Creativity

You can read here some thoughts about creativity. You might also enjoy the song listed below that some people find to be a creative way to spend time in the spring (now that spring weather is finally upon us).

When people think about being creative, they often think about an artist or author creating a work of art.

But Fyodor Dostoyevsky (the famous Russian author) wrote:

I agree that man is pre-eminently a creative animal, predestined to strive consciously for an object and to engage in engineering - that is, incessantly and eternally to make new roads, wherever they may lead.

This quotation suggests that all people are naturally creative. Humanity has a natural instinct to create new things.

That idea would mean that we all are creative in different ways. Some of us paint or draw. Some of us write. Some of us take pictures. Some of us sing songs. Some of us make movies. And some of us do things that are not traditionally thought of as creative, for example teaching.

There is also the idea of creative thinking: thinking outside the box. This is the ability to think about things in new ways, beyond just repeating facts. Maybe it will help you solve a problem, or maybe it will just help you understand more. It is about trying to find new ways to look at problems.

When people talk about creative geniuses, they often think about people who did a lot at a very young age (such as Mozart or Picasso). This article about kinds of genius also talks about two different kinds of creativity. One kind is spontaneous creation, where the ideas seem to come out of nowhere. The other kind is experimental creation, where the creation of new things comes after trying (and failing) many times and learning from each mistake.

Another issue that is related to creativity these days is about copyright. With the Internet growing everyday, it is hard for people to keep control of the ideas that they create. This is especially true with things people download illegally (music, movies, etc.).

Some people have taken a different approach. They invented something called Creative Commons. (You can see an article explaining how it relates to music. What it basically means is that anyone is free to use the idea/music/picture/whatever as long as they say where they got it from. That way everyone has a chance to be inspired by the ideas and to keep the creativity going. (Almost all of the pictures used in the course syllabus are made available in this way or a similar way.)

The word "creative" comes from the word "create". So the next time you create something (from a picture to an essay for school to a letter to your friend), you can remember that you are in the same process as Picasso and any other "creative" person.

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Remaining Portfolio Parts

A Record of Outside Work

The intent of this section is to ensure that you are actively participating in your own learning. This means that you are not only doing the things that people tell you to do at school (this one and previous ones), but are finding ways to improve on your own. The record can be incorporated into other sections of the portfolio, or you can highlight important things you have done separately. This section doesn't mean only certificates, but what you have done to improve and to reach the possibility of obtaining the certificates.

Organization and Creative Presentation

As you can see above, you all have the ability to be creative in your own ways. What the creativity part means is that the portfolio in some way reflects you as a person and learner. You can do things like use different colors or picture to represent ideas or, if your creativity runs towards the more logical areas, present the structure in a way that is related to your interests. It is up to you.

The organization part means that the portfolio is not merely a collection of separate parts, but a whole. This means that each section is connected to a single idea and it's clear how each part relates to the parts immediately before and after it. This idea includes things like the reflective statements being connected to the self-assessment - being examples of the general assessment, not just separate and unrelated things.

It should be clear how you have organized your ideas and easy enough to get through for someone to understand without explanation from you. It might help you to have a Table of Contents or an outline or something to help either you or the reader visualize the structure.

Introductory/Cover Letter

This part was left for last because, as with many pieces of writing, it can help to know what you are going to say before you introduce those ideas to others.

This means that the introduction should be an introduction not only of yourself (e.g., how you came to study English and maybe, if you like, something about your history of progress), but also what will come in the portfolio. You should be introducing it so that someone who has not seen what the assignment was could understand what you are doing in the portfolio (this should be true in all parts, but seems especially relevant at the start). You could outline the structure, say what you hope to accomplish with the portfolio, or things like that.

So this letter should let the reader know what they have in their hands/computer screen, what to expect, and who to expect it from.

 

Lastly, please just note the ways that points can be earned for the portfolio (e.g., noticing that the word "present" is used and not "submit" and the "well before the deadline" part).