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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

22:44

420: My 9th Grade Dream Curriculum (as I get an...

The Spark Creativity Teacher Podcast | ELA ·

2026/04/08

Recently an invite dropped into my inbox - did I want to swing by a school in my city to talk about teaching ninth grade English for them next year? They really needed to fill a hole for a year. Just one hole - one course, one period, one group of kids. For one year. Did I want to do it? If I did, what was my vision for the course? Whew. Honestly, the flood of emotions about knocked me over. On the one hand - maybe I could act on the ideas I've spent all my working hours cultivating for the last

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25:56

419: Hate Teaching Poetry? Here's Help (Part I)

The Spark Creativity Teacher Podcast | ELA ·

2026/04/02

Maybe you weren't taught poetry with joy and pizzazz, and you don't incline to writing it yourself. Which perhaps describes, what do you think, 99% of the population? Maybe 99.99%? If you're in this camp, I get it. Poetry can feel like a nebulous enigma in the world of literature, and it's easy to find yourself nodding along when people talk about it being great without really believing in your nod, like the parade-goers in The Emperor's New Clothes. I didn't have much use for it until I met my

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02:37

418: Highly Recommended: The New York Times Contest...

The Spark Creativity Teacher Podcast | ELA ·

2026/03/25

Welcome to another episode in our occasional series of short "Highly Recommended" episodes, in which we dive into a quick idea, resource, or tip that I hope will have an immediate impact for you. This week, we're talking about an online treasure trove of authentic audience for your student writers. Here's the link for this year, or search "NYT Student Contest Calendar" anytime: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/23/learning/our-2025-26-student-contest-calendar.html Go Further: Explore alllll the

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12:34

417: Graduate Programs for English Teachers (Help to...

The Spark Creativity Teacher Podcast | ELA ·

2026/03/18

I loved the Bread Loaf School of English program at Middlebury College. It's a unique summer program leading to a Masters in English, catering almost entirely to English teachers. So the class conversations are literary, but somehow it's all infused with teaching ideas, since it's almost all teachers in every room. Through this program, I spent two summers in Vermont, two in Santa Fe, and one in Oxford. I'd be happy to talk about it here, in today's episode on masters programs, but I already

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10:31

416: Book Club It: How to Restructure (Almost) any...

The Spark Creativity Teacher Podcast | ELA ·

2026/03/10

I'm in a book club right now, for the first time ever. (Yeah, I know, gasp. But I've always had so much to read for so many reasons that I've never sought out a book club). It's a pretty great concept - reading a book you want to read with your friends. A concept that I've thought about for a while now should really be part of every single ELA curriculum. Book clubs allow us to offer students curated choices, present more diverse voices as part of our curricula, and expand on themes and genres to

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25:20

415: Struggling to Teach Narrative? 6 Craft...

The Spark Creativity Teacher Podcast | ELA ·

2026/03/04

When you boil down the essentials of so much writing, what you get is the need for vivid, original detail. In a college essay, the story comes alive when a student goes way past the generalities and gives specific examples. In an argument essay, the intricate examples and counterargument that is explained with depth makes the most impact. In any kind of research, carefully exploring the core of the ideas with the most interesting possible language will hook and hold the reader's attention. And in

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04:40

414: Highly Recommended: Play the Whole Game

The Spark Creativity Teacher Podcast | ELA ·

2026/02/25

This week would be my Dad's birthday. If he was still here, spice cake with thick caramel frosting would be in order, and a beautiful cross country ski outing through the snowy forests of Duluth. He taught sociology at the University of Minnesota when I was growing up. Once, while teaching a weekly three-hour Monday-night class, he dressed as a different famous sociologist every week to help get his students interested in the history of his discipline. Isn't that nice? Over the course of his

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30:30

413: Creative Lessons from Microschools and Portable...

The Spark Creativity Teacher Podcast | ELA ·

2026/02/18

Today on the podcast we're digging into student agency and the lessons Dr. Annalies Corbin has learned from her work pioneering microschools and portable innovation labs. Who is Dr. Corbin, you ask? Well, she's the CEO and founder of the PAST Foundation. "From a single school partnership in 2006, Annalies has grown PAST's supporters across the nation, building a reputation for both transforming teaching and learning by understanding tomorrow's education needs. In 2015, Annalies' commitment to

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19:50

412: Fresh Ideas for your BritLit Curriculum

The Spark Creativity Teacher Podcast | ELA ·

2026/02/11

A few weeks ago I shared my dream American Lit curriculum here on the pod, and soon after I heard from a British Literature teacher who was hoping for some new unit ideas for her curriculum too. She shared her starting point, which sounds like a highly engaging set of texts: "Our long reads," she wrote, "are The Princess Bride, Macbeth, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, and Beowulf- a hero's journey theme!" So today I'd like to brainstorm with you, throwing out ideas for a British Lit curriculum,

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38:18

411: 41 Authentic Audiences for your ELA Students

The Spark Creativity Teacher Podcast | ELA ·

2026/02/04

The word audience conjures up a crowd, perhaps people watching an opera late at night at the Santa Fe outdoor amphitheatre, as the moon rises over the spectacle of Cosi Fan Tutte. Or wearing sparkles and friendship bracelets as they scream themselves hoarse at the Eras tour. Or packing a stadium as they stomp their feet and cheer at a Lakers game. But audiences don't have to be so huge, or dramatic. When it comes to students, what they need is to know they'll pretty often have one for their best

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24:16

410: The American Lit Curriculum I Would Teach Now

The Spark Creativity Teacher Podcast | ELA ·

2026/01/28

American Lit has the potential to be an engaging, broadening, fascinating course. We're in what I consider an in-between era, where many schools are still providing the historical American lit canon to teachers, while other schools or independent teachers going around the system have moved into teaching a broader swirl of America's diverse stories. The American Lit curriculum I was handed twenty years ago was 98% written by dead white men. Since then, I've learned about the impact on our students

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11:17

409: How to do a Multimodal Flash Verse Project

The Spark Creativity Teacher Podcast | ELA ·

2026/01/21

Let's talk about an incredibly adaptable project in which students experiment with creative ideas across modes. It's easy to plug into a variety of units and times of year, and ready to tap at a moment's notice. It remixes easily for Valentine's Day on the horizon, but it could also work well at Halloween, or as part of a creative writing unit, or when you're reading any verse novel or graphic novel. This project starts with fiction, moves into verse, and lands in a multimodal combination of verse

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33:48

408: For Better Student Revision, Play the Matching Game

The Spark Creativity Teacher Podcast | ELA ·

2026/01/14

The more time you spend writing, the more you know that revision is everything. Let me cite writing superhero John Green on this one, who discusses his drafting processin the FAQs on his website: "...I'm a big believer in revision: I almost always delete most of my first drafts (often as much as 90%). But there are many mini-drafts along the way, so it's hard to talk about the process quantitatively. I do try to save the file with a different name each time I've made some dramatic changes I fear I

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15:16

407: Build a Better Choice Board Project for any ELA...

The Spark Creativity Teacher Podcast | ELA ·

2026/01/07

We know we want kids to have choice. As much choice as possible in creating the education that is meaningful and helpful for them. That choice can come through choice over content, medium, expression of ideas, types of discussion, seating in the classroom, what to work on when, when to take a break...there are so many possibilities! If you make it a professional challenge to start seeing the possibilities for choice, you'll find them everywhere! As I've been working on choice as a theme for The

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12:22

406: Try this Choice Twist on Review

The Spark Creativity Teacher Podcast | ELA ·

2025/12/17

I bet you know your favorite way to learn something. Maybe it's by listening to a podcast, skimming a couple of articles on the topic, reading a book, going to a live lecture, taking a Masterclass, talking to a knowledgable friend, playing your way through an App like Duolingo, attending a conference... The point is, we're all pretty different when it comes to our FAVORITE way to take in information. The way that really helps it sink in. For me, it's often about visuals and color, dating all the

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17:01

405: 5 Creative Activities for A Christmas Carol

The Spark Creativity Teacher Podcast | ELA ·

2025/12/10

Dickens' A Christmas Carol stands out strongly from his other works, but not because it's so different, really, in what it hopes to accomplish. Critiquing society, drawing attention to the world outside the doors of the wealthy in Victorian England, hoping to create social change... this was Dickens. But it's in A Christmas Carol that he condenses this message and provides joy in equal measure with distress. I've read a lot of Dickens, though I never did quite manage to finish Bleak House even

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16:44

404: The Missing Piece in Most ELA Projects

The Spark Creativity Teacher Podcast | ELA ·

2025/12/03

According to research by Stanford Professor Bob Sutton, innovative businesses need to generate about 4,000 ideas to come up with two or three really good ones. Think about that. 4,000 ideas. What does that mean for our students? In their busy whirlwind days, they're likely to opt for their first or second idea on any given assignment. A thesis pops into their head? They'll probably hit the ground running with it so they can get their paper done. They think of a project concept for genius hour

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18:01

403: 5 Hexagonal Thinking Minis (Try One Tomorrow!)

The Spark Creativity Teacher Podcast | ELA ·

2025/11/19

It's easy to think of hexagonal thinking as a big event, a full-class activity that you set up and run for a whole period. But once your students know how to use this tool, it could come in handy in lots of other ways. Especially if you keep some blank hexagons on hand in your classroom. In today's short episode, I want to share five ten-minute hexagonal thinking activities you could use in your ELA classroom any old time, but my hope is that after hearing these ten, you'll realize there are

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20:50

402: Make Your Space a Partner with Flexible Resources

The Spark Creativity Teacher Podcast | ELA ·

2025/11/12

You know how some spaces just make you feel excited to DO something? Whether it's a Cricut getting your wheels spinning with what-ifs, beautiful shelves of paint inviting you to decorate holiday pottery, or a giant stack of cookbooks suddenly causing you to wonder if it's time to fill the cookie jar, well-organized resources in a creative space can help bring out your creative side. Today, let's talk about how to choose and organize flexible resources for your ELA classroom, anytime you've got the

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19:22

401: Easy Wins on the Sensory Dashboard (yes, in ELA!)

The Spark Creativity Teacher Podcast | ELA ·

2025/11/05

The other day I found myself walking through a parking garage stairwell in Iowa City, and I realized they were using the same scent design as the local mall in Bratislava where we used to live. Half-shocked, half-amused, I climbed the cement stairs as I remembered riding the escalator through the same subtle scent cloud two years ago. The memory was visceral. Though we don't always think about it, our sensory experiences have a strong impact on how we feel and how we work. I do my best work in a

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416 results

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