I will admit that I am completely biased here, but I just gave my sophomore Honors English kids a memoir assignment and, for the most part, it was quite disappointing. My bachelor's degree is in creative writing, and I think the power to write creatively is more of an asset than having a formula for how to write an essay. So when I got my 19 memoirs turned in, I realized very quickly that most of them had little to no interest in even writing about themselves. They went through the motions, and I now check the boxes on the rubric, etc. I think back to my time in high school, and I would have loved the opportunity to NOT write a boring essay. The memoir would have been my favorite assignment in all four years, but sadly, I never got to write creatively in high school.
So why the disconnect? What am I missing? I know that many of the kids said, "I'm boring. Nothing has ever happened to me," but I don't think that's it. My emerging theory is that they have never, ever done it before. Maybe the last creative piece they did was a sixth grade poetry unit or something like that, but I get the feeling that kids today only ever write anything for a teacher and/or an essay grade. They couldn't have fun with this because it was scary. It was new. It was uncharted territory.
These are honors students, so they will mostly comply when needed. And I should say that four or five of the 19 memoirs were pretty good, but my fear is that this will be their last creative assignment in high school. It's a dying skill. It's a dying idea. Maybe if I did it with social media or some crafty little APP, the results would have been better, but I even hesitate to go that far. We have a generation of kids who will DO, but not engage creatively. I told you at the outset that I am biased, but I'm also afraid for what this means. In the meantime, I may just push to make creative writing a bigger part of our curriculum at all levels and hope for the best.
Thanks for listening...
I can relate to your struggle and disappointment. But many teachers still assume that creativity is somehow innate and is passed on as a gene whereas it truly needs to be cultivated. But are cultivating it in our daily lives? We are involved in a daily ROUTINE, so maybe our brains have just got re-wired with the constant expectation of conforming to test standards and common core standards. Kids nowadays borrow instead of own ideas and divergent thinking is almost extinguished in schools.
ReplyDeleteMaybe, and I know this might be a stretch given what you need to do as an educator/grader of their content, but could you provide them this assignment without a rubric attached. Just say to them to "write" with no concern of it falling into any sort of rubric. They tend to know what the general gist of the rubric might be anyways, but maybe the sheer appearance of more general freedom might be enough to sway some at least. I do know that I was someone who struggled with creativity partly because of the lack of opportunity. At the very least, continue providing the opportunity for creative writing, even if it comes with somewhat frustrating results. I struggle with a similar frustration with getting students to think critically but I know that if I stop trying, they will never really ever get better. Best of luck!
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