The
construct of creativity as a concept that can be dissected and directly taught
is unfortunately a constraint on the greater results of what creativity is
capable of providing. By trying to breakdown creativity into a prescriptive
manner, the way one might approach grammar or spelling, limits the student’s
possibility at utilizing this mysterious concept. I believe that instead of
instructing creativity as something teachable, which it isn’t neccesarily, we
should be pushing students to think for themselves. In other words, all that is
needed for helping a student be creative is to increase their awareness of the
matter, encourage them to think as writers and show how writing effectively and
passionately can boost the possibility of creativity. In order to better help
our students understand what creativity is and how to use it, we must dissolve
the notion that creativity is secondary to literacy and can be taught in the
same manner. In spite of the fact there is no direct model on how to teach
creativity in the classroom, we must prioritize this allusive concept on the
same level as literacy, in order to illustrate to students that the “magic” of
writing lies in how much of ourselves we invest into our compositions.
Your topic reminds me of the final paragraphs of Margaret Kantz's article. A lot of my students, when asked about the relationship between creativity and research, wrote that they used to think of the two as being far removed. There is a common way of thinking that academic writing is one thing and creative writing is another separate thing. It's the reason why you and I are called creative writing students. The unfortunate tacit assumption is that other forms of writing done by, for instance, literature majors is therefore un-creative. That misconception is one possible construct about creativity, research, and writing. It might not be exactly what you are talking about, but I hope my comments might help nonetheless.
ReplyDeleteSK,
ReplyDeleteYour construct above appears to be: creativity can be taught in a structured manner as part of the writing process. You are opposing this, wanting to preserve the mystery of it, and advocating that it comes instead from personal investment in writing, in teaching students to think like a writer. What that means is not very clear yet.
Where I think you need to look:
Creativity in the writing process is usually located in invention. In classical rhetoric that was less about creating than using well-established topics and means, but after Romanticism this became more like creativity and like it, more tied to personality and inspiration. Research into the writing process suggests that with experienced writers invention and creation is an element looped back into it throughout, not relegated to a discrete stage. So, as you can see, this is not the view that creativity is 'secondary to literacy.'
See if you can find some work on the above that will help you come to a more complex view of creativity in the writing process. Invention might be helpful. There are whole books on this and they might deal with its relationship to creativity. See Janice Lauer, James Porter.
--AR