What happens when students do creative writing?

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What happens when students do creative writing?

• Tan Bee Tin
• Dept of Applied Language Studies and Linguistics
• The University of Auckland, New Zealand
• Email tb.tin_at_auckland.ac.nz
• 8th Asian Teacher-Writers conference on creative
  writing, PPPPTK Bahasa, Jarkata, Indonesia, 6-7
  November, 2009 . 

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Background

• A project in Indonesia
• Investigating the language learning
  opportunities created through creative writing
  tasks in EFL classrooms

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• Participants
• A group of Indonesian students (with the help of
  local teachers)
• Data
• Creative writing tasks (short poems)
• Recordings of their performance (discussions,
  think aloud)
• Post-writing interviews

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• Two poetry writing tasks
• Acrostics
• Similes

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Task 1 Acrostics

• RICE

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Task 1 Acrostics

• R
• I
• C
• E

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• Really
• Important
• Crop to
• Eat
• (Alan)

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Task for you!

• J
• O
• Y
• Rules
• 1. every line must start with the letter
• 2. the whole poem must be related to the key word
  Joy

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• J
• O
• Y

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• Jump
• Out of
• Your sorrow

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• Just thinking
• Of
• You

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• Jar of amazing feeling
• Overcoming sadness
• You should get it

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• Jingle bells of the ring
• Opening the Christmas day and
• Your life has begun

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• Jovial and
• Outstanding feeling in
• Your life

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• Jump for it
• Or singing for it
• Yet before you lose

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• Just
• Open
• Your eyes

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Phase 2- June 2008

• 1. Writing acrostic poems (pair work)
• SCHOOL, TEACHER, HOLIDAY, JOY

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Task 2 similes

• Writing similes (pair work)
• Our teacher is like
• Our friend is like .

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Task 2 Similes

• My little brother is like the pepper flower.
• He makes me laugh.
• He jumps out at me, in the field,
• with a red hat.

Spiro (2004 52)
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• My father is like a rock.
• His chin is sharp.
• He looks at me from the top of a mountain.
• He is very old.

Spiro (2004 52)
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Task for you!

• Our teacher is like
• .
• .
• .

• Our friend is like
• .

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Qs for you!

• What do you think are the differences between the
  acrostic task and the simile task in terms of
• the quality of language (product) students
  produce?
• the process students go through?

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Nature of tasks

• Acrostics
• Rule-based task
• Formal constraint
• Semantic constraint

• Similes
• Imagination-foregrounded
• Fore-grounds the imaginary situation (Imagine A
  is B)
• Fore-grounds discourse (give two reasons)

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Q1 The quality of language (product)
Happy day in Our Life and Important Day After test Yes! Its holiday!
Holiday is an Occasional day to Look for a new Idea that makes our Day brighter than the Activity that we did Yesterday
Our friend is like an orange She always freshes us She is stubborn when unripe But wiser when ripe
Our friend is like fruits She can be sweet like a mango She can be asam like a strawberry But she is very kind
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Interpretations

• Which shows more complex language (complexity of
  language)?
• Acrostics or Similes?
• Which shows more surprising/novel ideas
  (transformation of ideas)?
• Acrostics or Similes?

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My interpretations

• Which shows more complex language (complexity of
  language)?
• Acrostics
• Which shows more surprising/novel ideas
  (transformation of ideas)?
• Acrostics

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Different approaches to creativity

• The product approach (characteristics of creative
  products)
• The process approach (thinking involved in
  creative tasks)
• The linguistic approach (language play)

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The product approach

• the ability to come up with new ideas that are
  surprising yet intelligible, and also valuable in
  some way (Boden 2001)
• transformation, surprise (Amabile 1996)
• Torrance and colleagues
• fluency (quantity of ideas produced),
• flexibility (variety or number of different
  responses),
• originality (uniqueness or statistical
  infrequency of ideas produced),
• elaboration (refining or adding details to ideas
  to make them richer or more complete) (Ball and
  Torrance 1984).

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The linguistic approach

• Creativity as a form of language play (Carter
  2004)
• Two levels form, meaning (Cook 2000).

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Language play at the formal level

• involves manipulating textual features such as
  words, syntactic patterns
• e.g. jar of amazing feeling
• e.g. Our teacher is like a loud speaker.

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Language play at the semantic level

• combines different units of meaning in unfamiliar
  ways to construct an imaginary world (Cook 2000),
  to transform our current conceptual world.

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The process approach

• Examines the process experienced in a creative
  task.
• Two thinking types (Finke 1996)
• Chaotic thinking
• Spontaneous and divergent, focusing mainly on
  occurrences of the moment and exploring novel
  alternatives without specific plans or goals.
• involves the natural emergence of structure from
  complexities.
• Ordered thinking
• generates new ideas through purposefully
  analysing and extending existing ideas.
• The structure is imposed and complexity is
  reduced.

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Language play ? language learning

• Playful creative language helps to stretch and
  destabilize learners interlanguage (Tarone 2000)
  
•   

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Q2 The process (types of thinking)

• An acrostic (SCHOOL) written by Susan (female)
  and Dita (female) in pair. The task takes about 6
  minutes.
• Study hard and
• Competition with other student to get
• High grade are our
• Obligation to make
• Our parents
• Love us

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• S S ..C .. H ..O .. O .. L
• D S ... S nya apa ya? what does S stand
  for? ..
• (.)
• S study hard
• D study or study hard?
• S study hard .study hard C ..
• D C
• S competitive ehcompetitive
• D C nya? what about the C
• S ni coba kompetisi what about using
  competition? ((sound of flipping through pages,
  checking the word in the dictionary))
• D kompetisi competition . hmm ya wis lah
  kompetisi. okay, competition is okay (.)
• S competition .. H ..
• D high ...
• S high grade
• D high quality or high grade?
• S high quality? high? ...
• D terserah kamu aja lah it is all up to you
  ya grade O

translation added aaa L1 (Indonesian) aaa L1 (Javanese) aaa L2 (English)
Study hard Competition High Grade O O L
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• S O .
• D O ((flipping through the dictionary))
  obligation kewajiban obligation ?
• S obligation itu apa sih? what is
  obligation?
• D kewajiban ((laugh)) ...
• S obligation ya ndak papa lah obligation is
  okay ((laugh)) obligation study hard
  competition ... study hard .. disambungke bisa
  loh they can be connected study hard and
  competition with ..each other.. to get high
  grade.. that is our obligation ((laugh))ehbisa
  nggak sih? is it possible? ?
• D mhm nggak papa yes,its okay
• S study hard and competition with other
  students to get ..high grade are ..our..
  obligation ((reading as writing))
• S jadi kalo diartike belajar giat dan
  berkompetisi dengan murid lain untuk mendapat
  nilai yang lebih tinggi adalah kewajiban kita,
  terus O-ne lagi apa? it can be translated as
  studying hard and competing with other students
  is our obligation, what about the other O? (.)
• S study hard and competition with other
  students to get high grade .. are .. our
  ..obligation ((reading out))

Study hard and Competition with other student to get High grade are our Obligation O L
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• D ((flipping through pages)) apa yah? what is
  it?
• S ini aja, apa namane this one hard
  competition with other students to get high grade
  are our obligation ((reading out the lines
  written so far)) errr to ..make.. our.. parent
  ((reading as writing))
• D L e opo? what about the L? ...
• S mhm happy ((laugh)) happy kok ..L how can
  happy start with an L? ?
• D L kok it is L LLL .. L nya the L ..
  tak bukakin let me open the dictionary
  ((laugh)) ?
• S ((laugh)) ini loh here it is ((laugh)) L
  ... Oh! Oh! ((sounds excited)) to make our
  parents love us ((laugh)) ?
• D ((laugh)) ltxgt
• S study hard and competition with other
  students to get high grade are our obligation to
  make our parents love us ((reading out)) terus
  apa? what is next? .. teacher? ...

Study hard and Competition with other student to get High grade are our Obligation to make Our parents Love us
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• A simile about our teacher written by Susan and
  Dita in pair. It takes about 3 minutes to write
  this simile.
• Our teacher is like stone
• Because they have
• Hard heart and
• Big soul

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• S our teacherits your turn ... giliranmu
  your turn
• D ((laugh)) our teacher is like
• S tree or flower, lake, river, stone, mountain
  ((reading the list of objects provided))
• D mountain
• S why?
• D because its huge ((laugh)) ..
• S not everyonenot every teacher
• D not every teacher like mountain mhm
• S dont have idea ((laugh))
• D apa toh? apa toh?what is it? what is it?
  or any other words related to teacher?
• S we can choose another word
• D our teacher is like apa whatflower?
• S why?... flowerflower
• D flowers
• S flowers mhm .. skip it our friend first
  ((the pair skip to the second smile))

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• D our teacher is like
• S like what? like tree.. flower?
• D stone
• S stone? because its hard ((laugh)) our
  teacher is like a stone because ?
• D melambangkan guru itu kaku symbolizing that
  teacher is stiff
• S our teacher becausemhm...but it kaku
  stiff ((laugh)) ...
• D our teacher is like a stone gitu aja lah
  just like that because .. becauseevery every
  teacher . have .heart .. apa what memiliki
  hati yang keras has hard heart ((laugh))
• S ((laugh)) have a hard heart ((laugh)) it is
  difficult to say because they have hard heart
  
• D hard heart
• S ((laugh)) and .. they are jiwa soul
• D jiwa soul what the meaning?
• S hard soul .. is like a stone because ..
  they have ..hard heart ..and ((reading as
  writing))
• D jiwa yang besar gitu aja lah big soul,
  thats it
• S big soul ..

Our teacher is like stone Because they have Hard heart and Big soul
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Emergentist perspectives of language learning

• Language is dynamic, changing as we use it
  (Larsen-Freeman 2006).
• Linguistic signs are continually created to meet
  new needs and circumstances (Toolan 2003).

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Interpretations

• Which involves more chaotic thinking?
• Which involves more language play (playing with
  words, sentence structure, shaping and
  transforming L2)?
• Which would be more useful for language learning?
• Acrostics or similes?

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My interpretations

• Which involves more chaotic thinking?
• Which involves more language play (playing with
  words, sentence structure, shaping and
  transforming L2)?
• Which would be more useful for language learning?
• Acrostics

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Acrostics vs Similes
Conceptual systems (ideas) are activated through L2 directly, then translated into L1.
Concepts are first retrieved in L1 then translated into L2.
S study hard and competition with other students to get ..high grade are ..our.. obligation S jadi kalo diartike belajar giat dan berkompetisi dengan murid lain untuk mendapat nilai yang lebih tinggi adalah kewajiban kita, terus O-ne lagi apa? it can be translated as studying hard and competing with other students is our obligation, what about the other O? ------------------------------vs.---------------------------------- D our teacher is like a stone gitu aja lah just like that because .. becauseevery every teacher . have .heart .. apa what memiliki hati yang keras has hard heart ((laugh)) S ((laugh)) have a hard heart
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Acrostics vs Similes
Conceptual systems (ideas) are activated through L2 directly, then translated into L1.
Concepts are first retrieved in L1 then translated into L2.
L2 forms co-evolve with meaning. Collision of form, meaning and mind
L2 forms lag behind meaning.
Acrostics create more opportunities for L2 making and L2 creativity, requiring learners to construct meaning through L2 directly.
Excessive L1 use may hinder opportunities for the destabilisation of learners L2.
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• Not all play tasks may promote language play and
  modification and stretching of learner language.
• While acrostics (rule-foregrounded tasks) lead
  students into uncharted waters, shaping and
  reshaping language in dispreferred, unprecedented
  ways, similes lead to stepping in well-trodden
  waters, shaping language in more preferred,
  predictable ways.
• The formal constraints in acrostics contribute to
  the emergence of more complex language while
  similes, possessing looser formal rules, result
  in less complex language.

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• constraints rather than freedom ? more chaotic
  thinking and creativity.
• creative thinking is made possible by
  constraints (Boden 2004 233)
• the freedom of creative thought is not the
  absence of constraints, but their imaginative
  yet disciplined development. (Boden 2001
  102).

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• Better understanding of the processes learners
  encounter and the language they produce in
  different play tasks will help teachers to design
  more effective play tasks.
• More research is needed to understand the nature
  of affordances offered by various play tasks.
• More investigations are needed which analyse the
  transcripts of learners interaction in play
  tasks and the language they produce.

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Acknowledgments

• The study is part of a project funded by the
  University of Auckland. I would like to express
  my sincere gratitude to students who participated
  in the study. My special thanks to Dra Ristiyanti
  Prasctijo, Debora Tri Ragawanti, Christine Manara
  and all the other teachers for their help during
  my data collection in Indonesia.