Recently I was invited to give a poetry workshop on a reflection day at a local school. They wanted the writing element of the day to help students understand themselves better, so I chose to provide a workshop based on George Ella Lyon's poem, "Where I'm From." You know I love that workshop.

Together, we looked at how details bring poetry to life, brainstormed images about their childhood experiences, explored how various creators have interpreted the "I am From" prompt to create videos, paintings, photo essays, poems, and combinations thereof. Then I invited them to work multimodaly as they knit together their images with color and imagery.

But I had never worked with them before, and none of them had heard of multimodal communication, though they're surrounded with it everyday. I realized I had left out a crucial step in the workshop, to help them see that multimodal communication would go well beyond "decorating" their poem or underlining all the lines in color.

So how can we introduce this concept to students? How can we help them see that text, images, audio, and video can all convey such very different shades of meaning in communication? This week on the pod, let's talk about introducing multimodality, and showing kids what works and what doesn't. Be sure to grab the free download that goes along with this episode, a slideshow full of examples you can share with your students.

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OK, let's dive in.

Grab your copy of the multimodality introduction slideshow: https://spark-creativity.kit.com/bdde614049

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So maybe you already know I'll be teaching a section of ninth grade next year to help a local school fill a hole. Want to know what I was doing at 11 pm the night after I agreed to this role?

Guess.

If you guessed working on my class library, you are so right.

Let's talk about first steps, for my library, and maybe, if you're thinking of starting one of your own, for yours. Whether you're completely new to building a classroom library, about to start a new one in a new place (like me), or building new layers onto a library you've already begun, I think you'll find some helpful inspiration in this episode.

Links:

Access the Scholastic Compendium on Reading Research: https://www.scholastic.com/worldofpossible/sites/default/files/Research_Compendium_0.pdf

Sign up for Camp Creative Coming in July: https://sparkcreativity.kartra.com/page/Khm334

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I often see conversations online at this time of year about PD books worth reading over the summer. Maybe your PLC is looking for a good read, or you want to take something awesome with you on a plane ride or road trip, along with a stack of Emily Henry novels and A Man Called Ove (which, by the way, I'm giving my own personal read-of-the-year award to, wow).

Or maybe not, which I totally get too. If you'd like to take the next couple months totally away and renew your energy and creativity and health and not even think about the classroom, that's great too! That's another way to help yourself be a good teacher next year. It's all valid.

But just in case you are looking for a book, it just so happens that I have some recommendations. Because I read 17 books about teaching this year, watched myriad Youtube videos on creativity and design, and listened to a LOT of ed podcasts. So let me break down my favorites for you.

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The countdowns are on all over the place, and that means in many classrooms, it's time to review. So let's dive into a lightning round of review ideas to help you come up with ways to make all that looking back engaging and memorable for your students.

Links Mentioned:

Hexagonal Thinking Review Activity Free Download Sign-Up: https://sparkcreativity.kartra.com/page/endofyearhexagons

Jennifer Gonzalez's "Crumple and Shoot" Game from Cult of Pedagogy: https://www.cultofpedagogy.com/how-to-play-crumple-shoot/

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Years ago, Teri Lesegne wrote a book called Reading Ladders, about meeting readers where they are and then guiding them to new heights. It's a lovely image. I've got my own twist on it; I like to think of helping kids get onto the reading escalator. They read the first book I hand them, or their best friend forks over after staying up til midnight to finish it, and boom, they're on that escalator cruising toward the next book without even realizing it.

Sometimes it's a series that helps them on, or realizing that audiobooks count, or discovering Jason Reynolds for the first time.

Sometimes it's a genre - they grab a Rick Riordan, then the next twelve, then realize that "fantasy" is a thing and cruise straight into Fablehaven, Skandar, and the Unicorn Thief, and Harry Potter.

It's a genre I want to talk about today, one that has exploded in popularity over the last twenty years, and just keeps going. Sometimes I think Neal Schusterman is keeping it alive singlehandedly, but then I remember that Margaret Atwood, Adam Silvera, Megan Freeman, and Darcie Little Badger are part of the movement, along with so many others.

Have you guessed? Yep, it's dystopia. Dystopia provides a fast-paced reading escalator, with many series integrated inside. Students might pick up The Hunger Games, move through the whole series, snag The Maze Runner, move through the whole series, snag The Uglies, move through the whole series, pick up Scythe, move through the whole series, pick up Divergent, move through the whole series. You get the idea! There are many series-based, fast-paced starting points where students can step onto this reading path and find themselves carried upwards with a whoosh.

Then, as they start to understand the genre more and more, and become intrigued with it, there are new angles to explore. They might try Megan Freeman's novel-in-verse, Alone, and its new companion, Away. They might pick up the graphic novel version of The Giver. They might imagine their lives with their internet feed planted inside their head, by reading Feed. Eventually, deep in the genre, they might be ready for Animal Farm, Fahrenheit 451, or another book that will stretch them further. Or, they might be much better positioned to engage those books in your whole class curriculum.

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The countdown started yesterday in my kitchen, as my daughter flipped the calendar forward for something and realized she had less than thirty days of school left. She loves her teacher and looks forward to school, so she felt sad. It launched her into a story about how her class is trying to convince her teacher to move to the next grade with them. If you, too, are starting to plan ahead and think end-of-year thoughts, today I want to share a way to help students review and reflect on the year in one multimodal activity. I've had requests in The Lighthouse for ways to help students reflect on their own learning - to tell their own learning story. Research backs the importance of metacognitive reflection for students - in other words, it's helpful for them to think not only about what they've learned, but also how they've grown and developed as learners, and where they might want to go next.

Before we dive in, feel free to grab the free curriculum that goes along with this episode. Everything pictured below and discussed throughout the episode is already set up to make this activity as easy to implement for you as possible! And yes, the handouts are editable so you can tweak them to suit your own twist on the activity.

Grab the free curriculum for this activity: https://sparkcreativity.kartra.com/page/endofyearhexagons

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When my daughter was a baby, she was a terrible sleeper. I spent many early morning hours trying to find advice online from research, experts, and parents in similar situations. As surely as there was any piece of potentially helpful advice, there existed its polar opposite. "Keep the baby near you, so it can form a healthy attachment," one expert article might read. "Let the baby soothe itself, or it will never be independent," read the next. I sometimes feel the baby sleep debate is similar to the teacher feedback one. When it comes to this absolutely vital issue, one that plagues teachers and often drives them out of the profession, why can't research provide a more solid answer? One book calls for one approach, but there's another in the next. And the next. And the next.

Here's the thing. Baby sleep and writing feedback have something in common - they're complex, they're individual, and they're so difficult that many, many people have tried to offer creative solutions. So instead of lamenting all these often frustratingly different possible approaches anymore, I decided to go hunting for treasure. Today on the podcast, I'm sharing my distillation of the feedback landscape. Ideas to keep in mind as you approach the feedback process, so that you can help students as much as possible while sparing yourself unnecessary angst. Because when it comes down to it, I think it's waaaaaay more important that your students get to have you as a healthy, creative, energized teacher than it is for them to get an acre of feedback on their writing.

Andersen, Carl (2000). How's it Going? Heinemann Educational Books.

Graham, S., MacArthur, C., & Hebert, M. (Eds). (2019). Best Practices in Writing Instruction. The Guilford Press.

Hillocks Jr., G. (2007). Narrative Writing: Learning a New Model for Teaching. Heinemann.

Kohn, Alfie (2020). Forward to Ungrading: Why Rating Students Undermines Learning (and What to Do Instead), edited by Susan D. Blum, West Virginia University Press.

Perkins, David. (2009). Making Learning Whole. Jossey-Bass.

Terada, Youki and Stephen Merrill. (2024: November 8). "Why Teachers Should Grade Less Frequently." Edutopia Online. https://www.edutopia.org/article/why-teachers-should-grade-less-frequently

Zemelman, Daniels and Hyde. (2005). Best Practice. Heinemann.

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