Catalogue of Critical Creativity

 Creating with Words: Line and Caret

This activity asks students to remix their thinking and challenge preconceived notions. What I love about this activity (beyond the wordplay, which is my jam) is that students are creating pathways out of negativity for themselves. They have a word with a negative connotation and through thinking about the meaning of that word, and thinking about the way they think about it - the stoppage of it - they find a way to flip and make a way forward. That’s pretty beautiful. I would use this as part of a poetry unit, but could also see it being a fun standalone activity for days between units. 

Creating with Images: Haikonography

This is a fun activity that plays with the haiku form to simplify even further into icon images. Students are encouraged to observe the form of the genre still, while exploring what is possible with images. I would include this with a poetry unit. I would probably employ this activity after doing an activity where I show students images (probably nature based) and prompt them to write a haiku based on the image. In this way they get to explore creation of the genre from multiple angles and see what is possible and what might constrain them. 

Creating with Sounds: Parody Lyrics

Gotta make Weird Al proud! This activity highlights ways that students can gain higher level thinking skills through transforming familiar mediums. To parody something, students really have to know their subject. They have to understand the forms and play within the genre; they need to how to flip the script and make it funny. The best parodies are able to produce something that relates to both the song and the subject and has some words that even sound similar, but open new areas of understanding and humor. I might consider using this as one part of a creative assessment at the end of a book. For example: students could create a parody song about a character from The Great Gatsby. 

Creating with the Body: Dallowinian Party

Like a Murder Mystery Dinner or Dungeons and Dragons game, this activity challenges students to embody a character. To do so, they would have to really understand the character and their motivations. Students would need to explore the character’s backstory and imagine how they would react in a given scenario. Things get mixed up with “interruptions” and are also given opportunities to write first person stream of consciousness narratives about what is happening in the middle of the party. This would be a fantastic opportunity to explore with the Modernists. We could also use it in genre theory to talk about the limitations and affordances of stream-of-consciousness and first person perspective. Also, it would just be a hoot. 

Creating with Stuff: Metaphorical Fashion

In this activity students are challenged to create clothing that is metaphorical and outwardly represents inward meaning or themes. This is a fun activity I feel students would get very invested as they play with ways to express meaning related to our content. It would be really easy to use this with something like The Scarlet Letter. We could talk about ways that the letter given to Hester gave her a contained, one-note identity - but our designs can hold multiplicities of play and interpretation that expand, not limit a character or theme. 

Creating with Social Media: Volley

This activity not only sounds like a hoot (Mrs. Dotson let us throw stuff at eachother!), but a good lesson on the power and constraints of collaboration. Our work is influenceced by the work of others, our progression is often dependent on what others contribute. We can be held back or given wings by how we contribute or receive collaboration. There could be a lot of applications for this activity - it could be used to explore themes, review vocabulary, in a poetry unit as the students create visual collaborative poems together. This reminds me a little of the game Telestrations. It would be memorable if nothing else!