The Spark Creativity Teacher Podcast | ELA
Education:How To
So you've assigned a book you love (or maybe a selection of several) to your students for the summer, and soon enough they'll be back to share their takeaways. But maybe this year you want to hear from them through a form other than the traditional summer reading essay. You want to kick things off with creativity, and also push them to think beyond any internet summary and commentary they may have perused alongside the book. Today on the podcast, I'd like to share four easy alternatives to an in-class essay.
Each activity can easily be completed in a day, and can also lead into a larger class discussion of the text. Plus, they're more fun to grade than a stack of 100 essays. Is an in-class essay on the summer reading a valid choice? Sure! But if you'd like to change it up, here are some ideas.
The Open Mind Characterization Project
Hexagonal Thinking
Theme One-Pagers
Silent Discussion
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!
296: My Favorite Final Exam (I mean, not that I don’t love Multiple Choice)
295: Do your Students Race through Superficial Revision? Try This.
294: Crying in the Dusty Stairwell (on Hitting a Wall in Teaching)
293: Creative Exam Review Activities for ELA (that don't involve a packet)
292: Try the Sesame Street Quiz (5 Different Ways)
291: When Genius Hour WORKS (The Elective Series)
290: Try this Hack to Teach Varied Sentence Structure
289: How to Launch Book Talk Podcasts in Class
288: A Lesser-Known Amanda Gorman Gem
277: How Erica Used the AI PBL Project to give her Students Voice
276: Let All Books Count: A Tale of Two Kids
275: Teaching SciFi & Fantasy (The Elective Series continues)
274: Using Students’ Love of Youtube to our ELA Advantage
273: First Chapter Friday: Nancy Tandon Reads
272: You Need to Know about this Short Story
271: #Bookface is Well Worth a Look
270: Try a March Madness Poetry Bracket
269: Teaching Research to Digital Natives
268: Try These Google Translate Tools in Class
267: So your Students aren't Doing the Reading? Here's Help.
Create your
podcast in
minutes
It is Free
LifeBlood
Old Fashioned On Purpose
Science of Reading: The Podcast
The Minimal Mom
Financial Coaching for Women: How To Budget, Manage Money, Pay Off Debt, Save Money, Paycheck Plans