In my English class, unfortunately, there is not much in the
standards that addresses creativity.
It is up to my co-teacher and me to allow students to demonstrate
understanding of the material in creative ways. Most often, we have the students break into groups and create
posters so that we can check for understanding. The writing they are expected to perform is based almost
solely the essay format and constructing sound, well supported arguments. Creative writing is not addressed by
the standards. In response, we
devised an assignment the week before Halloween asking the students to write
and submit a scary short story.
The assignment was simply for credit or no credit so that the students
did not feel added pressure. It
was a way for us to keep them engaged in the writing process by giving them an
assignment based on creativity to break up some of the monotony of the essays
they had been asked to write up until that point.
Critical thinking, however, is ever-present in our
curriculum. Students are
constantly asked to analyze readings (fictional novels, short stories, academic
articles, etc.) and formulate opinions that they must be able to put into
writing and support with evidence from the readings. The nature of our class is such that problem solving is not
a large focus, if at all. The
strengthening of critical thinking skills is the driving force behind almost
all of our lessons.
Communication, collaboration and discussion are daily
occurrences in our class. We try
to break up instruction every ten minutes in order to allow for a whole class
discussion, small group discussion or one-on-one discussion. Almost every activity we do includes
some form of communication, collaboration or discussion. Often, the only tasks students are
expected to do individually are when they write essays. Even still, there are writing
assignments in which students can work in pairs or small groups.
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