Tracking Creativity

There is a lot of controversy in the research as to whether or not creativity can be taught. I think everyone has some innate creativity and we can teach students how to tap into that. When we set the expectation that we want them to think of a unique answer, something different from their friends and we give them many opportunities to put this into practice-we see growth in how creative their answers are. How do I track this throughout the year? I use divergent art.

Divergent Art is giving students a squiggle or shape and asking them to use that in a picture. You "grade" their response as to the level of creativity you see. How unique was their idea? How detailed was their picture? I start with something simple, this year just a straight line. Here is the baseline for my class this year-lots of cones and triangles:

lemon

very creative!!!

Every month we do about 2 of these. I share the ideas afterward that I thought were creative and unique. The more we do it, the less simple their answers become. We can see their creativity blossom.