383: Bleeds, Ghosts, & Flash Verse: A Lesson for Long Way Down
The Spark Creativity Teacher Podcast | ELA
Release Date: 06/18/2025
403: 5 Hexagonal Thinking Minis (Try One Tomorrow!)
The Spark Creativity Teacher Podcast | ELA
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 hundreds more waiting. This is a tool you can reach for time and again, to help students warm-up for...
info_outline
402: Make Your Space a Partner with Flexible Resources
The Spark Creativity Teacher Podcast | ELA
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 budget and bandwidth. (Check out , if your budget is continuously falling short of your needs)....
info_outline
401: Easy Wins on the Sensory Dashboard (yes, in ELA!)
The Spark Creativity Teacher Podcast | ELA
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 situation where I feel comfortable. In fact, I generally prefer not to work at home because step...
info_outline
400: #evolvingEDdesign: Giving Students Real Agency
The Spark Creativity Teacher Podcast | ELA
Imagine you and I were about to make a dinner together. Now, I bring a love of baking to our project, and a decently strong roast chicken game. But I don't want to dominate the conversation too much. "Let's make roast chicken and vegetables," I say, "and cookies." Your face falls a little. "Oh, but you can choose which vegetables we roast, and what kind of cookies - I have M & Ms AND chocolate chips." Perhaps you love making bibimbap, tagine, paella, tacos, or BBQ pork. Maybe you've got three Ottolenghi cookbooks in your bag and you were about to suggest a middle eastern buffet followed...
info_outline
399: #evolvingEDdesign: Crafting a Flexible Classroom
The Spark Creativity Teacher Podcast | ELA
My first classroom was a little blue trailer on the edge of the soccer field. Every morning, I got my shoes clogged with mud hiking across the field, but I loved my corner of campus, and I felt pretty free to design it to work best for my students. And it turned out that what really worked best was constant change. Our desks were attached to our chairs, so to move one was to move both. And move them I did, frequently working up a sweat between classes as I threw them around the room as quickly as I could, moving from circular discussion seating in one class to desks pushed against the walls...
info_outline
398: A Simple Trick to Elevate Poetry Analysis: Poetry Blackout
The Spark Creativity Teacher Podcast | ELA
The first time I had much use for poetry came in college, freshmen year. My professor assigned each of us to memorize a poem and recite it in class. Horrified, I chose ee cummings' "" and began the process of reading it a million times between tennis practices and snowball fights. Over and over and over I read it, trying to memorize how the words and lines zipped together without the usual literary wardrobe of grammar. I can still remember pieces, twenty five years later: "anyone lived in a pretty how town / with up so many floating bells down..." "no one loved him more by more..." As I...
info_outline
397: The Humble Webquest Levels Up (How-To + Templates)
The Spark Creativity Teacher Podcast | ELA
I've got more and more respect, these days, for the humble webquest. Slash hyperdoc. Slash game board. Slash immersive digital multimedia experience. Slash clickable infographic. Slash playlist. Slash choice board. When it comes to sharing information and contemporary texts with your students, there is SO MUCH available online right now. Students can see actors practicing behind the scenes at the Royal Shakespeare Company. Read John Green's thoughts on drafting. Hear Jason Reynolds' read his children's book, There was a Party for Langston, while the illustrations wash across the screen....
info_outline
396: Try these Inviting Alternatives to the Research Paper
The Spark Creativity Teacher Podcast | ELA
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 students likely find MLA. I found myself thinking, why can't I just link my sources in parentheses? Why can't I just reference the authors who informed my thinking inside my sentences? Why on earth does it matter if I use a comma or a semicolon, put the page first or put the page second? Why does APA even exist? Yeah, all the things our students probably think when we roll out our 26 page MLA redux, which doesn't even cover it all. And that's only...
info_outline
395: The American Dream: A Multimedia Introduction Lesson for ELA
The Spark Creativity Teacher Podcast | 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 Gatsby, or an essential question that binds together a variety of genres and perspectives. So when I received this request for our Plan my Lesson series, "How about a fun way to introduce the American Dream unit for juniors, about 36 of them," I was ready. In today's episode, we're going to talk about how you might introduce the concept of The American Dream through a series of multimedia activities, first letting students choose which ones to...
info_outline
394: Quick Win: Build your Reading Culture with this Fun Fall ELA Display
The Spark Creativity Teacher Podcast | ELA
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 books by popular authors and launching points for popular series books for kids. But the shop still held one full bookshelf for staff recommendations, covers out. Each employee had their shelf: "Sarah recommends....," "Tia recommends...., "William recommends...," etc. And while I had plenty of my own ideas about what authors I might like to read, I found myself spending a good chunk of my browsing time finding out what Sarah, Tia, William, and the...
info_outlineIt’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 readers, ignites interest and discussion in class, hooks unengaged students like nothing else has.
Long Way Down is one such book.
It’s a fast read, a novel-in-verse, by the former U.S. Ambassador for Youth Literature, Jason Reynolds. In my opinion it’s perfect for 9th and 10th graders, but really, there’s a lot there for students of any age. It tells the tale of Will Holloman, a teenager trapped in a cycle of violence by “The Rules” of his neighborhood - No Crying, No Snitching, Get Revenge. He’s watched every man in his life fall to gun violence because of the rules, and now that his brother has been killed, the rules are set to snare him. Until he steps onto a very unexpected elevator ride.
In today’s episode of “Plan My Lesson,” we’ll be planning a class period focused on the dialogue between Long Way Down, the novel-in-verse, and Long Way Down, the graphic novel.
This week's request comes from an educator teaching a new graphic narratives course - which, by the way, sounds amazing. She’d like help crafting a lesson that guides students in comparing the two texts side-by-side, so that’s what we’re going to do!
Whether you teach a version of Long Way Down, a different text that’s been translated into a graphic novel, any other graphic novel, or even none of the above, I think you’ll find new ideas for your lesson planning today. After we walk through the lesson itself, we’ll be talking about helpful takeaways from designing THIS lesson that you can apply to designing ANY lesson, so be sure to stay tuned to the end.
Grab the free Long Way Down lesson plan curriculum set here: https://sparkcreativity.kartra.com/page/1Eq309
Go Further:
Explore alllll the Episodes of The Spark Creativity Teacher Podcast.
Launch your choice reading program with all my favorite tools and recs, and grab the free toolkit.
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!