Creative "I" Part 2: Variations on a Theme
The Hendrickson and Mishra article on creativity provided an echo of an idea that arose during my interview with Bev McCarthy for the initial Creative I assignment. McCarthy talked at length about building her students’ skills and providing opportunity for open-ended experimentation with those skills. She also mentioned the idea of connections and how critical they were the creative process. Clearly, my children’s art teacher is an expert on creativity!
The article also cemented my belief that the wider our background knowledge and experience, the more likely we are to be capable of creative thought. We simply have more to pull on, more resources to play with. As a writer, my existing knowledge and experience influence my creative process in two ways: one conscious and the other less so. I consciously draw from people and incidents that have been part of my experience, as well as structures in literary works that I have read. Unconsciously, I employ phrasing and syntax that I have soaked in over nearly forty years of reading.
When I look to my own students, I see Hendrickson and Mishra’s article as encouragement to continue exposing my students to a diverse array of literature and providing them opportunities to build on these examples, first by mirroring, and then later by adapting, adjusting and tweaking the writing styles they have read.
I chose to rewrite the lyrics to one of my favorite songs from the musical "Hamilton." The song is titled "You'll Be Back" and boasts a chorus that is comprised mainly of the words "da da." This felt like an apt choice as it connects to the Dadaism art movement of the early 20th century, in which artists sought to question existing institutions and artistic styles, and reimagine the purpose and form of art. Creativity indeed!
Here is a link to the original song from Hamilton:
And here are my reimagined lyrics:
They said -
Creativity comes from a spark muses place in your head.
They claimed -
Genius a gift for which DaVinci and Newton were famed.
If you had
That gift of inspiration gods granted certain souls,
They’d just think you mad.
Remember they thought that creativity was unique.
They were wrong, as you’ll see,
About the nature of creativity.
They were wrong, now we know,
Creativity’s a skill you grow.
Twist the knob, tweak the theme -
Derive, combine, connect, make a scheme!
Techniques these, just a few:
Creativity is a pastiche bringing things together anew.
[Chorus: ]
Da da da dat da dat da da da da ya da
Da da dat dat da ya da!
Da da da dat da dat da da da da ya da
Da da dat dat da…
You say you want your students all to see the light,
But creativity can’t be taught them overnight.
It all depends on background -
You have to build their background -
A diverse, deep, rich background -
A thorough, thoughtful background -
Ideas and knowledge and concepts
And interests...
Along with that, the other piece:
Provide opportunities that never cease -
To create and to connect.
As their knowledge domains intersect,
Watch them learn, see them grow -
As they play with all the things they know.
Just watch - they’ll be great
As they build on what you give them
and they learn how to create
[Chorus: ]
Da da da dat da dat da da da da ya da
Da da dat dat da ya da!
Da da da dat da dat da da da da ya da
Da da dat—
Everybody!
