetry clip showings, First Chapter Fridays, book di...
363: The Secret Sauce to Help Students Care
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,...
362: Art as Influencer: The Reason my Orwell Unit Failed and Why it Matters for your Students
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 h...
361: Amplify Argument Engagement with a Mock Trial
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 m...
360: The Ultimate Guide to One-Pagers
Open The New York Times today and you'll see photos, headlines, interactive infographics, audio, videos, and text articles. I could name almost any ne...
359: Don't Send Emails that Make your Heart Race
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. Th...
358: Try this Easy New Year's Vision Board Activity
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 tak...