1 Insert Creative Title Here: A Discussion on Creativity Within the Writing Process Within the writing community, writing

scholars and writing teachers have discussed the writing process through narrow eyes. Many scholars have discussed the writing process, which is nothing new (Langer, Perl, and Sontag). They discuss the drafting, prewriting, writing, reading, editing, and finalizing over and over again always missing an important part of the process. The writing process is often described as this direction-type idea and if you follow all the rules you will have the desired outcome. This is not as simple of a concept as everyone has made it sound and many authors have discussed all types of writing processes. Where they have discussed exactly what they do when they write, how they view their own writing, and describing the things surrounding them while they write (King, and Haruf). Some of these scholars state that invention is where creativity comes in during their writing. That at the very beginning when they think of their idea is the most creative part of their piece and then from then on it is all about the writing process. Of course everyone talks about their writing process and creativity differently, and it shows how different writing can be for each individual. However, I believe that scholars and teachers lack on focusing the attention on creativity. There is a fine line between creative and completely outlandish, and when no one has a clear definition of what creativity is it starts getting thrown around very loosely. On occasion definitions will use the word creative/creativity and another word such as insight, and use them as synonyms making no distinction between the two words; making it seem that the two can be used interchangeably (Gtz). According to dictionary.com creativity is defined as, the state or quality of being creative and then

2 creative is defined as having the quality or power to create. So thanks dictionaries, you really didnt define anything at all. Along with the dictionaries is a scholar named Robert Epstein, in his article Defining Creativity, he starts explaining how a behavior is creative when its variables are unknown and how creativity is put in this natural category thus not being able to define it. (Epstein, p. 65) His ideas on variables not being known are very helpful when defining what creativity is because it brings up the conflict that creativity is having the ability to be complex and having limitless ideas and no boundaries making the variables unknown like Epstein had stated. This is a difficult idea itself, this seems to indicate variables being unknown, a way of explaining this is, the source of where you get your ideas from is not a textbook, an encyclopedia, a magazine, or an image on television but from somewhere in your mind that is unknown to others. But then, he rants about how it cannot be defined because it is a natural category which is the idea of creativity is something that is so natural because it comes from our minds and is also so subjective that it cannot truly be defined. In the end he really does not make his definition of creativity any clearer. However, creativity can be defined. Pieces of work whether it is a painting, sculpture, writing, or other forms of art can be clearly determined if it is creative or not. The definition of creativity in writing is; a subjective piece that does something different than originally expected, it is personal to yourself but also personal to the reader, and also having the ability to be complex with combining multiple ideas making variables unknown and limitless (Epstein).

3 In writing courses and English classes teachers seem to focus more on the writing process instead of creativity. Most of the time the teacher barely mentions creativity in discussing an upcoming paper, and that makes students focus on the basics; how many paragraphs, how many sources, how many words, having an introduction, body, and conclusion, discussing main points, etc. This is a major problem because the main focus of writing/English as a whole is the creativity in it and the ability to express something new and different, as how it is relevant to you. It should not be about following steps, checking off things on a rubric, or how you go about writing. Writing should be about being, what I stated, creative is. Many authors that I have previously stated do not even mention creativity in their works, which was very interesting to me coming from a school that is focused on the fine arts and deeply involved in creativity. I got some very interesting data while taking a poll from students around my campus about whether or not their schools English and writing classes focused on writing process or creativity. I went around campus housing approaching any student that would let me asking the question, Do you believe your schools English/Writing courses focused more on creativity or the writing process? then once they gave me their answer I asked what their major was out of curiosity. The results of this poll was that 72% of the students asked said that their school was all about criteria and fitting the criteria, 18% stated that they thought it was a mix of both, and 10% of the students said it was focused more on creativity, and something that was interesting, but not able to be proven through this poll, was that those students who focused more on creativity are in a wide variety of majors. There may be no connection between the two and more research would need to be done

4 to determine that, but some of them are engineers, some our journalism majors, some were trying to be a doctor, and some were simply business majors; which shows how creativity broadens the mind in more aspects than just writing. So when I read all these articles about the writing process and the formula for a good paper, or when I sit in a class where the professor is telling the students that they need an introduction, body, conclusion, 2500 words, 5 pages, and 10 sources I want to scream, That is not what helps students reach their full potential! I have had incredible teachers through out my schooling, ones who have taught me a lot of things that I would need for the real world such as how to calculate compound interest or how much I need to exercise and eat in a day to maintain a healthy weight but some teachers have taught me things without even knowing they were teaching it to me. For example John Boe writes about his favorite teacher in his article, From the Editor: My Best Teacher, which with some irony isnt even a teacher but his mother. He talks about the rules his mother gave him and the number one rule was, Dont worry about your grades, and dont be the first one home from a party (Boe, 256). Focusing on creativity and not worrying about the formal issue [grades] helps students branch out to new things [unassigned reading] giving an intrinsic motivation to the student to help create better papers. This is where the argument of what a good paper is comes up. Writing itself is something that is very unique to the individual, some people love papers that seem to relate exactly to them, some like papers that are factual and leave personality out of it, so what is a good, well-written paper? Having strategic awareness is something that scholars have often argued in many papers and making sure teachers are teaching strategies and helping students be strategic in the ways in which they approach

5 a task (Langer, 842). So how in the world are these formulaic and strategic strategies combining all the different styles of writing? Its not. This idea that I will call Plugging and Chugging, where you plug in your information into a formula then it chugs out the right answer, is not what makes writing good. This makes the papers all the same and boring as hell to read, this actually makes them completely opposite of what well-written writing is. Creativity in writing on the other hand benefits students in multiple ways, and if teachers were to focus more on creativity instead of the writing process not only would students want to write, it helps the students build problem solving skills, teaches them to be more complex, it makes their writing more unique making it more successful, and it also teaches them to take risks. Once writing is focused on creativity the change within the students is remarkable. Within a few weeks, it was easy to see not only the changes in the students own writing, but also in their attitudes toward writing (Steinberg, 35). Is a comment that was stated by Michael Steinberg when talking about his involvement in, An experimental course required(ing) students to read and respond to a variety of personal essays, to write their own essays, and to keep a weekly response journal to the readings, their writing, and the course itself (Steinberg, 35). This helps show that when it isnt about a grade, or a rubric students get more involved and have a desire to write. Another way that creativity helps broaden the mind is discussed in a video on the TED network called, The Surprising Science of Motivation, by a speaker named Daniel Pink. He discusses the Candle Problem, and how to find the solution you must broaden your mindset and think creatively. This has been around for years and is still being tested

6 today but he uses this problem to explain how extrinsic motivation is actually negatively affecting creativity. He discusses a study done on MIT students that he had researched and he quotes one of the scientists and says, Once the task called for even rudimentary cognitive skills, a larger reward led to poor performance(Ariely, Gneezy, Lowenstein, and Mazar). Stating that once a student is offered a high reward they preform negatively and not as effective. This idea is counteracted against all over the world; people are trying to figure out ways in which they can get higher productivity, without incentive. One way that this has been done is by Google Inc. they have the Twenty Percent Time, it is this idea that 20% of their time should be dedicated to something other than work (Pink, 14:50-15:15). With Google doing this many things that we use today would have never been invented like Google News and Gmail. Having this information is a great way to show how creativity will help students productivity in the classroom. Having that little bit of wiggle room gives them the ability to create new things and get the gears in their head turning. For myself, I have noticed that being involved and in-touch with my creative side I have incredible problem solving skills. Thinking creatively is about being able to see, not just one angle of an idea/subject, but multiple sides and being complex with your ideas and having limitless directions in which the subject could be taken. So the results of my original poll there was a small indication that creativity in the classroom proves that once exposed to creativity you can think on so many levels that your options for anything can be limitless. Which is why the fact that they are in many different majors is intriguing to me.

7 Risk taking is also gained through the exposure of creativity. Within the writing community taking risks is a minefield (Johns, 515). Once you have broken a rule there are many negative and positive consequences that could happen. Part of writing a good creative paper is taking those risks, bending the rules, testing the limits. Not only does this benefit your writing skills but it also helps you gain the skill for out of the classroom type situations. Taking risks makes your writing unique, making yourself unique, building character, and not being cookie cutter (Johns 515). Lastly, bringing creativity involves a whole new level of complexity. Having the ability to tie scenarios, thoughts, images, and words all into one form is a very difficult and sometimes in the eyes of pessimists, impossible. With creativity being instilled in students they learn to do this with ease just from involving themselves as a whole and really diving into the writing that is for them. It brings back the ideas of gaining problem solving skills and that is a worldwide skill. Hypothetically many people will bring up arguments about creativity in writing classes. They could say that systematic writing teaches the basics and students learn to build off that, but in reality it should be the opposite. The idea of teaching kids to be all out of control and all types of crazy and then being able to pull it all together and create a paper that makes sense is brilliant. It is easier to be given a box and fill it up, then to have all of these items you want in the box and then trying to find one worth enough to hold it all. In one of my classes there was the discussion that if you let kids break the rules and do whatever they want in writing, they will take that same idea and apply it to real life. In reality, if you start going around breaking laws and not following rules there are

8 consequences, very harsh consequences in some cases, but in writing, breaking rules and doing what you want there is no such thing. If you are doing what you want and enjoying it nothing happens except the development of a new thought or idea. If you are not creative however, you have nothing new to say; everything has already been done and said before. This is a concept of intertextuality one that is James E. Porter discusses in his article, Intertextuality and the Discourse Community, which brings up another idea I have on writing within discourse communities. What makes writing successful is if people are reading it. Depending on what you are writing about determines what discourse community you will be put in. To more thoroughly explain what a discourse community is take this for example: if I wrote an article about my theories on good technique in swimming my discourse community is the swimming community which includes coaches, swimmers, officials, etc. One problem that may occur with this idea of discourse community and creativity is that if you are too creative there will not be a discourse community for what you are writing about. Since there is no discourse community, there will be no readers, and no one reading your piece means it is unsuccessful. This is where the criteria of what creative is comes into play. Giving creativity a definition and a clear set of rules prevents a piece that is completely outlandish being classified as creative. Within your discourse community their will be certain forms of language and jargon that is acceptable and unacceptable, and whether or not you use it correctly and effectively will help make your writing more successful (Porter). So this idea of being too creative is true, but saying that it could be a problem is not based on the fact that you cannot judge if something is creative by whether or not you like it, but that there is a criterion to fit into.

9 Another argument is that if we focus more on the writing process and everyone does it all in the same format it makes it easier to navigate through all papers and people are able to find information more quickly because it is all in the same place as every other paper. This may be true, but it takes away the interest and the fun in finding new information in new pieces of work. Some people would say that if we focus more on creativity students would not be learning anything at all. Their work would never make sense and theyd say it is creative to validate that it is not just junk. This is not true, students can always fill a paper with nonsense to get the paper done. This is nothing new and teachers who are focused on teaching it correctly will know the difference between a creative paper and a paper that was written the night before. Creativity is also something that cannot be taught which is where teachers start having problems with this idea. Creativity is not something that a power point can be made to explain the steps of how to be creative. On the contrary that pulls away from the whole idea of being creative. This is something that can only be focused on and learned by a student if the teacher helps the child channel that part of himself or herself. I am a student who is going to school to be a teacher, and so I know both parts of this argument. I want to be a teacher who instills in my students that creativity is what matters not if you fit the criteria and how you went about doing it. I want to inspire my students to be writers not people who can write. Ive had all kinds of teachers; the strict one, the laid back one, the artsy one, the weird one, the one who youre not sure is even certified to teach, and the one that inspires you and makes you who you are suppose to be. Those ones, are the teachers that I remember the most, and those teachers who

10 encouraged me to go out on a whim and break the rules, do something different, and pushed me to my limits were the teachers who taught me all about creativity and they are the ones that I am forever thankful to. Creativity is a powerful thing, and if focused on more when in class we could be doing great things. It is not about getting a good grade; it is about doing something new and different. There are many pros and cons with doing this, but I believe that the pros outweigh the rest of the negative. So in theory, if creativity is focused more on we are not only creating better writers, we are helping create better people.

Works Cited Boe, John. "From the Editor: My Best Teacher." Writing on the Edge 21.2 Jan. (2009): 256-70. Print. Creative. (n.d). Dictionary.com. Retrieved from http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/creative Creativity. (n.d) Dictionary.com. Retrieved from http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/creativity D. Ariely, U. Gneezy, G. Lowenstein, & N. Mazar, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston Working Paper No. 05-11, July 2005; NY Times, 20 Nov. 08 Epstein, Robert. "Defining Creativity." The Behavior Analyst 3.2 (1980): 65. Print. Johns, Ann M. Discourse Communities and Communities of Practice: Membership, Conflict, and Diversity. Text, Role, and Context: Developing Academic Literacies. Cambridge, New York: Cambridge UP, 1997. 51-70. Print.

11 Langer, Judith A. "Beating the Odds: Teaching Middle and High School Students to Read and Write Well." American Educational Research Journal 38.4 (2001): 837-80. Print. Pink, Daniel, adapt. The Surprising Science of Motivation . Web. 6 Mar. 2012. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rrkrvAUbU9Y>. Porter, James E. "Intertexuality and the Discourse Community." Rhetoric Reviews 5.1 (1986): 34-47. Print. Steinberg, Michael. "Teaching Composition, Writing Creative Fiction: A Personal Narrative." Writing on the Edge 18.115 Oct. (2011): 34-40. Print.