This winter, inspired by cool bookish tournament projects by Melissa Alter Smith of Teach Living Poets and Jared Amato of Project Lit, I decided to launch my own English teacher-y tournament.

I wanted to know - of the hundreds of amazing books out there - which were working BEST in the classroom for the teachers in our community?

After polling over 2000 teachers over in Creative High School English for their favorites in 9th/10th grade (11th and 12th grade coming soon!), I landed on 16 great titles and we've been voting ever since.

Today on the pod, I'll be sharing the top titles and some of the comments and rationales teachers have shared along with their votes. If you're looking for a new book for your curriculum, or you're curious what other teachers are focusing on in theirs, today's show will help!

See the links below for comments and voting from teachers throughout the tournament (additional voting happened live through Instagram stories which I can't as easily share):

• The initial poll calling for titles for the tournament

The Round of Sixteen:

• Long Way Down vs. The Book Thief
• Animal Farm vs. Romeo and Juliet
• Night vs. Macbeth
• Fahrenheit vs. Of Mice and Men 
• The Odyssey vs. The Lord of the Flies
• Speak vs. The House on Mango Street
• Dear Martin vs. Born a Crime
• The Firekeeper’s Daughter vs. The Poet X

The Quarterfinals:

• Long Way Down vs. Lord of the Flies
• Night vs. House on Mango Street
• F451 vs. Born a Crime
• Romeo and Juliet vs. The Poet X

The Semifinals:

• Night vs. Long Way Down
• Poet X vs. Born a Crime

The Finals:

• Night vs. Born a Crime.

If your podcast player doesn't support links in the show notes, you can find the full show notes with graphics and links at nowsparkcreativity.com. 

Thank you to everyone who participated in the voting and shared your thoughts and experiences!

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.

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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! 

If you’re teaching Long Way Down (and ready for some Long Way Down lesson plan ideas!), let me just start by saying “YAY!”

It’s a reader-maker, an incredible book you can teach in a short time with a high impact.

Today, I’m going to be sharing some of my favorite ideas and resources for you to pair with this book. We'll talk about discussion formats, project ideas, Jason Reynolds-themed multimedia waiting around the web, and a creative writing pairing that I think you're going to love too.

Heads up, as I’m sure you’re aware, this book does have some language. You may need to give a heads up to parents, depending on your school community. But you can, at the same time, mention the Walter Award, Coretta Scott King Award, Printz Award, Newberry Honor Book Award, etc. Maybe throw in the fact that the Library of Congress named him the national ambassador for Young People’s Literature. 

Here's a quick peek at the visuals available in the FULL BLOG POST: https://nowsparkcreativity.com/2025/04/long-way-down-lesson-ideas.html. 

Discussion Option: Hexagonal Thinking

Discussion Option: Silent Discussion on the Walls

Activity Option: Flash Verse Creative Writing

Activity Option: The Open Mind for Character Analysis

Links to Explore:

• One example of conversations happening in Creative High School English about Long Way Down in our Book Brackets
• Dear, Dreamer documentary about Jason Reynolds
• Long Way Down graphic novel opening
• There was a Party for Langston read aloud
• Ain't Burned all the Bright trailer
• Jason Reynolds on working with artist Danica Novgorodoff
• Long Way Down Curriculum 

Today's guest, middle school teacher Susan Taylor, has repeatedly gone the extra mile to build a reading program that makes an impact. Not only does she guide her students towards the best books available, she guides her teaching network the same way, through her podcast, Wonder World Book Cafe.

Today, we're going to go rapid fire through her favorites to recommend to students, and why she likes them so much.

You'll walk away with fantastic recommendations for novels-in-verse, graphic novels, historical fiction, and much more. You'll discover Susan's top pick for First Chapter Friday, the one book she thinks every classroom library should have, and the superb (easy-to-copy) way she helps students recommend books to each other all year long as part of their regular reading routine.

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! 

If you've ever felt stymied over the fact that some of your students aren't sure how to write a thesis while others are ready to tackle counterargument, today's episode is for you.

Not so long ago, Kareem Farah of the Modern Classrooms Project was here to share the MCP vision for a differentiated blended classroom, and how it can support all learners (and all teachers!). Today, his founding partner, Rob Barnett, joins us to follow up, sharing specific techniques for easily creating instructional videos and learning roadmaps in ELA. 

We want to help you design writing units that let your students move through the material at their own pace, reviewing and repeating lessons when they want to, skipping ahead when they're ready. 

Let's dive in.

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.

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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! 

Related Links:

Explore Classrooms using MCP pedagogy: https://www.modernclassrooms.org/exemplars 

Take the Full Free Course to learn about MCP: https://learn.modernclassrooms.org/ 

See the Progress Tracker Templates from MCP: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1i46SSU3PozMk3bQ06-d1Od09vqZLqIx_2St7FTX8A50/edit 

Discover Rob's Book, Meet Every Learner's Needs: https://www.meeteverylearnersneeds.org/ 

It all started with 1984, as so many things do. I wanted students to see how the ideas in the book were splashed across the world around them - yes, in their magazines and ads, but also in the current events they saw on the news and the news sites covering them.

So I asked them to create collages, connecting 1984 to their lives.

As we put the collages up across one wall on the classroom, the startling connections between what they were reading and what they were seeing in the world around them sprang out in bright colors. Sitting beside us as we discussed and wrote about the novel, they provided a constant reminder that Orwell’s writing was as relevant as it gets, many decades later.

So am I suggesting you do a context collage next time YOU teach Orwell? Nope, today I want to suggest that a context collage as a stellar go-to anytime you’re trying to help students see the connections between a text and their lives.

Let me walk you through it.

Go Further: 

Explore alllll the Episodes of The Spark Creativity Teacher Podcast.

Grab the free Better Discussions 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! 

You’ve probably heard me talk about my first poetry slam. The project that became my go-to vehicle for teaching poetry every year that followed.

The book I was handed - 6 American Poets - was chock full of great poetry. Dickinson, Whitman, Hughes… but I knew that I, like every paper worth reading, would need a solid hook. 

That’s how I ended up staying up til one in the morning the night before my poetry unit was set to kick off searching for poetry slam clips without swearwords. 

Eventually I found some incredible clips and the philosophy that would guide much of my time in the classroom.

I thought of the philosophy then as “using showcase projects.” 

Now I think of it as finding the glue that would keep students engaged with my material.

So how can you find your own glue? Let’s talk.

Go Further: 

Explore alllll the Episodes of The Spark Creativity Teacher Podcast.

Grab the free Better Discussions 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! 

I can still remember the faded, chipped blue print of my childhood game of Memory. The thick cardboard squares we flipped in search of pairs, thrilled when we found a match, frustrated when we accidentally revealed a match to our opponent.

I’ve played a million games now as a parent too, watching my children’s eyes light up when they rack up more matches than I do, which is pretty much every time. I think my daughter was beating me consistently by the time she was four.

The memory game seems to stick in our game culture like no other. I see a new twist on it everywhere, most recently National Parks memory when I stepped into the store at Sequoia National Park last week. 

So how can we use this go-to in the classroom to gamify ELA? Well, in a million ways. Let’s talk about how you can make your own memory game, with pretty much any material you want to cover.

Go Further: 

Explore alllll the Episodes of The Spark Creativity Teacher Podcast.

Get my popular free hexagonal thinking digital 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!

Teaching an ELA elective that you've dreamed up yourself is such a joy. Today I want to stir up some ideas together for the next time you've got the chance to put your own spin on an older course or propose a new course altogether.

So let's start with a few questions:

Would you rather take a course called "Theater" or "Contemporary Theater: The Triumphs of Hamilton & Wicked "?

"Creative Writing" or "Writing for Change across Platforms"?

"Film & Literature" or "How the Oscars got it Wrong"?

"Argument Writing" or "How to Get What You Want (with your Writing)."

"Digital Literacy" or "Understanding Spin: How the Sites You Choose Impact What You Believe."

While many schools continue to run electives like "Creative Writing" and "Poetry," which are often wonderful courses, I believe it's time for a shift in framing. Writing is EVERYWHERE today, playing a vital role in our politics, our science, our businesses, our media creation and consumption, our entertainment, and our understanding of the world. To help our students see that, we can tap into modern platforms and media to hook our students, teaching similar key skills and texts in a new context, alongside more contemporary voices.

Go Further: 

Explore alllll the Episodes of The Spark Creativity Teacher Podcast.

Get my popular free hexagonal thinking digital 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! 

Like most of us, Christina Schneider didn't find teaching writing one bit easy at first. Despite her background as a journalist, putting all the puzzle pieces together in the classroom to help her students understand how to build a thesis, introduce and analyze evidence, and express their ideas felt like a pretty tough task.

But over time she had one breakthrough after another with her high school students in California. She figured out how to meet them where they are and guide them through the process of building their academic writing skills day by day throughout the school year.

Now she steps up to the plate each August with her new students feeling confident that she can take them where they need to go. She's recently written a new book, Building Strong Writers, where she shares everything she's learned in step-by-step walkthroughs to make it easy for you to try too.

Today on the pod, we'll be exploring three of her top writing scaffolds, and how you can get started with them tomorrow to make argument writing instruction simpler and more successful in your classroom.

Connect with Christina, from The Daring English Teacher

Hi! I’m Christina. I’m a full-time high school English and journalism teacher, wife, and mom. I’ve taught every high school grade level, and I love sharing my ideas, lesson plans, and ELA resources with other teachers. One of my passions is providing engaging, robust, and differentiated learning experiences to my students while helping other teachers do the same.

Explore more of Christina's work on her website: https://thedaringenglishteacher.com/ 

Grab your copy of her new book, Building Strong Writers: https://www.amazon.com/Building-Strong-Writers-Strategies-Scaffolds/dp/1956306854 

Follow along with her tips and ideas on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thedaringenglishteacher/ 

Go Further: 

Explore alllll the Episodes of The Spark Creativity Teacher Podcast.

Get my popular free hexagonal thinking digital 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!

It's February, the perfect time to feature work by contemporary Black authors in your book talks, poetry clip showings, First Chapter Fridays, book displays, and bulletin boards. It's also a good time to look ahead to next year and consider whether you want to order some of these books for book clubs and whole class texts in the 2025-2026 school year.boo

Of course, I know you know every month is the perfect time to feature these books in all kinds of ways. But today let's talk about five authors you might want to highlight especially right now, and why. As always, you know your classroom best, so be sure to preview books before teaching them to be sure they're the right fit for your students' ages and your community.

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!