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PODCAST

The Spark Creativity Teacher Podcast | ELA

Betsy Potash: 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

education how to

All Episodes

11:44

238: Let me Plan your ELA Lessons the Week before...

The Spark Creativity Teacher Podcast | ELA ·

2023/11/14

The week before Thanksgiving it's easy to feel a little scattered! For teachers AND students. It can be nice to take a break from your main unit and focus on some activities that still promote ELA skills but give kids something freshly engaging to focus on. Since I imagine your attention is a bit divided at the moment between lesson planning, menu planning, and maybe even packing lists, I'd like to give you three day's worth of activities that you can plug and play next week to take the pressure

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06:48

237: Highly Recommended: Don't Grade it All

The Spark Creativity Teacher Podcast | ELA ·

2023/11/09

This week I want to share advice I only wish someone had given me long ago - don’t grade everything your students create in class. It’s easy to feel pressure to put a grade on everything students make. They often come in expecting to see a letter on top of every single piece of paper they create for you. But ew. It’s impossible to keep up, and it doesn’t necessarily benefit them for you to try. Instead, think about how you can grade what really shows what they’ve learned, and build in ways to

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18:52

236: When your Students just... Don't Care

The Spark Creativity Teacher Podcast | ELA ·

2023/11/08

We've all been there. You walk into a class, unveil your lesson plan with all the joy and care of a museum curator lifting the veil on a new Van Gogh, and your students just... don't care. They've got their own problems. Their own stresses. They decided in 4th grade they didn't like reading. In 5th grade that they "weren't creative." In 7th grade that they needed to give serious attention to social media if they wanted to stay cool. And now they're sitting in your class, eyes

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02:44

235: Highly Recommended: Gene Luen Yang's Ted Talk

The Spark Creativity Teacher Podcast | ELA ·

2023/11/02

I want you to watch Gene Luen Yang's Ted talk called “Comics Belong in the Classroom!” Here's why. It's a hilarious look at why comics are such a powerful medium for our students, how they accidentally got classified as a negative influence on young people (with totally false evidence) and the power they can actually wield for good - Avengers-style. I was so amazed to learn that library usage goes up 82% in libraries that feature graphic novels, according to a School Library journal article. This

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30:50

234: Closing the Opportunity Gap, with Reid Saaris

The Spark Creativity Teacher Podcast | ELA ·

2023/10/31

Today on the podcast, we’re joined by education leader Reid Saaris. He’s the founder of Equal Opportunity Schools, a nonprofit dedicated to ensuring that students of all backgrounds have opportunities to succeed at the highest levels. He is an Echoing Green, a Draper Richards Kaplan, and a Stanford Social Innovation Fellow, and has advised federal, state, & local leaders, teachers, philanthropies, companies, and universities on topics like justice, impact, data analysis, communications, and

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03:13

233: Highly Recommended: Teach Living Poets

The Spark Creativity Teacher Podcast | ELA ·

2023/10/26

This week I want to share a wonderful website and resource with you, Melissa Alter Smith’s brainchild, Teach Living Poets. When I first started teaching poetry, it couldn’t have been clearer to me that students needed modern poets to relate to. Though we eventually enjoyed unpacking poems like Wallace Stevens’ “13 Ways of Looking at a Blackbird,” that was only because we started with a lot of performance poetry, modern poems students leaned into and even loved. Melissa Alter Smith, founder of the

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44:40

232: Building More Inclusive Classrooms with Dr. Mark...

The Spark Creativity Teacher Podcast | ELA ·

2023/10/24

Today on the podcast, we’re sitting down with Dr. Mark Gooden, the Christian Johnson Endeavor Professor in Education Leadership and Director of the Endeavor Antiracist & Restorative Leadership Initiative (EARLI) in the Department of Organization and Leadership at Teachers College, Columbia University. He’s got a new book out, 5 Practices for Equity-Focused School Leadership, offering five methods to increase educational equity and eliminate marginalization based on race, disability,

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04:36

231: Highly Recommended: Try using your Whiteboard...

The Spark Creativity Teacher Podcast | ELA ·

2023/10/19

This week I want to give you a few quick ideas for using your whiteboard to help share great books with your students. First things first, your whiteboard tray. I am seeing a lot of folks making a super quick display that’s really impactful by spreading books along their tray, then writing a one-sentence teaser above the book. This display is so easy to change up, and you can even get students involved in making new versions. Next up, you can use your whiteboard to showcase what you’re reading

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18:37

230: Creative Short Story Station Ideas for ELA

The Spark Creativity Teacher Podcast | ELA ·

2023/10/17

Need a creative approach to your next short story? Or short story unit? (By the way, here are some fabulous classic and contemporary short stories if you need some). Stations can provide so many inroads, while allowing students to proceed at their own pace and based on their own interests. PLUS, they give you a chance to move around the room and help out individual students or small groups that need you. So today on the podcast, I want to share some creative options when it comes to short story

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02:40

229: Highly Recommended: These Stunning Posters

The Spark Creativity Teacher Podcast | ELA ·

2023/10/13

This week I want to tell you about the most beautiful, powerful, impactful classroom posters I’ve seen on the internet. And they’re totally free. This isn’t the first time I’ve talked about Amplifier Art on the podcast, and it probably won’t be the last. I’ve even had their executive director, Emily, on the podcast to talk about their incredible wellbeing series. But since it was Indigenous Peoples Day this week, I think it’s the perfect time to recommend their “Thriving People, Thriving Places”

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18:35

228: Taylor Made for ELA: The Swift Collabisode

The Spark Creativity Teacher Podcast | ELA ·

2023/10/11

In this podcast, discover NINE creative ways to bring Taylor Swift's music into class. Find out how to have students create their own eras, practice public speaking on song-inspired topics with song-inspired tones, build book bracelets or character playlists, practice rhetorical analysis through songs and music videos, and more. Special thanks to ALL our wonderful guests - Ashley from Building Book Love, Amanda from Mud & Ink Teaching, Delia from @mrsreganreads, Allie from @bayeringwithfreshmen,

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05:59

227: Highly Recommended: Don't Play Email Whack-a-Mole

The Spark Creativity Teacher Podcast | ELA ·

2023/10/05

This week I’ve got a productivity tip to give you so much more focused time in your classroom. Let’s talk about email, and how often you check it. I can still remember the exact feeling of sitting in my kneeling desk in my first classroom, watching red flags spring up in the eight different inboxes in my First Class email dashboard. No sooner would I zero out my personal inbox than there would be a new announcement to teachers, or request to coaches, or task for advisors. It was like playing

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13:18

226: Banned Books Week Starts Now (Here's Help)

The Spark Creativity Teacher Podcast | ELA ·

2023/10/02

As Banned Books Week kicks off, I know not every teacher is in a position to showcase it. In some places, it's simply too dangerous for an educator to display banned and challenged books and talk about intellectual freedom with students (the Fahrenheit 451 realities are overwhelming). But for those in a position to share about this with students, today I want to give you some options. Choose the ones that are right for your classroom and community. As usual, it's not about telling our students

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03:11

225: Highly Recommended: Present or Publish your Work...

The Spark Creativity Teacher Podcast | ELA ·

2023/09/28

This week I want to talk about getting you in front of an audience this year. My first year in the classroom I had an amazing mentor. Anne, my department chair, invited me to her house for lunch regularly. I brought pastries, she made fruit salads, and then over oatmeal-raisin scones and papaya, she listened to me talk about everything I was learning and doing. She nodded and smiled, and focused on supporting my enthusiasm rather than telling me what to do. If only everyone had a mentor like that

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14:03

224: Here's How to Help Quieter Students into Discussion

The Spark Creativity Teacher Podcast | ELA ·

2023/09/26

There are so many reasons why a student may be quiet in class. The language may be difficult. They may need more time to think than the pace of discussion allows. They may not have been able to read because of other things happening in their lives that they can't control. They may be really shy. But there are ways to help quiet students build confidence and begin to participate. In today's episode, I'll share what I learned over many years putting a strong focus on student-centered discussion

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08:02

223: Highly Recommended: The Bread Loaf School of...

The Spark Creativity Teacher Podcast | ELA ·

2023/09/21

This week let’s talk about a unique masters program - and the one I did - The Bread Loaf School of English. Quick Details: Summer Program out of Middlebury College M.A. In English, but almost all participants are teachers, so there's a teaching angle! Campuses in Vermont, Oxford (England), and California Unique Classes and Activities (Opera, "Discovering the Imagination," and my Independent Study on Travel writing were three of my personal favorites...) Learn more here: The Bread Loaf School of

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20:30

222: Creative Halloween Activities for October in ELA

The Spark Creativity Teacher Podcast | ELA ·

2023/09/19

Have you reached for a turtleneck sweater yet? Bought one of those big pumpkins or bright purple mums at the stand along the road? Sipped your first spiced latte? It's that time of year again! As the leaves turn and we move into the flow of the school year, it's a nice time to sprinkle in a little holiday fun for Halloween. Today, I've got a creative buffet of options for you, and I hope you'll find a few you can't wait to surprise your students with next month. In this episode, we'll talk about

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05:00

221: Highly Recommended: Ask for What you Want

The Spark Creativity Teacher Podcast | ELA ·

2023/09/14

This week let’s talk a different kind of topic, asking for what you want in education. When I was five, my mom took me to a raspberry farm. I leaped out of the car, basket in hand, ready to harvest heaps of my favorite berry. Only to see a closed sign. I headed back to the car, distraught. “Well,” said my mom. “Let’s just ask if we can pick. It can’t hurt.” I watched with very little hope as she knocked at the farmhouse and made her request. Soon we were piling up berries in the sunshine. I’ve

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20:51

220: Try Teaching The College Essay like This

The Spark Creativity Teacher Podcast | ELA ·

2023/09/12

I have to admit that even though I wrote three college essays, got into college, went to college, got my graduate degree in English and taught English for many years, I never really understood the college essay until a year ago. When I listened to this workshop on this very podcast, given by two high school college counsellors and two experienced university admissions officers. Sure, I knew that the essay was a chance for kids to show off their writing skills and share about themselves. I knew

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02:43

219: Highly Recommended: Vocaroo

The Spark Creativity Teacher Podcast | ELA ·

2023/09/07

This week let’s talk about the simplest audio recording tool out there for students, Vocaroo. Getting into activities like student podcasting, multigenre projects involving audio, or film projects with audio overlay can feel really intimidating. But not with Vocaroo. Vocaroo is actually a website you can visit on Chrome. In the middle of the page there's a big red button. Student simply click it and start recording. Then when they’re done, they click to download the audio file. It’s that

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398 results

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