Spoken Word Poetry

At the end of a poetry unit, students were asked to write and perform a spoken word poem. It could be on any topic. Afterwards, they were asked to reflect on their creative process.

This student chose ‘loyalty’ as a topic for his poem because he thinks it is an important virtue. He then made deliberate creative choices that he felt enhanced the ideas.

Dance ‘Poem’ to Describe Happiness

Students in an English Language Arts class had been reading, writing and discussing the concept of happiness. Their final task was to write a poem to describe happiness.  After struggling to write down their thoughts, these two students asked their teacher if they could perform a dance instead of writing a poem to express their ideas about happiness. The teacher agreed. The students wanted to express the idea that “Happiness is a journey, not a destination.” This quote was the source of inspiration for their song choice, “The Climb” by Miley Cyrus, and their subsequent choreography.

Essay about a Poem

Students in an English class were asked to write group essays on a poem of their choice and then to reflect on their creative thinking. This group of three students chose to write their essay on “The Ballad of William Bloat” by Raymond Calvert. In their reflection they say they got ideas from the rest of the class during a class discussion and from Internet research, then put themselves in a “relaxing environment” to add ideas of their own. It took them more than one try to complete the essay.

Running Water for a Model House

This student made a model of a house for a Science Fair project and applied his knowledge of circuitry from Science to put in lighting.

Once he had lighting, he wished he had plumbing too but could not immediately see a way to do that. However, one day he had an “Aha!” moment about how to get running water in his house:

“One day I was drinking from a juice box and I squeezed too hard and the juice went everywhere.  I thought I could use that idea for the water in my house.” 

Genius Hour

In this classroom, an hour a week is set aside as “Genius Hour”, a time when students can pursue their own interests by working on projects of their own choosing.

The teacher found that initially the students did quite safe, school-like projects but he decided to “trust the process” and persevere. Some students are now in their second year with this teacher and have started to find interests and passions to pursue.

Santa Vending Machine

A class was planning a secret Santa exchange. This student, who is the class’s “social coordinator”, decided they should make a vending machine for presents with an elf inside who would deliver the presents down a slide. She got the idea last year and did something along those lines, but she wanted to refine her idea. She engaged about a quarter of the students in the class in this project and they worked on it at lunchtime.

“Not a Stick” Sticks

After reading the story, Not A Stick by Antoinette Portis, students asked to turn a stick into something new and innovative. All of the students were able to complete the task and create something using the stick and most of their work would illustrate Profile 2.

However, this student made the task fit his existing passion for invention and his current creative project.

Underground Mine

This student had drawn a detailed picture of a mine that he wanted to share with the class. He knows a lot about mines – he plays Minecraft and his dad works in the mining industry internationally. He is aware of his creativity (“I have a creative mind”) and clearly values it. But where his ideas come from is a mystery to him. He says it’s a “secret” but knows that’s not quite the right analogy:

“Steal” a Story

The teacher gave an English class the following assignment: James Shapiro wrote about William Shakespeare, “There are many ways of being original. Inventing a plot from scratch is only one of them and never held much appeal for Shakespeare.” Shakespeare, the English language’s most celebrated playwright, was famous for taking plots from other stories of his age and recasting them as plays. He’d change things in important ways, but even then the plots of plays like Julius Caesar, Hamlet, and As You Like It were recognizably lifted from other sources.

Medicine Making

In a joint outdoor education project with three other classes (about 85 students), Aboriginal elders shared their knowledge of traditional medicines based on local plants. Students then had the opportunity to apply this knowledge to develop their own/creative medicines. These girls were very engaged in this task.

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