The Spark Creativity Teacher Podcast | ELA – Details, episodes & analysis

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 one, for me, to working at home is often to clean the entire house, put music on, light a candle, pick flowers, make tea, etc. and so I spent an hour prepping to work before I do anything.

I bet you've already put considerable time and effort into making your classroom a space where you feel comfortable and where students feel welcome. Today isn't about changing any of that; it's just about finding small places where you might be able to tune your sensory dashboard in class to make it work even better for you and your kiddos. By thinking specifically about the five senses - just like we have students do in their writing - you can find easy wins to make the workspace more welcoming, energizing, and comfortable for everyone inside.

Throughout this podcast, and all the ones in this series, I'm showcasing graphics and displays from the #evolvingEDdesign Toolkit, a vast free resource I made for you. 

You can grab it here: https://sparkcreativity.kartra.com/page/evolvingEDdesign 

Please share your classroom design stories, questions, photos and ideas with the #evolvingEDdesign hashtag across platforms so we can continue the conversation off the pod!

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! 

Links Mentioned:

Edutopia Article on Fidgets

Scottish Castle Fireplace Video

Nasa Space Images Video

Fun Stanford d.School Timer for Class Work (one of many they've created!)

Sources Considered, Consulted, and Cited for this Series & for the Toolkit:

Abdaal, Ali. Feel Good Productivity. Celadon Books, 2023.

"Aesthetics and Academic Spaces." Teachers College, Columbia University Youtube Channel: Curriculum Encounters Podcast, Episode 4. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLuFs4Fyk-v0Bwtuy1eQJ3JkRTeL4Sjyz4 Accessed Oct. 21, 2025. 

Chavez, Felicia. The Anti-Racist Writing Workshop. Haymarket Books, 2021.

Dintersmith, Ted. Documentary: Most Likely to Succeed. 2015. 

Dintersmith, Ted. What Schools Could Be. Princeton University Press, 2018. 

Doorley, Scott & Witthoft, Doorley. make space: How to Set the Stage for Creative Collaboration. John Wiley and Sons, 2012.

"Exploring Google's Headquarters in San Francisco." Digiprith Youtube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WxGqbmFf9Qc. Accessed October 13, 2015. 

"High Tech High Virtual Tour." High Tech High Unboxed Youtube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=87xU9smFrj0 . Accessed October 15, 2025.

"Inside YouTube's Biggest Office In America | Google's YouTube Headquarters Office Tour." The Roaming Jola Youtube Channel. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P26fDfFBx8I . Accessed October 14, 2025.

Novak, Katie. Universal Design for Learning in English Language Arts. Cast Inc., 2023.

Potash, Betsy. "Research-Based Practices to Ignite Creativity, with Dr. Zorana Ivcevic Pringle." The Spark Creativity Teacher Podcast, Episode 393.

Pringle,  Zorana Ivcevic. The Creativity Choice. Public Affairs, 2025.

Ritchart, Ron and David Perkins. "Making Thinking Visible." Educational Leadership, February 2008, p.p. 57-61. https://pz.harvard.edu/sites/default/files/makingthinkingvisibleEL.pdf. Accessed October 13, 2025.

Richardson, Carmen and Punya Mishra. "Scale: Support of Creativity in a Learning Environment," 2017. Accessed through Drive with permission.

Richardson, Carmen and Punya Mishra. "Learning environments that support student creativity: Developing the SCALE." Thinking Skills and Creativity, Volume 27, March 2018, p.p. 45-54. Accessed online at https://doi-org.proxy2.cl.msu.edu/10.1016/j.tsc.2017.11.004, October 13, 2025.

"Sensory Inquiry and Social Spaces." Teachers College, Columbia University Youtube Channel: Curriculum Encounters Podcast, Episode 2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DtD_-k5QmOQ&list=PLuFs4Fyk-v0Bwtuy1eQJ3JkRTeL4Sjyz4&index=2  Accessed Oct. 23, 2025. 

Stockman, Angela. Make Writing: 5 Strategies that turn Writer's Workshop into a Maker Space. Hack Learning Series, 2015.  

Terada, Yuki. "Do Fidgets help Students Focus?" Edutopia Online: https://www.edutopia.org/article/do-fidgets-help-students-focus/. Accessed 4 November 2025.

Utley, Jeremy. "Masters of Creativity (Education Edition) #1: Input Obsession (Design Thinking)." Stanford d.School Youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LosDd3Q0yQw . Accessed October 15, 2025.

Utley, Jeremy and Kathryn Segovia. "Masters of Creativity: Updating the Creative Operating System (Design Thinking)." Stanford d.School Youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ggza7df7N7Y&t=2233s. Accessed October 17, 2025.

"What is Curriculum and Where Might we Find It?" Teachers College, Columbia University Youtube Channel: Curriculum Encounters Podcast, Episode 4. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yh_UhGATVwM&list=PLuFs4Fyk-v0Bwtuy1eQJ3JkRTeL4Sjyz4&index=1 Accessed Oct. 23, 2025. 

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 up by your incredible raspberry jam donuts. Possibly, you spent a year in culinary school before I knew you, and your artisan pizza was legendary among your college friends.

You put all those ideas aside and dutifully don an apron, trying to look OK with the choice between sweet potatoes and carrots, chocolate chips and M & Ms.

But what if I had started the conversation by showing you everything I had in my kitchen, including my rainbow shelf of cookbooks, and asked you what you'd like to make? And how I could help? How would that feel?

Agency is a key word when it comes to education, but it's easy to underestimate its power and think of a few small choices as agency. Today, in our continuing conversation about #evolvingEDdesign, I want to think bigger and wider.

How can we give our students more agency in the classroom, empowering their creativity? Let's dig in.

Throughout this podcast, and the ones to come in this series, I'll be showcasing graphics and displays from the #evolvingEDdesign Toolkit, a vast free resource I made for you. 

You can grab it here: https://sparkcreativity.kartra.com/page/evolvingEDdesign 

Please share your classroom design stories, questions, photos and ideas with the #evolvingEDdesign hashtag across platforms so we can continue the conversation off the pod!

Go Further: 

Explore alllll the Episodes of The Spark Creativity Teacher Podcast.

Snag three free weeks of community-building attendance question slides

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! 

Think of your favorite book. 

Now think of your favorite food. 

Now match those two together - your favorite book and your favorite food - into some kind of experience. Maybe you've slipped into the world of the book and you're eating your favorite food with your favorite characters.

Are you smiling yet?

Today's "Plan my Lesson" episode is all about launching your first literary food truck festival. I recently got a note from a teacher who had listened to our episode during the pandemic about hosting an online literary food truck festival, but she really wanted to hear about how to run one in person.

Challenge, accepted.

Let's talk about a project that's a perfect add for summer reading books, book club units, choice reading finales, or even whole class novels. I've even heard from a professor who used the project for a Greek Chariot Festival to explore Greek myths (so cool!) and a teacher who used it for short stories (a great option if you're looking for a speed-version).

The literary food truck festival is just plain and simply memorable literary analysis fun, and I've just spent a dozen or so hours completely updating and expanding this free resource for you (grab it below), so let's walk through how to use it this year!

Grab the Free Curriculum for this Project: https://sparkcreativity.kartra.com/page/literaryfoodtrucks

See Photos of this Project in Action in other Classrooms: https://nowsparkcreativity.com/2020/01/literary-food-truck-festivals-photo-tour.html 

Go Further: 

Explore alllll the Episodes of The Spark Creativity Teacher Podcast.

Get my popular free hexagonal thinking digital toolkit

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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! 

On this week's mini-episode, let's talk about my favorite online teacher tool, Canva. If you haven't signed up for their free educator program yet, this summer is the perfect time! You can explore all the design tools this wonderful website has to offer, and be ready in the fall to start using it in class. Plus, I've got a free mini course ready to help you do it. Today, let's do a quick rundown on why I think you should. 

 Did you know Canva began as a program to help make yearbook advisers' lives easier? Yep, I learned all about it listening to the founder on NPR's podcast, How I Built This.  Canva basically provides easy versions of the complex designer tools available in programs like Photoshop. Instead of spending months learning Photoshop or paying a graphic designer, people in a huge variety of positions can now just click into Canva and design whatever they want quickly and easily.

By the way, this episode is not sponsored by Canva, although I'm EXTREMELY open to a partnership, lol. 

My husband just used Canva to design a t-shirt for our neighborhood triathlon at the cabin this summer. I just used it to create mood boards for our new house. My son just used it to make a restaurant menu for his English class. Even my eight year old loves to design her own bookmarks on Canva. 

As an educator, you can use it to create hyperdocs, flashcards, posters, infographics, newsletters, certificates, club t-shirts, project models, project handouts, vocabulary quizzes, slide decks, and pretty much anything else you create for work. 

You can also gift your students comfort with the program when you guide them through using it to create research carousels, podcast covers, slide decks, infographics, press releases, review posters, and pretty much anything else they create that requires visuals. 

Canva's tools are not so different from the ones you see on Slides, except they're easier to use in designs once you get used to them. Will it take a few hours of practice? Sure. But it's so worth it! My easy mini-course will set you up for success if you'd like a hand, and I'll be sure to link it in the show notes. Canva has made a HUGE positive difference in my life as an educator, and this week, I want to highly recommend you let it do the same for you.

Grab the Canva Confidence Free Mini-Course: https://sparkcreativity.kartra.com/page/getCanvaconfidence 

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! 

You want the last day of ELA to be special, but what does that mean exactly? And who has the energy to think up this special plan when you're juggling allll the end-of-year things?

If you'd like a fast, easy solution to the last day of your ELA classes, today I'm proposing (ha ha, I just accidentally typed PROMposing) stations. Stations are an easy way to get whatever dots have to be dotted and Ts have to be crossed at the same time as you build in a few fun things and keep everything lively so the time flies. The goodbye speech can only last so long. 

Grab the Summer Reading Bookmarks: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/12waoiIk0gdYMVYZPM8DnU17_RgJZhLlFKofqy2oFjM4/copy 

Go Further: 

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On this week's mini-episode, let's talk summer school. Because I know that if you ARE teaching summer school, you'd like it to be engaging. Memorable. Creative. Superfantasticaliciousexpialadocious.

But of course there's the issue of you're tired. And so are your ELA students. And maybe they're not that excited to be there.  So let's run through two quick strategies for adding oomph and engagement to July.

Here's my top suggestion - change up your texts, and provide variety. Summer school is the perfect time to experiment in English class with graphic novels, novels-in-verse, podcasts, performance poetry, graphic essays, and contemporary pieces. Get audiobook access whenever you can. Connect kids to electronic books through your local library on Libby so they can translate when needed. Run book clubs, choice reading, mini-units on compelling quick reads. 

Next, I want to suggest you try to provide real-world contexts for practicing the ELA skills you want students to develop. Develop units around blogging or podcasting, let them share research through infographics or Instagram-style carousels, dig into a Youtube unit and create video. Build your skill practice around the mediums you think are most likely to engage your students. You can teach argument through a video project in which kids recommend the best sneakers and hot chip brands. You can teach narrative through a suspense fiction podcast. You can practice rhetorical analysis by creating commercials for students' favorite video games. 

While summer school just doesn't scream fun for most kids, this is your chance to kick that narrative in the teeth. Think of it as your innovative ELA learning lab, in which you and your students will approach the learning goals in new ways that YOU are excited about. It's your chance to finally run those podcast clubs, teach that Youtube unit, and bring in that graphic novel you love. Free from the restrictions of the regular year, summer school is your chance to teach with your full creative self, and this week, I just want to highly recommend that you do!

Go Further: 

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As the sun rises a little earlier each day and the cherry trees in our neighborhood fill with fruit, our three years in Europe are coming to a close. With only a few weeks left of this European family adventure, I find myself thinking back over all that we've seen and done and learned.

Highs like winter paddleboarding in Barcelona, nighttime tobaganning in Slovakia and hiking by herds of sheep along the south Coast of Wales together. Eating dark chocolate gelato with whipped cream in Rome and caramelized banana oatmeal in London. Watching Croatian fireworks explode above our balcony on New Year's Eve and Hungarian light shows at the Christmas markets in Budapest.

Lows like croup in Nuremberg and COVID in Split, Scarlet Fever in Tuscany, a broken arm in Spain and a CAT scan in an Austrian emergency room. Lows of loneliness that could creep in unexpectedly, anxiety that could catch hold in that moment when I'd realize just how little backup was behind us if we hit a rough patch.

So here we are, getting ready to say goodbye, and I just wanted to share a little of this life abroad. Maybe you're thinking of coming overseas yourself, or maybe you've tuned in a bit to our adventure, and you're interested to hear how the story ends. Today on the podcast, let's talk about the good stuff, the medium stuff, and the tough stuff.

Go Further: 

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Today I want to talk about a fantastic podcast for you to use in class if you teach Shakespeare. With dozens of intriguing episodes like "Shakespeare and Game of Thrones," "Shakespeare and YA Novels," and "Pop Sonnets," The Shakespeare Unlimited Podcast, by the Folger Shakespeare Library,  is a great way to bring in modern connections and relevancy to whatever play you're studying. Today I'll give you a quick rundown on four fun episodes, and then I hope you'll go exploring on your own to find more episodes that could help your students make connections between your chosen Shakespearean text and modern life. 

In "Akala and Hip Hop Shakespeare," Akala explores how the rhyme and rhythm of Shakespeare as well as the deep meaning  relates to the same components of hip hop. He talks about the traditions of music flowing out of Africa and into the diaspora, and also brings up questions of who education is for and how Shakespeare came to be associated with elite society. 

In "Shakespeare and YA Novels," two novelists talk about how they have used Shakespeare's work to inspire their own, and how they felt connecting themselves to someone so renowned.

In "William Shakespeare's Star Wars," one author  explains how and why he came to rewrite the Star Wars series in Shakespearean language. Bet you didn't see that one coming! 

And in "Pop Sonnets," a popular online writer shares the story of how he came to rewrite pop songs as Shakespearean sonnets. And spoiler alert, they sure did become a sensation! 

When integrating episodes like this into class, try giving students a sketchnotes template to provide a little loose structure as they listen. Let them know how you'll be using the text moving forward, so they have a reason to pay attention. Maybe it's going to lead into a writing activity, a silent discussion, or a mini-podcast project of your own! 

Shakespeare can sometimes feel far away to students, but Shakespeare Unlimited helps bridge the gap. That's why this week I want to highly recommend you hit follow on their feed and see what wonders you discover. 

Links Mentioned:

Explore the Shakespeare Unlimited Podcast: https://www.folger.edu/podcasts/shakespeare-unlimited/  

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! 

Choice reading can sometimes feel like an out-of-reach dream. I recently heard from a busy teacher who wrote, "I love choice reading, but squeezing it in can be tough!"

Yeah, I get that. There's so much going on in ELA.

In today's episode, we're talking about how to squeeze more choice reading moments into your busy schedule. Even if you don't have time to hand over 10 minutes in class for reading regularly, you can still build your choice reading program with quick-and-easy additions like these.

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Today I want to talk final exams, and specifically, one I've really enjoyed giving when I had the leeway to skip the sit-down exam. If you don't have to involve any Scantron sheets in your final, you might love it too, so let's dive in. 

Maybe you've seen some of the great graduation speeches floating around the internet - maybe you even analyze some of them with your students when you're teaching public speaking or rhetorical devices. I haven't had time to dive in yet, but I hear good things about Jason Reynolds' speech at Lesley University and Taylor Swift's at NYU. 

But for this project, the wisdom that will be on offer won't come from celebrities. Nope, instead, your students will take the podium and give their own graduation speeches, based on the wisdom they can pull from what they've read in your class. 

Have your students look back at your texts and themes  in the context of three out of the following four main ideas.  

How literature helps people understand their own lives.

How literature helps people understand the lives of others and empathize with other people.

How literature makes it easier to understand history.

How literature illuminates issues of morality.

This little bit of structure makes it a lot easier to organize their final speech. What I love about this is that what we're really asking them is: why do we read? Why did this class matter? For me, that's a really important way to end the year, and I love hearing what they say. 

I suggest you have your students present their speeches during the exam period. Meet outside somewhere, like the baseball bleachers, or reserve the library or a special room if you have that option. Then either have all the students read their speeches or divide into groups and have them read to their small groups. I like to give them a listening handout for this day, in which they nominate the best speeches and defend their nominations. 

When it comes to exam time, I'm all for trying something that better reflects the goals of your course than a multiple choice exam. Whether it's a graduation speech or something else, this week I just want to highly recommend that you reach out to your admin and request this option, if you don't already have it! 

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!