Keynote Share - Curating Curiosity: Using Creativity in the ELA Classroom
Daily Resource / April 6th, 2023
Before I was a technology trainer I was an ELA teacher for a very long time in my career. I loved teaching novels and engaging students in the writing process. Teaching students to engage with their own ideas about specific topics and to build connections with the larger world through writing still is one of the favorite parts of my career. I was lucky enough to have administrators that understood my love of technology, and the skills I have for writing grants to bring that technology to my classroom. What that meant is that I was able to try out 3D printing with students, create VR/AR lessons, and use creativity, particularly with technology, as one of my daily starting points for building English writing and reading lessons.
In the Fall of 2022, I was lucky to speak to a group of pre-service ELA teachers at Brigham Young University about creativity and how to apply our teaching standards to creative assessments and lessons. It was a wonderful experience to see their own creativity shine in just the first few minutes of exploring the ideas I brought to class. A few months later, that same professor helped me to secure the keynote for the Utah Council for Teachers of English conference. I had participated in the conference both as an attendee and presenter for years, but it was amazing to be the keynote. I was tasked with showing some ways that we can infuse curiosity and creativity into the ELA classroom.
There were two, equally important thesis statements in my keynote. First, I recognized in myself a lessened passion to read about five years ago and I have since worked incredibly hard to reconnect with that passion. With that in mind, I argued that if we, as teachers, are going to espouse a passion for reading, writing, learning, and technology, we need to actively pursue those passions with our students. Second, if we are going to pursue those passions, we also need to recognize that having a single way to assess our students’ work in their passions, an essay perhaps, is not enough in the 21st Century. We need to engage students with opportunities to explore multiple avenues to share their passions including videos, podcasts, comic creation, and more.
Curating Curiosity was a pleasure to deliver and share with the Utah ELA teaching community and I hope that I am able to have the opportunity again sooner rather than later. If you are interested in bringing this keynote or any other presentation I do to your learning community, please feel free to reach out at the email below.
