Category Archives: curriculum

5 Reasons Why Common Core Will PROMOTE Creativity

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There are a lot of reasons to #stopcommoncore, 5 of which I shared here about its effect on creativity, but let me give you 5 ways CCSS could be good for our right-brained students, and actually promote creativity in our schools.

1. Modeling with mathematics. 

Modeling “real-world” situations with arithmetic, formulas, and statistical displays and inferences is one of the the Standards for Mathematical Practice, which while not much different than the current Missouri process standards (the “placemat”), go a necessary step further for no other reason than acknowledging that technology beyond scientific calculators exist.

Modeling can often leads to multiple solutions and different approaches to the solution of a problem, and require much more holistic thought to a task than simply “Solve the quadratic function by factoring.”

Another aspect of CCSS math standards in particular that encourages creative thinking is the new prevalence of statistical literacy in nearly every level. Something I love (and some hate) about the study of statistics is that there are seldom black and white answers in inference. Interpretations of results given a particular situation makes statistical study inherently more of a right-brained activity.

2. Evaluating Authors’ Differing Points of View

Is role-play not an element of creativity? When we evaluate viewpoints, replacing the author’s attitude for our own, we experience fresh perspectives and we can express individuality in new ways. How do we innovate without empathizing with what is different from our own?

  • CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RH.11-12.6 Evaluate authors’ differing points of view on the same historical event or issue by assessing the authors’ claims, reasoning, and evidence.

3. Using and consuming diverse formats and media.

If you’re assessing in your classroom in student centered methodologies, I trust that you’re doing more than giving students homogenous paper tests and you’re pushing them to use more than 5 paragraph essays to provide evidence of and for learning.

I don’t think drawing upon multiple info sources is too much of a problem for teachers, gathering info for lesson plans, but how often do we actually model that and expect it of students?

  • CCSS.ELA-Literacy.W.11-12.6 Use technology, including the Internet, to produce, publish, and update individual or shared writing products in response to ongoing feedback, including new arguments or information.
  • CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RST.11-12.7 Integrate and evaluate multiple sources of information presented in diverse formats and media (e.g., quantitative data, video, multimedia) in order to address a question or solve a problem.
4. Using Design and Digital Media Strategically
Using color for emphasis = good
Using color because its cute = bad
It’s a creative work to thoughtfully include media and design in a presentation or project. It’s lipstick to have an item on your rubric that says something like, “Student used color.”
  • CCSS.ELA-Literacy.SL.11-12.5 Make strategic use of digital media (e.g., textual, graphical, audio, visual, and interactive elements) in presentations to enhance understanding of findings, reasoning, and evidence and to add interest.
5. Writing Narratives for Real or Imagined Events
From my social studies background, this might be my favorite creativity-promoting standard of them all. I had my Algebra 2 students do this for linear inequalities last fall and a lot of students really got into it. (Kids made up or recounted a scenario in which they could have used a linear inequality to make a decision and gave details of how the inequality was set up and how they used it in the story)
  • CCSS.ELA-Literacy.W.9-10.3 Write narratives to develop real or imagined experiences or events using effective technique, well-chosen details, and well-structured event sequences.
As far as history class, you’re challenging your students to know just tell you what happened at the Battle of Hastings – they should be trying to make you experience it. Like World War Z.
Conclusion
English class, is, admittedly probably less “fun,” now, but how many kids were getting overly expressive about Huck Finn and The Scarlet Letter, anyway? The good news is, “creativity” in every other discipline is promoted and has been emphasized. Creativity hasn’t left our schools, its been given a purpose and legitimized.

5 Reasons Why Common Core Will KILL Creativity

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My district began compiling PD resources and formally thinking through #CCSS implementation for our administrators, teachers, and parents this week, so I’ve got common core on the brain.

On the whole, I think our districts’ teachers still feel rather in the dark about what Common Core changes will and won’t mean for their classrooms, but I think, in part, the action in Jeff City at DESE is to blame. Missouri is not a Race to the Top state, so there has been less funding available for the guiding the transition, so it makes sense, but disappointing nonetheless.

Locally, our Superintendent Dr. McCoy has been a vocal leader in some criticisms of common core and its effect on the creative freedoms of our students in their lit/comp classes.

To say creative writing and literacy for advancement and personal improvement is a focus in our district   would be putting it lightly. Dr. McCoy wears his literary and creative heart on his sleeve (in an all school assembly, even), and I believe many of students see him as a positive African-American role model because of it. (And his transparency inspired me, too.)

Last word of background, my friend at another high school in the district has seen high results in engagement through creative writing opportunities for her students and shared them in our #METC13 presentation.

So here are 5 things you might start missing if you have a passion for creative, written expression.

1. The classics are de-emphasized.

Do you feel like all you ever read in high school lit class were novels, short stories, and poetry? No longer the case. Our students do need more exposure and readiness to informational text, but find me someone who was inspired to change the world after reading an unbiased account of the migratory patterns of monarch butterflies.

2. Journal writing – where does it fit in?

In Missouri Course-Level Objectives, “reflective writing” is listed across the board for all high school courses. I value reflective writing from my experience as a student and an adult, and I think it can be transformative in understanding who we are, what we think, and what we know, and what we value. How are students to find themselves if they’re only ever summarizing arguments and detailing main points and themes? Who will write the next century’s Walden Pond?

3. Creative writing is devalued

As referenced in the last point, non-fiction, technical writing has been given at least half of the emphasis in the ELA standards, which means fiction writing had to be de-emphasized. Two different Missouri CLEs (W2A and W2D) currently require students to write considering “different audiences”, and to employ “imagery, humor, voice, and figurative language.” When you’re a teenager and you feel like no one else hears you, how do you find freedom in a formal analysis of novel X, Y, or Z?

4. Less choice in composition style

Reading through the ELA standards for high school, what continuously sticks out to me is “analyze, analyze, analyze.” writing styles or works. It seems to me that if CCSS are successful they’ll have produced an army of literary critics, but who’ll be left to criticize?

5. Less time to enjoy and appreciate literature and art.

Those times when you reread a passage because there is such beauty in the alliteration, or you stop in a speech because your heart is racing. If an ELA teacher is “doing” common core right, where does that fit in? Thinking of it this way, if I’m always analyzing my wife, I never appreciate and grow fonder for her. How will we inspire the next generation to beauty and emotion in written word?

But don’t fret!  I’ve got 5 Reasons Why Common Core Promotes Creativity, too.