Remember when research projects involved stacks of books and notecards? Yeah, me too. But we all know research has changed. I recently finished a couple of pedagogy books for English teachers - one by Angela Stockman on designing inclusive spaces for writers, and another by Katie Novak on Universal Design for Learning in the English classroom. And beyond the many wonderful ideas I took away from them, I was also struck by the variation in the sources they referred to.

Sure, they cited texts.

But they also cited Ted Talks, telephone calls, online articles, online compendiums, and more.

Their information came from a digital rainbow of sources.

Our students naturally work the same way.

As digital natives, they've grown up with the whole online world at their fingertips, and their natural first line of research is probably not a book. So how do we direct them through the research process, given the incredible variety of possible sources available to them?

That's what today's quick episode is about.

Important Links:

The AI PBL Unit: https://sparkcreativity.kartra.com/page/aipbl 

John Spencer's Article, "Research is Critical in Design Thinking": https://spencerauthor.com/research-in-design-thinking/ 

Make a Copy of the Research Process Infographic Handout: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1C6gVB8WQi3KVgsxbFhhZz_Hs4lLPD8DFN5U4NvfHojA/copy 

 

Go Further: 

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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! 

Welcome to the Thursday edition of The Spark Creativity Teacher Podcast, a podcast for English teachers in search of creative teaching strategies. Whether you’re new to the show or a long-time listener, I’m so glad you’re here for today’s edition of “Highly Recommended.” This week, I want to make sure you know just how amazing the Google Translate App really is. 

Living here in Bratislava, and traveling around Europe with our family, we are constantly confronted by languages we don’t know. On Street Signs, parking signs, parking tickets, frozen pizza cooking instructions, directions for using new toys on Christmas morning, mail that lands in our box, and so much more. Which is why we really couldn’t do without our Google translate app.

At first we stared at the strange text and painstakingly tried to type it into the app. But then we discovered the camera feature. Did you know you can pick any two languages in the app, then take a picture of the first and instantly see it translated to the second? 

You can also speak into the app in one language and see your words typed out in another. Or hold the camera up to someone you want to understand and get their words translated. 

It’s an incredible tool, and one I use constantly in my everyday life. 

For your emerging bilingual or trilingual students, Google Translate can be a huge lifeline. They can quickly hold their app camera over handout instructions, printed writing prompts, or classroom posters and see it in their own language. They can take a picture or screenshot and have the translation available for the rest of the class. And of course, beyond the app, they can plug large sections of text into Google Translate online to help them better understand a podcast transcript, close reading passage, or news article. 

Google Translate can help your students keep up with your content and express the complexity of their ideas as their second or third language skills catch up with their thought processes. That’s why this week, I highly recommend you add it to your phone and get familiar with it. It doesn’t take long, and it could make all the difference to some of your students (and perhaps their parents come conference time, too). 

 

Go Further: 

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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! 

Welcome to the Thursday edition of The Spark Creativity Teacher Podcast, a podcast for English teachers in search of creative teaching strategies. Whether you’re new to the show or a long-time listener, I’m so glad you’re here for today’s edition of “Highly Recommended.” This week, let’s talk about some of the best summer PD options out there. 

First things first, I’ve got to tell you about my personal favorite summer PD experience of all time, the one my husband still jokingly refers to as my “smoothie grant.” One summer, my school had money left from its PD budget, and invited teachers to apply for small, simple ways to produce something helpful to their work over the summer with a little bit of funding. I applied for a budget to go get a smoothie each morning in June and sit and read and design curriculum at my favorite beach cafe in Los Angeles for an hour or two. I still remember how fun it was to sit on the balcony after rollerblading the beach at sunrise, listening to the surfers walk by, drinking my apple pie smoothie as I reread the Odyssey and thought about how to rewrite the 9th-grade curriculum. It was the perfect way to add a regular bit of work to my summer and feel like it was fun to do. If your school has a budget for summer PD and what you really want to do is work on curriculum, consider getting creative with a grant like this. 

Next on my list I want to mention the National Endowment for the Humanities summer institute series. These cool programs take place all over the United States, giving you a chance to travel to interesting places, dig deep into their culture, and collaborate with colleagues from across the country. This summer they’ll have Grand Coulee Dam: The Intersection of Modernity and Indigenous Cultures in Spokane, Freedom Summer: 60 Years Later in Jackson, Shakespeare and Digital Storytelling in Decatur, and quite a few more.  My husband attended one of the institutes on civil rights years back and remembers it as being absolutely outstanding. 

I consistently hear from people who have found the National Writer’s Project summer workshops extremely impactful, so that’s next. If you’re interested in diving deep into the teaching of writing, I’d look up your closest National Writing Project site and see what they have on offer.

If you’re looking for online options, you might explore the on-demand workshops from Facing History & Ourselves, or the free online course available from the National Museum of the American Indian, “edX Course: Foundations for Transforming Teaching and Learning about Native Americans,” or of course, Camp Creative, the summer PD I run each June (topic to be revealed soon!)  

Finally, I’ll give a quick nod to the Exeter Humanities Institute, a weeklong workshop all about the discussion method, Harkness. I attended this institute after my first year of teaching, following a month-long experiment in each of my classes to use only Harkness as our method of discussion. I learned SO MUCH that week, and it really influenced me as a teacher on a fundamental level. I never used any other discussion method after that, because I just couldn’t imagine NOT using Harkness. Look into the method before committing to a week to go deep with it, but if you find it’s a good fit at your school, this week of PD will be an incredible boost to your ability to help your students shine through the method. 

Of course, self-care, family time, and travel are all also great ways to renew your strength and creativity this summer as well. But if you’re looking for a quality PD experience, these are some of my favorite options, so I highly recommend you follow the links in the show notes and check them out!

 

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PD Links (as promised!):

National Endowment for the Humanties Summer Institutes

The National Writing Project

The National Museum of the American Indian Online Courses

Facing History and Ourselves On-Demand Learning

The Exeter Humanities Institute

 

Welcome to the Thursday edition of The Spark Creativity Teacher Podcast, a podcast for English teachers in search of creative teaching strategies. Whether you’re new to the show or a long-time listener, I’m so glad you’re here for today’s edition of “Highly Recommended.” This week, I want to suggest you take the plunge and help your students create a tiny podcast. 

The first time I rolled out a podcasting project was with my tenth-grade honors students. Our humanities team had decided to create a project connecting the English and History curriculum for the students’ honors Humanities portfolio, a new program we were trying. None of us really knew how to podcast, though we probably all enjoyed the occasional episode of This American Life. After all, this was thirteen years ago and podcasts were just taking off.

Nevertheless, we asked our tech team for help, figured out a program our students could use, and then launched the project.

Our students blew us away. 

I think it’s important to remember that kids are often interested in exploring beyond our skills with tech. The answer to any question is generally just a Youtube search away. 

That’s why in my mind it’s worth the risk of assigning a project you might not be 100% confident in. Learn alongside your students. Try assigning a 2 minute podcast - it could be a book review, a bit of research, an opinion on a current issue, a chance to teach a life skill or profile a career, or whatever fits your curriculum. Let kids know they can record the whole thing using the big red button on the Vocaroo website, OR they can explore other options they might be interested in. See what happens. 

I’ve heard from so many teachers who’ve seen great success with their podcasting projects. Communication today extends far beyond the written word, and kids are eager to develop their media skills, so today, I want to highly recommend you spend just a couple of days on a tiny podcast project, and see where that leads you.

 

Go Further: 

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Want to learn more about student podcasting? You might like this free, easy roadmap to student podcasting. 

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! 

 

Ahh, the hum of fluorescent lighting. The slightly stained carpeting. The copier that is almost-if-not-already-out-of-paper. The dirty coffee cups. It's no secret that at many schools, the common teacher workspace isn't exactly inviting. No one really seems to be in charge of it, no resources really seem to be allocated toward it, and no one has time to care. (If that isn't the case at your school, AWESOME! And if that's because of you, that's so cool!)

But lately I can't help but ask... what if? What if the community workspace for educators had a tad more in common with those unique co-working spaces I see on Pinterest? Or those cool start-up offices with bagels on the counter and ping pong tables that pop up on Netflix sitcoms? Or the legendary work campuses of tech companies like Google and Youtube?

What if teachers actually enjoyed working in the faculty room/teacher room/copy room at your school, because it was.... like.... NICE?

When I saw a Facebook question in Creative High School English the other day from an administrator asking how they could do something nice for teachers, my mind turned automatically to this space - I'm going to call it a faculty room from here on out.

Ever since reading Ali Abdaal's book, Feel Good Productivity, in December, I've been leaning into my usual proclivity for creating pleasant environments since apparently feeling good where you do your work makes you more productive.

I don't think it would take much to overhaul many faculty rooms into a pleasant space to help create community, make teachers feel more supported, and even inspire more innovative pedagogy. In today's episode, I'm going to share a range of ideas - some of them free, some of them low cost, all of them mainly requiring someone who cares enough to ask for a small budget, gather a few colleagues to help, and get started.

(Someone like you.)

 

Go Further: 

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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! 

Make your Copy of the Podcast Posters:  https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1spsn3iz9fxHkJiK3oxEIq8mdbbD7RvT4qxZCDM-Qkv8/copy

Make your Copy of the Pedagogy Posters: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/15RS-QhBuju2_YlkUOui8ruFgyLKndTyYythU-jcRuX8/copy 

 

This week, I want to suggest you let your students design an escape room.

Escape rooms are, in the iconic words of Zoolander, so hot right now. And they have been for years. Students love them! Who wouldn’t want to learn while exploring mysterious clues and piecing together puzzles? 

The problem is, they take a little bit of forever to create. We’ve already talked about this quite a bit on the podcast! 

But you know what they say (and yes, it’s based on the research), students elevate their learning when they teach.

So why not turn things around and have the students design the escape rooms? They’ll have to thoroughly understand the material they’re trying to share in order to embed it into clues and puzzles for their peers.

I’ve created a digital template your students can customize to create their own escape rooms on any subject matter you want them to teach each other. Just follow the link in the show notes to pick up this free resource.

Escape rooms are a flexible and fun way to learn, so that’s why this week I want to highly recommend you give them a try, with your creative students leading the way! 

Grab the Student Escape Room Templates here: https://sparkcreativity.kartra.com/page/escaperoomkit 

Go Further: 

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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! 

 

So you want your students to get better at something, but drill-and-kill is clearly not the answer. Been there, done that, didn't like it. So what's a creative teacher to do?

Today I'm going to pull an example of a grammar skill and walk through five different ways to practice it without those groans you dread. While the skill I'm zooming in on may not be the exact one that's your focus right now, you can apply these five different strategies to pretty much anything. I'm hopeful that by the end of this quick show, your mind will be buzzing with new ideas for tackling the next skill your students need help with.

Go Further: 

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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! 

 

This week, I want to share a great way to tie rhetorical analysis into the upcoming Superbowl. 

First things first, we know this Superbowl has a hilarious additional wrinkle, in that the world is excited to watch not only the game, but Taylor Swift attending the game. That extra detail may help more students be interested in a Superbowl-related activity this month.

So let me explain this rhetorical analysis one-pager activity (by the way, link to this free resource is in the show notes).

The activity focuses in on two incredible Superbowl performances of the past - one by Whitney Houston during the war in Iraq, and one by Amanda Gorman during the pandemic. Each performance is uniquely tied to its context, providing students the opportunity to examine rhetorical situation in a way that will really help cement its role in understanding rhetoric. Rhetorical situation can often be more confusing for students than the basics of ethos, pathos, and logos.

You can have students choose either of the performances, based on their preference, and then work on the one-pager template to explore the speaker, audience, and context of the performance in three of the sections and then the rhetorical appeals in the heart of the paper, paying attention of course to ethos, pathos, and logos. 

These powerful Superbowl performances past are a perfect way to help kids understand how tied rhetorical appeals are to their context, and it will make for a fun lesson connected to what’s happening in the world at the moment. That’s why this week I want to highly recommend you follow the link below to grab this free resource and try it out. 

Grab your copy of this Superbowl Rhetorical Analysis Activity here: https://spark-creativity.ck.page/b5d2366aaa

Go Further: 

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Join our community, Creative High School English, on Facebook.

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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! 

 

Welcome to the second episode of the author spotlight series here at Spark Creativity!

In this series, you’ll hear from authors sharing their work directly into your classroom. Today we’re hearing from Matt de la Peña reading his short story "How to Transform an Everyday, Ordinary Hoop Court into a Place of Higher Learning and You at the Podium," from the collection, Flying Lessons.

Stay tuned throughout the year to hear from many more wonderful authors, including Victor Pineiro, Payal Doshi, and Nancy Tandon. You can also check out the first episode in the collection, featuring Megan E. Freeman reading from her novel-in-verse, Alone.

Today we’re hearing from Matt de la Pena, reading from his short story “How to Transform an Everyday Ordinary Hoop Court into a Place of Higher Learning and You at the Podium,” from the collection Flying Lessons and other Stories.

Matt de la Peña is the New York Times-bestselling, Newberry Medal-winning author of seven young adult novels (including Mexican WhiteBoy, We Were Here and Superman: Dawnbreaker) and five picture books (including Last Stop on Market Street and Love).

Matt received his MFA in creative writing from San Diego State University and his BA from the University of the Pacific, where he attended school on a full athletic scholarship for basketball.

My hope is that you’ll play this episode to your students on an upcoming Friday, sharing the guiding sketchnotes handout below with them so they can jot down their key takeaways as they listen. This short story is utterly fantastic, one of my favorites of all time to share with students!

⭐​ Grab the Sketchnotes to go with this episode:  https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1mxNfVE710zqUkfb8iGBjZGIA9A2aldz71E3VwNkf4do/copy  

⭐​ Project the Youtube version for your students in class: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iajc4RH28Pg 

⭐​​ Learn more about Matt de la Peña and his work: https://mattdelapena.com/

We've been talking this month about the paper pile. The work bag shadow. The stack of essays you just might have taken to the ice cream social/Superbowl party/beach vacation/bar/hospital...

Today I want to share a strategy I honestly think every teacher can use to save time on grading and actually help kids improve their writing more.

This episode is going to be quick and, if you decide to try it, impactful. I'm not going to go on and on, because you'll quickly get the idea and then I'd rather you use your time to go IMPLEMENT.

We all know there are certain errors that come up time and time again. If you teach middle schoolers, you've probably used margin space in about a thousand papers to explain again the idea that they need to connect their evidence to their point, making the argument clear.

If you teach older kids, perhaps you've walked around the be-sure-your-thesis-is-arguable block so many times you could write the commentary in your sleep. And then there are the little things, like writing in the present tense, how to cite quotations, and using precise language instead of making mention of "things" and "stuff."

What I want to suggest is that you never re-write the fixes for these common errors in the margins of students' writing again. Instead, I want you to create a hyperdoc featuring each of these errors and their fixes to refer your students to whenever they make one, and feel free to get as glitzy as you want with color coding and linking and imagery and models.

What should go in your Common Errors Hyperdoc?

🔴​​ Maybe they'll see a colorful infographic you've designed to show the elements of an arguable thesis.

🟠​ Maybe they'll have a chance to click on a screencast video of you walking through a model where a student's thesis was not arguable and explaining what the student needed to do to fix it.

🟡​ Maybe they can read four types of model introductory paragraphs (that ChatGPT will be happy to help you write if you don't have student models from the past) introducing theses that ARE arguable.

🟢​ Maybe they'll see a linked video from one of the many excellent University Writing Labs walking them through the process of making sure a thesis is arguable.

🔵​ Maybe they'll see ALL of this. Because you'll be able to create this and add to it over the years as you find new resources, giving it more and more depth as an incredible tool to help your writers.

I made you a template and some examples in Canva (try it on for size with this link).

Go Further: 

Explore alllll the Episodes of The Spark Creativity Teacher Podcast.

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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! 

 

This week, I want to tell you a story about pancakes.

You might know I love to cook and bake. My instagram stories feature enough pan-banging cookie demonstrations, bread-baking Sundays, and chocolate donut dipping and sprinkling to show my secret food blogger tendencies. So of course, I have a treasured pancake recipe, and my family loves a good weekend pancake morning.

But here’s the thing, pancakes take a little bit of forever. Especially these. And I don’t always feel like making pancakes for two hours on a weekend morning, even though I do love making food.

So a couple months ago when my son asked me to make pancakes, and I just didn’t feel like I had the hours to give, I suggested that he make them. At first he was a bit stunned.

"Me? Make the pancakes?”

But I said I would teach him how to do it and make them with him, if he would learn the process so he could start making them. 

So that’s what we did. I showed him the recipe, helped him find all the materials, and guided him through it. Everyone loved the pancakes, and we all showered him with compliments. A couple days later, he made them again, and I only helped with egg cracking and butter melting. More compliments. More joy for him. He started making pancakes to warm up on school mornings. He asked to make them for dinner when his grandparents were visiting, and the grandparents loved them. Soon he was cracking his own eggs, and I didn’t even need to be in the vicinity of the kitchen anymore.

So why am I telling you this? Well, for almost every teacher and parent I know, time is the great struggle. How to do it all? And sometimes that means letting things go, even if you know you’re good at them and maybe they even feel like a part of your identity.

Is it possible you could teach student volunteers to make beautiful book displays in your library each month? And that those students might actually feel really proud and pleased with the job?

Might you be able to empower student leaders on a team that you coach to plan part of practice time, give pep talks, or help set up or clean up practice equipment?

Might you be able to let go of something in your household that your children or partner might be good at too?

Maybe you want to try student-led discussion via the Harkness method, rather than trying to spearhead it every day yourself. 

Every time I see my son eating the lovely pancakes he makes, I have to smile to myself. While no one is now complimenting “Mama’s pancakes,” I love to see him feeling good about what he can do and I’m happy to have the time for other things. That’s why this week, I want to highly recommend you ask yourself what kind of pancake project can you launch? (That has nothing to do with pancakes). 

So I wonder, is there something you can turn into your own personal pancake project?

Go Further: 

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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! 

 

I'll never forget the "C" I got on my first English paper in college. I was walking across the quad in the warm eucalyptus-scented California air when I confidently pulled my paper from my bag to look at the comments. The day suddenly slid into grayscale as I saw my grade.

After a lifetime of "A" and "Great job" written at the bottom of every paper, fresh from winning the English award at my high school awards night, I was totally unprepared for the many, many scrawled notes about the problems in my paper.

I walked into class the next day in a daze, and listened to my professor as he went into a terrifying but effective rant. Apparently I wasn't the only freshmen to confidently turn in a paper that wasn't nearly complex enough.

His speech has stuck with me.

"Your rough draft," he said at one point. "Is a chair."

He scrawled an incredibly messy chair on the whiteboard for emphasis.

"And you have to take that chair," he sputtered. "And build a boat!"

We students glanced at each other, a little overwhelmed.

A boat?

Today I want to talk about the chair and the boat, and some of the process that happens in between. Because let's face it, most kids (high school me included) really struggle to understand the work that happens between ROUGH drafts and final drafts. And it's perhaps the most crucial part of the writing process.

The strategy we're going to dive into now, self-editing stations, can really help scaffold editing for your students, saving them from falling into the usual traps, allowing you to intervene on behalf of key writing improvements you're trying to help them make BEFORE they turn in their work, and ultimately, saving your commenting time for only the most important personalized suggestions.

Go Further: 

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This week, I want to share a quick resource to help you celebrate Black Artists and Authors in your classroom next month. 

Last year I started a project to create heritage displays you can use in your classroom throughout the year for special months like Black History month, Women’s History month, Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, Pride month, and more.

Each display has a colorful header and a series of interactive posters featuring artists, creators, activists, and authors. Students can read the bio and scan the QR code on each poster to go learn more about the featured person.

February’s display features Zora Neal Hurston, Ralph Ellison, Toni Morrison, Langston Hughes, Maya Angelou, Amanda Gorman, Jason Reynolds, and more.

It’s a super quick display to put up - you just print out the pieces and put them up on some colorful paper on your bulletin board, door, or hallway. I’d love to share this free resource with you and help you get ready for Black History Month right around the corner! Then you can snag some books featured in the display to put up on your windowsill, along the top of your shelves, and along your whiteboard tray, and you’ll be ready to rock. 

Easy, right?

Here's the link to grab this free resource: https://spark-creativity.ck.page/93cae16cef 

Go Further: 

Explore alllll the Episodes of The Spark Creativity Teacher Podcast.

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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! 

 

I recently polled our community on Instagram about the paper pile. Because let's face it, it's a huge part of an English teacher's life. How many papers will you assign? How will you grade them? When will you grade them? These become defining questions. I heard from teachers who have graded papers at an ice cream social, at the bar, at a Superbowl party, in the emergency room, in the delivery room, in a parent's recovery room at the hospital room, at the beach, and more.

I certainly remember the folders of papers always weighing down my bag from my teaching life. And I remember grading past midnight.

I'm sure you can relate to all of this. But more than ever lately, are you asking the same question as me? DOES IT HAVE TO BE THIS WAY?

The teaching profession has suffered through many difficult challenges of late, and the teacher shortage is the newest on a long list. I see many colleagues leaving the classroom or thinking about leaving, and while I know there are many factors, the crush of grading still feels like one of the biggest.

After all, there would be more time to creatively deal with planning, admin tasks, differentiation, parent communication, and everything else if English teachers weren't trying to find four or five hours a week to stare down the paper pile.

So today I want to suggest something, just my two cents. I think it would be better to dramatically change the way you grade to give yourself back time, than to be pushed out of the classroom by your paper pile, or made miserable by it. I think this is a conversation we need to be having honestly with our colleagues, and I hope this podcast might lead you to bring it up with your department if you feel you can. 

Today on the podcast I'm going to share six ideas for taking back some of your grading time, and then in several upcoming episodes I'll be going deeper with some of these strategies.

Go Further: 

Explore alllll the Episodes of The Spark Creativity Teacher Podcast.

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! 

 

Welcome to the first episode of the author spotlight series here at Spark Creativity!

In this series, you’ll hear from authors sharing their work directly into your classroom. Today we’re hearing from Megan E. Freeman, reading from her book, Alone. Stay tuned throughout the year to hear from many more wonderful authors, including Matt de la Peña, Payal Doshi, and Nancy Tandon.

Megan E. Freeman attended an elementary school where poets visited her classroom every week to teach poetry, and she has been a writer ever since. Her bestselling novel in verse, ALONE, won the Colorado Book Award, the Massachusetts, Maine, and Vermont children’s book awards, is an NCTE Notable Verse Novel, and is included on over two dozen "best of" and state reading lists. Megan is also a Pushcart Prize-nominated poet.

My hope is that you'll play this episode to your students on an upcoming Friday, sharing the guiding sketchnotes handout featured below with them so they can jot down their key takeaways as they listen.

Grab the sketchnotes handout here: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1Ox4NNN9SZOG2oR1AQsHxyf0txLrrcR81gFP1sLbsIo0/copy 

You can find the text of the first 60 pages of the book available free on Overdrive.

If you'd like to project this episode on Youtube with an image of Megan and her book to give kids a visual as they listen, you can find it here. 

Learn more about Megan E. Freeman

Megan E. Freeman attended an elementary school where poets visited her classroom every week to teach poetry, and she has been a writer ever since. Her bestselling novel in verse, ALONE, won the Colorado Book Award, the Massachusetts, Maine, and Vermont Children’s Book Awards, is an NCTE Notable Verse Novel, and is included on over two dozen "best of" and state reading lists. Megan is also a Pushcart Prize-nominated poet, and her poetry chapbook, Lessons on Sleeping Alone, was published by Liquid Light Press.

An award-winning teacher with decades of classroom experience, Megan taught multiple subjects across the arts and humanities to students K-16, and she is nationally recognized for presenting workshops and speaking to audiences across the country. She studied theater and dramatic literature for many years, earning degrees from Occidental College and the Ohio State University. 

Megan is a member of the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators, Northern Colorado Writers, Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers, Columbine Poets of Colorado, and Lighthouse Writers Workshop. She is an Impact on Education Award winner, a National Writing Project fellow , a Fund for Teachers fellow, and a member of the Colorado Poets Center. She used to live in northeast Los Angeles, central Ohio, northern Norway, and on Caribbean cruise ships. Now she divides her time between northern Colorado and the Texas Gulf Coast.

Visit her website here.

This week I want to talk about your work space and why it matters that you love it.

Do you remember having a locker in middle school? Remember taping pictures all over the door, adding one of those rectangular magnetic mirrors, maybe a little pink plastic basket with gum and lifesavers? 

 Setting up my locker was so important to me those days, and I really haven’t changed much. 

 When it comes to my workspace, I want to love it. And recently, as I listened to Ali Abdaal’s book, “Feel Good Productivity,” I got some insight into why that’s so important. There’s a key section in the book that talks about how much more productive you are when you are feeling happy. Abdaal suggests coming back to a question when you’re struggling to accomplish a task - “What would this look like if it were fun?” For him, the answer often meant listening to inspiring music while typing up paperwork as a young doctor. For me, it often means I put a vase of flowers in the window behind my desk as a step toward accomplishing my daily work goals. It means putting George Winston on the wireless speaker, clearing away clutter, lighting a candle. It means changing out the cute little postcard I bought in Vienna that sits on my windowsill for one of the other ones that fit my mood. It means filling my water bottle and jotting my big plans in a beautiful planner that is always right next to my computer.

But enough about me - what about you? What would some of your daily tasks look like if they were fun? What can you do to make the place that you work feel GOOD?

Would photocopying be more fun if there was a lovely bulletin board and twinkle lights next to it? Maybe you could make that happen.

Would grading feel better if you had a mug full of flair pens next to your computer and a cozy teal-colored blanket on your desk chair that felt like a hug? 

Would notes home to parents feel enjoyable if you had a stack of lovely postcards you printed and kept in a little basket in your windowsill?

Would changing out your bulletin boards feel better with Taylor Swift blasting from your wifi speaker on your desk and a peppermint life saver in your mouth from your secret snack drawer?

These small things may seem frivolous at first. But actually, the research supports them as productivity boosters. So you don’t have to feel guilty for taking time to make your space pleasant, comfortable, and inspiring. And this week, I want to highly recommend that you make a quick list of work space changes you can make ASAP so you can enjoy your work more AND, as a result, get more done. 

 

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This week I want to talk about the literary food truck project and why it’s time to try it if you haven’t yet!

Since I designed this project many years ago, I’ve heard from sooo many teachers about how well it worked for them as an engaging AND analytical way to wrap up their choice reading or book club unit. I got three lovely notes from teachers this very week, and each one had me grinning from ear to ear.

I know it can be hard to find a project that doesn’t make you feel like the book police, but this one checks all the boxes.

Here’s the basic premise. Students in groups or partnerships imagine they are creating a food truck based on the book they’ve just read. The menu, social media accounts, playlist, apparel, etc. will all flow directly from their understanding of the text. They’ll create the props and make the food items that will make their final display pop for their classmates, and then explain them in a more analytical paper. 

On the day of the festival, students have a chance to wander from booth to booth, seeing the visuals for each truck, tasting menu items, exploring how the different books have inspired different themes, and getting ideas for their TBR lists. Because of the fun format, students don’t feel like they’re being quizzed on their books so much as being invited to share them. The final festival becomes a buzzworthy school event, and something that easily rolls over into an anticipated tradition.

So this week, I want to highly recommend you try a literary food truck project of your own. You can grab the free curriculum for this project right here.

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Did you know that in Iceland they have a special holiday tradition called "Book Flood" on Christmas eve? People gift each other books, then relax and read them while drinking hot cocoa or eating holiday chocolate.

Isn't that just the best idea? I love it.

This year I want to suggest you help your students have a book flood of their own, by making sure they have a great book (or two) to take home over winter break from your school or classroom library.

And that means making a special effort to help your students find something they will actually want to read!

What better way than a book tasting? Don't worry, I know you have a million things to do right now, so I'm going to share the quick step-by-step in this podcast and provide you with all the free curriculum to make it super easy.

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This week I want to talk what to do if you're trying to help your students take advantage of the benefits of sketchnotes but they're stuck.

We’re going to dig into a special video series by Sylvia Duckworth called “Sketchnote Fever” and how it can help.

Students often struggle at first with sketchnotes, because they feel ill-equipped to add icons and doodles to their notes if they aren’t natural artists. Someone probably told them when they were 6 that they were bad at art, and they’ve integrated that into their identity by high school.

HOWEVER. Sylvia has a wonderful series of short videos teaching by demonstration how to draw simple icons to help illustrate ideas. If you take a few minutes before a time when students will be taking notes and play one of her super short videos, like “School icons,” “Subject icons,” “frames,” or “banners,” students will have a chance to practice these easy icons and build confidence in how to integrate them. 

Ask your students to keep a special place in their notes where they always draw their icons from the videos, so they slowly build a visual library they can refer to - then REMIND them to refer to it! 

Little by little, students will become more proficient at creating meaningful sketches to complement their text notes. Which means that they will become better at making their notes memorable through the critical thinking and dual coding that happens when translate what they hear into words and imagery that work together to make meaning. 

So this week, I want to highly recommend that you follow THIS LINK  and check out Sylvia Duckworth’s amazing “Sketchnote Fever” series. You’ll discover 34 super quick videos and printable handouts of the icons featured in every single one. Isn’t that amazing? Thank you, Sylvia!

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The week before winter break can be a great time for wintery poetry.

A mini-unit like this is flexible, seasonal, and easy to fit around whatever else is going on in those final (frantic? fun? festive?) days. You may have favorites of your own to incorporate, but today I just want to share three quick and creative ideas for your toolkit.

#1: Winter Holiday Lipograms

Ever since Melissa Alter Smith of Teach Living Poets introduced me to lipograms, I've been so intrigued by this poetic form. A lipogram is simply a poem in which a poet avoids a certain letter (or letters) of the alphabet, but I love the way Melissa had her students avoid all vowels except one.

For this project (grab the free curriculum I designed with Melissa here), students will choose one vowel and then write a holiday poem using only that vowel. There are three quick brainstorming activities they can do to help them generate enough words with their chosen vowel to write a poem (it's harder than it may sound!).

2: Winter Poetry Tiles

If you've ever played with magnetic poetry on your refrigerator, you already have the idea of digital poetry tiles. These kits are so easy to use to create poems, and they help students relax and move beyond writer's block.

All you need is a Google Slide and a bunch of individual word images to move around on that slide. You can make it as complex or as simple as you like.

Get the full walkthrough in the full shownotes at nowsparkcreativity.com. 

Designing these kits does take a little time, and might best be enjoyed with a fun movie and a warm mug of cinnamon apple cider. (Or you can always use mine, which you can peruse here or grab from The Lighthouse).

3. Winter Poetry One-Pagers

The Poetry Foundation has a lovely collection of Winter Poems, including Mary Oliver's "White Eyes," which I would really recommend. Its lovely language and gentle structure gives students plenty to dig into without being overwhelming.

Whether you use "White Eyes" or another winter favorite of yours, why not try a poetry one-pager?

Maybe you've tried one-pagers for novels and you're ready to branch out. Or maybe this will be your first one-pager. Either way, it's a great activity to help students dig into a poem and show their understanding through both words and visuals - a skill vital to many types of real-world communication in our world today.

As always, I suggest sharing a template with students (this is mine on TPT). When you design your template, think about the types of things you want your students to really explore in the poem.

For example, your one-pager instructions might ask students to include:

• a border of imagery from the poem
• poetic devices they notice along with quotations to illustrated them
• connections between the poem and other poems, pieces of art, or books
• connections between the poem and current events or their own lives
• themes from the poem along with illustrations of those themes through quotations and/or imagery
• a look at the poet's style
• a key symbol or image from the poem

If students need full scaffolding, you can let them know where on the page to include each element. If they have some experience and are ready for more independence, you can let them choose where to put everything, or even to use blank paper instead of a template.

 

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