For Educators
Support for
Common Core’s
Close-reading Expectations
CraftLit® podcast, hosted by award-winning former HS and University educator Heather Ordover, has been in constant production since 2006, unlocking classic literature in a family-friendly, low-stress format for listeners young and old(er).
Whether you’re an educator or a student, life is hard and moves fast. Our hectic days don’t give us much time to read (much less to savor and ponder on) more complex-but-wonderful-books like the classics.
CraftLit is a free podcast you and your students can listen to online, on an mp3 player, or stream to any smartphone or tablet via the CraftLit App or Stitcher Radio (and soon you will be able to listen on YouTube). (And it’s not cheating.)
listen online
Explore The Library
Stitcher radio
Who Is This Site For?
Educators
Students
Artisans
For Educators
If you’ve been teaching for awhile, you’ve probably experienced
an eleventh-hour schedule change. Nothing is more terrifying for
an English teacher.
Prepping a new book is a gargantuan undertaking – how great would it be if you could do that prep in your car on the way to school?
Now you can!
CraftLit’s library holds eighteen full, classic texts and a variety of short stories. Listeners often make requests for the next book,
so if you don’t see what you need, feel free to ask.
Note: Premium content is bundled into audiobook form once complete and loaded into the show’s Shop.
Featured premium audio stream – explained more fully
below – where Heather tackles more difficult texts:
For Students
Over the years, the shows have helped many high school and university student listeners. The Benefit to students and educators is this: if the podcast ensures the students understand the plot and characters, it frees the classroom teacher up to do the really fun and important bits in class – discussing the finer points and helping students work at Thinking Critically and Writing Thoughtfully About Fantastic Works Of Literature.
The Common Core will be so relieved! (and so will you)
Listen On The Go
Listen when convenient (bus, commute, breaks)
Boost Effectiveness
Listen and read
at the same time
at the same time
Listen On-Demand
Rewind as often as necessary with no risk to self-esteem
Format
Originally CraftLit was conceived as a way to help knitters and crafters whose hands are busy to still get a weekly dose of classic literature, unlocked chapter by chapter in a friendly in-your-ear format.
The mild-emphasis on handicrafts and creativity supports whole-child learning and encourages students who wrestle with ADD-issues to find productive solutions to their fidgets.
Ordover – known by former students as an educator who preferred to “teach-to-the-joke” – gives listeners important points to focus on, vocabulary that might be tricky, and hard-to-find historical tid-bits that make these books come alive.
Listeners over the years have ranged from 6 to 86 and, as you see from the reviews, it’s worked out pretty well.
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Episodes are accompanied by shownotes, giving listeners another access-point to the text through links, pictures, and occasional maps.
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If you don’t like knitting (or otherwise-crafting) you can skip over the opening audio.
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Timecodes indicating where the “book talk” begins appear on every set of shownotes where the audio player lives.
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Since episode 331, those time codes have been moved to the top of the show notes.
Hooked?
Not enough audio on the free show?
Subscribe to our Premium Service in streaming-only or download-only formats for a second weekly book!
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