Spark Creativity

Looking for a Halloween-themed creative writing activity that keeps students engaged while reinforcing descriptive writing skills? This Halloween creative writing activity blends sensory details practice with a funny, Mad Libs-style story prompt that gets students laughing while thinking critically about word choice. Students work with a partner to complete a haunted house story by inserting their own sensory-based words—focusing on nouns, adjectives, and vivid details. It’s a lighthearted wa

Genius Hour is a powerful way to bring project-based learning (PBL) into your ELA classroom, giving students the opportunity to explore their passions, build research and writing skills, and share their learning in creative, authentic ways. This complete Genius Hour unit includes editable templates, structured planning materials, and student-facing hyperdocs to guide learners through every step of their independent project journey. Whether you're using it as a quarter-long PBL unit, a recurri

Plagiarism and citation format are tricky topics to teach. There are so many little details and they take a lot of practice for students. No doubt you've corrected 3,467 citations in papers. This lesson will allow you to review citation format for popular sources like books, poems, plays, online articles, podcasts, and films with a colorful and clear slideshow as students take notes on the guiding sketchnotes handout. Then they can immediately practice what they've learned - notes in hand - by

Looking for a fresh, creative poetry activity to celebrate the season? These Digital "Magnetic" Tiles for Spring Poetry offer an engaging way for students to build poems with vibrant, seasonal language—perfect for National Poetry Month, spring writing units, or a fun brain break. Students use Google Slides to drag and drop spring-themed word tiles onto beautiful seasonal backgrounds, creating unique digital poetry posters. With no prep required, this activity fits easily into your classroom r

Want to get your students thinking deeply and critically about the issues presented in The Social Dilemma? It's not always easy, I know! This hexagonal thinking activity will help them connect the big ideas, warnings, key points, and suggestions for moving forward that fill this important documentary. Be prepared to be surprised at the depth of your students conversations.Here's what's included in The Social Dilemma Hexagonal Thinking Set:6 pages of visually interesting hexagons (grayscale fo

With book talk podcasts, students find an authentic audience for their choice reading check-in and their peers find inspiration for their next book! In this curriculum set, you’ll find everything you need to help students prep and record a creative book talk podcast episode without any tech hassles. These episodes can then be used to create a class index of book reviews all students can use to help choose their next book. The project includes planning steps to help students create an episode (

Introduce Edgar Allan Poe and Poe's most famous works in this fun, puzzle-filled escape room, including classroom transformation and digital options! Students will:Read the full text of “The Raven” and/or hear Hank Green read it aloudRead two selections from “The Fall of the House of Usher”Read the full text (or watch a video version) of “The Tell-Tale Heart” Go on a video tour of the Poe museum and read about Poe’s life at the Poetry Foundation See famous illustrations of Poe’s workThis is an

Looking for an engaging and creative activity for the hectic Halloween week? This Halloween Poetry Tiles resource is the perfect fit! Designed to captivate students' attention while letting them unwind, this digital poetry activity encourages them to reflect on Halloween memories and explore imagery in a fun and interactive way. With three beautiful backgrounds to choose from and a large set of Halloween-themed “magnetic” poetry words, students can mix and match to craft their own striking po

Harness the interest your students have in creating video for TikTok and YouTube with this Documentary Film Project. You’ll be able to walk students through documentary creation while helping them develop ELA skills like storytelling, research, and interviewing. The materials in this project will walk students through the process of examining short documentary models, coming up with a story to tell, understanding how to use different types of audio and video clips, and storyboarding their idea.

If your students struggle with writing strong theme statements, these Theme Statements Analysis Lessons provide guided practice to help them move beyond vague responses and single-word themes. With scaffolded lessons, editable worksheets, and creative one-pager templates, students will learn how to differentiate between topic, plot, moral, and true thematic ideas—and express them clearly in writing. Designed for grades 7–10, this flexible resource supports students as they build lite

Need an engaging activity for an in-between day or a poetry unit? Try this fun magnetic poetry lesson. Students have a chance to unwind a little while checking in with you about how they feel about school. Perfect for middle and high school classrooms, this activity allows students to drag and drop "magnetic" word tiles in Google Slides to create their own school-inspired poems. With four lovely backgrounds to choose from and a large set of education-themed "magnetic" poetry words, students

Make literature circles meaningful, manageable, and digital-friendly with this ready-to-use Google Slides resource. This digital literature circles set is designed for middle and high school ELA and works with any novel set, whether students are reading the same book or different ones. Perfect for blended, in-person, or virtual classrooms, this set takes care of the logistics so you can focus on building thoughtful, student-led discussions. From book previews to group meeting prompts and c

Want to ignite quality discussion with hexagonal thinking as you read Macbeth, but unsure how to get started? This strategy can yield inspiring results, so let me help you launch it with this resource-packed toolkit. Inside this editable toolkit on Google Slides, you'll find:An editable set of key terms, historical connections, themes and symbols from Macbeth that you can tweak to meet your needs inside Google Slides and then print. Teacher and student instructions to make it easy to get rolli

Help students build real-world confidence with this Life Skills and Career Readiness project—a flexible, engaging independent research unit for high school students. Whether you’re teaching ELA, advisory, life skills, or career prep, this project gives students the opportunity to explore essential adulting skills and practice sharing what they’ve learned with their peers. Students will select a life skill—such as doing laundry, booking travel, writing a professional email, or budgeting—and c

Looking for a creative way to review academic content while boosting engagement and collaboration? This student-created escape room project gives middle and high school students the chance to design their own digital escape rooms—all while building ELA skills in research, writing, and storytelling. Perfect for project-based learning, end-of-unit assessments, enrichment, or even independent reading extensions, this flexible resource works with any topic or content area you want students to exp

Spark deeper conversations around Shakespeare’s plays with this hexagonal thinking template, designed to promote critical thinking, literary analysis, and student-led discussion. Whether you're teaching Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet, or The Tempest, this flexible resource helps students visually connect key ideas—like characters, themes, symbols, and historical context—using an engaging, hands-on format. This Shakespeare discussion activity is ideal for small groups, whole-class discussions, or

Project based learning helps your students connect their in-class work with their lives. In this PBL project, your students will have a chance to raise their voice and take a stand on the subject of their own education. After exploring modern trends in education, they'll craft a 3-4 minute "Ed Talk" to propose a new program, course, pedagogy, or department at your school or in your district. What will your students argue for when they take the stage? Senior internships? Genius hour? Interdiscip

In this curriculum set, you’ll find everything you need to help students create a research podcast project that will fit quickly into any unit. Students will choose a topic (free choice or you can guide them to an area relevant to your current unit), research with three solid sources using the graphic organizer or sketchnotes template, build their show in three parts, and then record their audio or video podcast by following step by step guidelines.  Students will be supported with a graphic or

Start the year off right with this back-to-school survey for high school students—a simple, effective way to learn about your class while building trust and connection. This editable student questionnaire includes thoughtful getting-to-know-you questions to help you understand students' interests, reading habits, learning preferences, and more. Designed for the first day or first week of school, this quick survey works well as a warm-up activity, a class starter, or part of your classroom ro

One pagers help students process what they’ve read. They make a great final assessment, or a final review assignment prior to a final graded discussion or piece of writing.  This Shakespeare one pager template can help clarify exactly what you are looking for and give your students a road map to success. They will know what to include, and where to include it.  After students have finished their one pager, you’ll have a rubric ready to make grading easy, too!  Here's what's inside:Teacher GuideS