Teaching creativity is something that I
once thought was an oxymoron. The idea of teaching someone to
generate original ideas seemed like something out of science fiction
where someone would have to unlock the hidden potential of their
brain and run the risk of becoming an all-powerful psychopath. However, in my youth, I overestimated originality. This lead to my interest in adaptation. Watching things that I
loved in my childhood evolve into new masterpieces, near
unrecognizable trash, or something in between has been a constant
fascination ever since I was able to recognize mythological
references in other works after a summer class about Greek Gods in
fifth grade. As I grew, I realized that it was less
about teaching creativity and more about getting the best from
people. It became clear in third grade that the most creative
endeavors were heavily inspired by things from the past. Ideas come
from everywhere: things we love that we want to emulate or put our
spin on, things we hate that had an interesting idea that went
underused, etc. The part that makes something interesting is having
an outlet or a form, and the further I got into college, the more my
language arts education widened my understanding of these paths.
In the classroom, students are just
learning different ways to be understood. They often don't know what
fleshes out a character or paints a scene. Just saying 'describe it'
does nothing. It produces wordiness and clutter. It becomes about
creating a structure that the students can use to create different
and unique visions of their own. Thus, whike observing a freshman high school English class, I was
tasked to make a creative writing lesson from O. Henry's “The Gift of the Magi.” The task was to change the point of view while
keeping the story's message. I was given the old assignment, which as a series of questions that looked like they were composed on an old typewriter. After pairing down some essential story
elements and learning that the students were working with simile and
metaphor, I came up with the following:
Creative
Writing: Jim's Day
The
story, “The Gift of the Magi,” is presented from Della's point of
view. The reader goes through the day with her and lives her
experiences, but the reader doesn't see any of Jim's actions.
Assignment:
In groups of 3 or 4, describe Jim's Day from after he leaves Della
that morning to the start of the gift exchange that night. You can
put him in any situation as long as the event doesn't wind up
contradicting the original ending. Your story should be about 4
paragraphs.
Pre-Writing:
1)
Where and when does the story take place? Keep these in mind when
thinking up your events.
_________________________________________________________________
2)
List things Jim might have done during his day. Do you want to
include any irony in these events? Remember, there are two things he
must do by the end of the story.
__________________________________________________
#_____
__________________________________________________
#_____
__________________________________________________
#_____
__________________________________________________
#_____
Writing
(sequence):
3)
Start with putting Jim in a setting. Is he just leaving the
apartment? Is he already on the street? Is he at work? Is he
somewhere else? ____________________________________________
4)
How is Jim feeling during each of the events? Write some notes in the
column next to the event.
5)
Does your original arrangement work? If not use the side # spaces to
reorder the events.
Writing
(Details):
O. Henry uses a lot of indirect characterization in the original
story. This involves using sensory details to describe a way someone
acts and shows who they are as a person.
6)
List some traits Jim has:
____________________________
7)
List some actions a person with those traits might do? What parts of
your story might they fit in?
________________________________________________
#_____
________________________________________________
#_____
________________________________________________
#_____
________________________________________________
#_____
8)
Similes and metaphors can be used to add flavor to pieces of writing.
List some things you can compare Jim to and how they compare:
__________________________
9)
End with a sentence that shows Jim's reaction to arriving home and
seeing Della.
______________________________________________________________
Now
grab some Chromebooks, and start writing your story about Jim's day!
During the lesson, the first issue came
up when I tried to get the students into groups. While trying to
create some different groups I had them count off and then collect
into groups. The groups came out too large. This left me to reassemble
the groups and wasted around five minutes of class time that could have been better used. After getting the students to quiet down, I went straight to doing the assignment. This left the students either ahead or behind and
require me to both repeat the instruction and stall students who got
too far ahead. Both of these solutions are simple ones: count better
and preview the material, respectively.
The biggest issue came from the
inclusion of metaphor and simile. I had been assured that the
students had studied the concepts. A few students asked me about how to compare Jim to something but most just ignored it. Despite this, many of the
students came up with solid pieces of figurative language. Most of
the class took the framework in entirely different directions with
one using a flashback to illustrate how Jim received the watch from
his dying father. However, there were three groups that just didn't
succeed at the assignment. Thus, when I wanted to revise the task, I thought of these students. How could I spark their creativity?
What do I give them to think about? I came up with a mind mapping
activity involving describing Jim to help start the process. Then using those
descriptive words or actions to think up new items as displayed
to the right. This is similar to the Concept of Definition Word Maps in Richard T. Vacca, Jo Anne Vacca, and
Maryann Mraz's Content Area Reading eleventh edition (p. 258). In that book the concept word map helps "clarify the meaning of unknown words." Here however, it shows the connection between known concepts that the student might not have been able to see before.
This start would help but in my own class, I'd like to take it further. The inclusion of a short research component could help tremendously. Something as simple as looking up the usual activities in the early 1900s could easily give students ideas. The students in that class already had access to Chromebooks, so it seems like a simple optional step. If I give this lesson in the future it is one that I will certainly include.
Blogging is not what I usually think of
when I think 'new.' It has been around since I was in high school. I
even kept a few of my own for a time. According to Richard T. Vacca,
Jo Anne Vacca, and Maryann Mraz's Content Area Reading eleventhedition, 'Teachers are now assigning students to read preselected
blogs related to class projects, make comments on the blogs, and then
report back to the class.” This use of blogging is something that
is akin to the making a website” option of the early 2000s where students could make a website as a way of doing a presentation or a reading summary. Blogs end up being a bit more formal than the discussion board posting but less formal
than a full presentation. The blog format might even produce results
better than a paper. The use of pictures in a blog can ease the amount of writing by allowing students to post a picture rather than describe something. Also, with an image embedded right next to the picture, students can write about an image without having to deal with multiple windows. Vacca, Vacca, and Mraz also bring up
the ability to create sites that require passwords and allow the
teacher to monitor the content. This allows a teacher to grade whenever he or she likes and make sure that criticism is fair and useful. (p. 47-51)
