254: Highly Recommended: Try This For Black History Month
01/18/24 • 3 min
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.
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!
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.
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!
Previous Episode
253: No More Taking Grading Everywhere you Go
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!
Next Episode
255: How to Set Up Self-Editing Stations in English Class
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 help scaffold editing for your English 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:
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!
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