{"podcast":{"title":"The Spark Creativity Teacher Podcast | ELA","slug":"the-spark-creativity-teacher-podcast-ela-743282","podcast_index_feed_id":743282,"rss_url":"https://sparkcreativity.libsyn.com/rss","website_url":"http://nowsparkcreativity.com","image_url":"https://static.libsyn.com/p/assets/c/2/e/b/c2ebf102a6acd494bafc7308ab683e82/TSCTP_3000px.png","author":"Betsy Potash","episode_count":425,"summary":"Want to love walking into your ELA classroom each day? Excited about innovative strategies like PBL, escape rooms, hexagonal thinking, sketchnotes, one-pagers, student podcasting, genius hour, and more? Want a thriving choice reading program and a shelf full of compelling diverse texts? You're in the right place! Here you'll find interviews with top authors from the ELA field, workshops with strategies you can use in class immediately, and quick tips to ignite your English teacher creativity. Love teaching poetry? Explore blackout poems, book spine poems, I am from poems, performance poetry, lessons for contemporary poets, and more. Excited to get started with hexagonal thinking? Find out how to build your first deck of hexagons, guide your students through their first discussion, and even expand into hexagonal one-pagers. Into visual learning? Me too! Learn about sketchnotes, one-pagers, and the writing makerspace. Want to get your students podcasting? Get the top technology recs you need to make it happen, and find out what tips a podcaster would give to students starting out. Wish your students would fall for choice reading? Explore top titles and how to fund them, learn to mak…","last_synced_at":"2026-07-30T04:18:43.548102+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-spark-creativity-teacher-podcast-ela-743282"},"episode":{"title":"434: What I'll be Doing on the First Day of School","slug":"434-what-i-ll-be-doing-on-the-first-day-of-school","published_at":"2026-07-29T14:32:00+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-spark-creativity-teacher-podcast-ela-743282/434-what-i-ll-be-doing-on-the-first-day-of-school","show_page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-spark-creativity-teacher-podcast-ela-743282","url":"https://sparkcreativity.libsyn.com/434-what-ill-be-doing-on-the-first-day-of-school","audio_url":"https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/sparkcreativity/2026_day_one_full.mp3?dest-id=518145","summary":"My first first day of school, as you probably know, did not go well. Unless you count laying on the floor of my office crying at the end of the day \"going well.\" It was the first time I ever realized you could be thinking one thing while saying something completely different. \"Take a look at the syllabus,\" said my mouth, while my brain said, OH NO, they hate this! They're looking at the clock! And you have nothing else planned! And you have to do this with three more classes! Since then, \"going over the syllabus\" is not in my first day playbook. Nope, the last thing I want on day one is to stand in front of the class and lecture about our course texts, my expectations, and their upcoming units. So what will I be doing instead, in my first year back in the classroom in a bit? That's what today's podcast is all about. 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!","meta_description":"My first first day of school, as you probably know, did not go well. Unless you count laying on the floor of my office crying at the end of the day \"going…","key_points":[],"chapters":[],"topics":[],"duration_seconds":1091,"processing_state":"not_requested","actions":[{"name":"request_transcript","method":"POST","url":"https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/the-spark-creativity-teacher-podcast-ela-743282/episodes/434-what-i-ll-be-doing-on-the-first-day-of-school/transcription-requests","description":"Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode."},{"name":"read_markdown","method":"GET","url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-spark-creativity-teacher-podcast-ela-743282/434-what-i-ll-be-doing-on-the-first-day-of-school.md","description":"Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource."}]}}