The Spark Creativity Teacher Podcast | Education

Want to get students out of their seats and on their feet? Arts integration is a powerful tool for engaging students creatively with print texts. In this episode, learn from Eileen Landay, co-founder of The Arts Literacy Project and professor emeritus at Brown, about how to use the powerful tools of the performance cycle to enrich your English units. 

This I Believe began as a radio essay series and became nationally beloved. In this episode, find out how to easily do a "This I Believe" personal writing unit in class, culminating in a live performance event that builds community and gives your students authentic purpose. 

Review can easily get boring. Why not review with the same kind of dynamic, creative activities that make up your daily lessons? In this episode, get ten ideas for engaging ways to revisit material without lecturing.

Infographics make an ideal project for your high school ELA classroom. Students combine personal interest and authentic audience in this research-based design thinking project, honing their writing, editing, and artistic skills all at once in a highly real-world relevant way. In this episode, learn how to introduce and complete a design thinking infographics project of your own. 

Heard of Harkness discussions but don't know how to get started? Wondering how they're different from Socratic seminars? Get answers to all the commonly asked questions in this comprehensive guide to using Harkness successfully in your classroom. Harkness is certainly in my top three favorite classroom tools, so I hope this episode will inspire you to give it a try! 

When the lines between classwork and real world work get blurred, it often leads to engagement and deeper learning for our students. This episode is all about finding ways to connect our classrooms to the world beyond them. Listen in for project ideas and tweaks on argument and research papers that can help teach the same vital ELA skills with a real-world relevant lens. 

Learn from Liz Kleinrock, Teaching Tolerance teacher of the year, about how she approaches big conversations about difficult topics with her students. If you wish you had more information about how to safely address issues of race, gender, social justice, and equity in your classroom, this episode can help.

Want to help your apathetic students become more motivated? In this podcast episode, learn the five key beliefs that help students with their motivation, and discover two specific ways to help banish apathy and inspire your students to be more motivated.

Grading doesn't have to be the thing that haunts you as a teacher. There are a ton of strategies out there to help you reduce your grading time and maximize its effectiveness, once you decide to take a stand for yourself. Choosing to use some of them will free up your time to enjoy creating the unique lesson plans you and your students love and to have more balance between home and school. In this episode, discover forty great options and choose the ones that are right for you. 

Ready for an end to the teacher tired? The teacher guilt? The teacher busy? In this episode, I'm chatting with Angela Watson about her work helping teachers become more productive and purposeful in their choices. We're talking about her new book, Fewer Things, Better, and her course, The 40 Hour Teacher Workweek Club.

Wish teaching vocabulary could be more creative and fulfilling? Try these ten strategies to make studying vocabulary more engaging and the words memorable. Find the show notes with all the links and images at www.nowsparkcreativity.com. 

We need diverse books in our ELA classrooms. In this podcast episode and blog post, discover title ideas for diversifying your booklists in American Lit, British Lit, World Lit, and Independent Reading. It matters so much for our students to see their own stories reflected on the page! Please visit the show notes at www.nowsparkcreativity.com to find out how to participate in a new project connecting readers in classrooms around the world called The Modern Voices Project. 

Want to finish off the year with as much meaning and creativity as you've brought to your curriculum all year long? If you can, skip the multiple choice and short answer and try a creative final exam. In this episode, you'll discover five great options.

In this episode, discover how to structure a successful writing workshop, what a workshop mini lesson is, and how to trouble shoot common issues that come up. Learn with Amanda Werner, experienced workshop teacher and host of The Workshop Teacher podcast.

Want to try out stations in your ELA classroom? Find out how to set them up for success and get inspiration for crafting your own as we walk through eight examples.