Creativity In The Classroom
Our lessons should not only teach language but challenge students to develop their own skills in creativity.
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Killing Creativity by the late (great) Ken Robinson was a screed demanding education pay more attention to the role of developing and honoring the creativity in our students. And not just from the neck up, as Sir Ken said.
Creativity can be a hard word and idea to define but essentially it is about making, seeing, and discovering the “new”. A new way of doing things, a new way of looking at things. Approaching problems with a new set of senses.
When it comes right down to it, promoting creativity in the English language classroom or any classroom is primarily about giving students choices about how they’ll reach the objectives you’ve set as a teacher or school.
There are many lesson materials that strongly foster student creativity in your lessons. See our Synectic Activity Book! Here are a few suggestions to inspire you to “get creative” as a classroom. You might also ask students for ideas on how to get/stay creative.
Drawing. Drawing is shown to foster student creativity and allow students to fully personalize their learning experience.
Storytelling with pictures. - It can be as simple as providing students with a series of images and then having them choose from them and write their own story connecting the images. Simple but effective. After, share the stories!
Manifesto Making. Students get super creative with this activity. First, show students some sample manifestos. Then, let them make their own and share their beliefs, personal thoughts, and statements!
Remixing. Remixing was a movement where artists/people/students took an existing work of art (song, painting, play, poem etc …) and changed things about it to make their own. Think Andy Warhol and his famous Campbell Soup cans. Grammar poems work well. Rewriting activities also.
PBL - Project-Based Learning. Students choose a topic and then research, and present to the class in the classic version of “a project”. But there are many types with less or more guidance for students.
Synectics. Synectics is a problem-solving methodology developed in the 50s to get students to think more “out of the box” and it involves many types of thinking. One common one is to see an object not as it usually is but with a different use or meaning. Like the famous book - It’s Not A Box.
Cooperative problem and puzzle solving. Students get in groups and discuss to try and solve a puzzle, riddle, or story punchline together. A famous one is how a boy, a dog, a fox, and groceries can get across a river. Or try our Funny Story collection where after reading/listening, students try to guess the punchline.
What’s your favorite way to foster creativity in class? Whatever you do, if you get students to be more creative, it’s a win-win.
David, I completely agree—creativity transforms the classroom! I’ve seen it firsthand in my work writing ESL books and developing school curricula for English teachers in Sweden. Stories, in particular, have been a game-changer for engaging students in language learning.
That’s why I started Viking Kite, a Substack where I share free stories, audiobooks, and lesson plans to help teachers bring creative storytelling into their classrooms. It’s all designed to make life easier for teachers and learning more engaging for students.
Would love for you (or anyone here) to check it out: https://open.substack.com/pub/vikingkite?r=36mqme&utm_medium=ios. Always happy to connect with fellow educators who believe in making learning creative and fun!