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Your English Teacher's Favorite English Teacher: Taylor Swift x The ELA Classroom

🎙️ Episode 2 - Your English Teacher's Favorite English Teacher: Taylor Swift x The ELA Classroom

 We’re Hannah Hazelbach and Ana Perez: best friends, revolutionary ELA teachers, and your new classroom besties.

ELA is alive and everywhereee, and when we can connect the texts we're reading in class to trending culture, messy human behavior, and what's popping off in everyone's FYP pages, students become ALL IN.

In this episode, we dive into all things Taylor Swift, including her fame, her iconic music, her recent engagement, and how you can bring Swiftie things into your ELA classroom, even if your students are not Swifties.

 

✨ What you’ll hear inside:

  • How each of us came into our Swiftie eras
  • Our favorite songs/albums to use in the classroom and which texts we would pair them with
  • Engagement strategies for various skill-building levels 
  • Rapid fire recs (also listed below)

 

Taylor's Eras in Themes:

  • Debut - Innocence, coming of age, first love, storytelling
  • Fearless - Young love, bravery, heartbreak, optimism
  • Speak Now - Self-expression, regret, forgiveness, personal growth.
  • Red - Complexity of relationships, emotional highs/lows
  • 1989 - Reinvention, fame, independence, identity
  • Reputation - Image, betrayal, revenge, reinvention
  • Lover - Celebration of love, social issues, optimism
  • Folklore - Storytelling, multiple perspectives, nostalgia, folklore
  • Evermore - Mortality, storytelling, grief, resilience
  • Midnights - Self-reflection, regret, ambition, vulnerability
  • The Tortured Poets Department - Heartbreak and grief, public vs. private identity, emotional extremes
  • The Life of a Showgirl - TBD! (will be updated)

 

Rapid Fire Recs: 

Ana’s for Theme/Characters (All from TTPD) -

  • The Crucible x "Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me"
  • Romeo and Juliet x "But Daddy I Love Him"
  • Hamlet x "Guilty as Sin"
  • Frankenstein x "The Prophecy"
  • Macbeth x "The Albatross"

Hannah’s for Tone/Mood - 

  • "Should’ve said no" - Debut
  • "Love Story" - Fearless
  • "Back to December" - Speak Now
  • "Blank Space" - 1989
  • "This is why we can’t have nice things" - Reputation
  • "You Need to Calm Down" - Lover
  • "The Last Great American Dynasty" - Folklore
  • "marjorie" - Evermore
  • "You’re on your own, kid" - Midnights

 

🚨Bonus: ⁠Click here⁠ for a FREEBIE - a self-checking poetic devices review game on Google Slides using Swift lyrics from older albums. Super fun - let us know if you have your kids play it!

👉 Stay connected with us:

  • Ana's socials: @simply.ana.p
  • Hannah's socials: @teachengagingela

You can also visit our websites for extra resources + PDs:

 

💌 Got an idea, question, or a text you want us to tackle? Slide into our DMs or send us a message because we might just feature it in an upcoming episode!