Catalogue of Critical Creativity
Words - "FoundTy Poetry," in which students pay attention to the enhanced meanings of words based on the typography and fonts used to convey them. Find examples from signage and buildings nearby and then create a poem.
*I could adapt this assignment to relate it to the works of William Carlos Williams in a unit focused on modernism and imagism. We could compare the works of the students to the works of Williams and note any significant differences between the two, and examine the new poetry through the lens of modernism/imagism and determine what literary critics would say about our products.
Images - "Color Palette," in which students select a new trichromatic color scheme to represent a recent work they have been studying.
*I could adapt this assignment to relate it to The Giver, and have students consider not only which colors represent the novel, but which colors might be the most important to them individually. They can then rename colors accordingly, and create an artistic piece using the color scheme, all the while being conscious about which of the three colors they use for which part of their painting/digital image.
Sounds - "Soundtracking the Moment," in which students create an alternative soundtrack for a film clip that transforms the tone, mood, or atmosphere of the film.
*I could adapt this assignment to relate it to Jane Eyre, and have each student pick a favorite scene to write a soundtrack to using technology similar to GarageBand. Perhaps it would be best to offer up a selection of a few scenes, because afterwards we will watch those scenes in class and discuss how the music the students created differs from the music that the director chose to incorporate in that scene. We can then all take the same theme, listen to the soundtrack first, and then compose a new soundtrack that intentionally alters the meaning of the scene.
Body - "Dallowinian Party," in which students participate in a role-play dinner to demonstrate the personality traits and mindsets, relationships, and dynamics of various characters/historical figures. Take pre-determined breaks during the action for each individual to write a stream-of-consciousness journal entry as their character.
*I could adapt this assignment by breaking the class up into smaller groups who each have their own "dinner party." Each group is assigned the same characters, and the characters are pulled from two different works that we have studied as part of the same unit. Characters would be intentionally chosen to contrast with one another and present different viewpoints, and each student would have to respond to how the various characters from the contrasting works either harmonize or clash with one another and why. At the end, we can have each group consciously discuss what they discovered and wrote about in their journal entries, and then return and report as a class with a designated spokesperson from each group to share a few of their findings.
Stuff - "Book Stack Summary," in which students watch a video clip from a well-known movie, determine key details and central ideas about the clip and work as a whole, and then produce a stack of books whose spines summarize the concepts of the work.
*I could adapt this assignment by having students work together to create a summary for a video clip that I show at the beginning of class, and then having each pair/group of students present their book stack summary and explain how it represents the clip/work as a whole. Then I will give the assignment for each student to individually develop a book stack summary for the current book what we are studying as a class using books around their homes. I could expand the creativity constraints to include not only books, but movies and magazines and the like to make it more accessible to students who might not have a lot of books at home. Each individual would then present on their finished product during our next class period.
Social Media - "GIF Story," in which students use gifs to tell a story that incorporates knowledge and/or personal experience.
*I could adapt this assignment to relate it to Romeo and Juliet, or another work (preferably a play) that we study as a class. Students would first start by using a curated selection of gifs to find a few gifs that represent their current moods, or even to "meme" by attributing the action in the gif to a funny and relatable life experience. Students will then share their findings together in a group. Then together in that group, they will be required to work on a scene that I assign to them to recreate the action through gifs. They will then have to post the result to an online location (such as a blog) that I have curated to make space for each scene in order, and we will then "watch" each scene unfold through gifs.
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