about the world
Seven dimensions evaluated for the 3 different components of each C.
Aspects of the overall educational program teaching, emphasizing, and promoting the 4Cs | |
Availability and access to different means, materials, space, and expertise, digital technologies, mnemonic and heuristic methods, etc. to assist in the proper use and exercise of the 4Cs | |
Actual student and program use of available resources promoting the 4Cs | |
Critical reflection and metacognition on the process being engaged in around the 4Cs | |
The formal and informal training, skills, and abilities of teachers/trainers and staff and their program of development as promoters of the 4Cs | |
Use and integration of the full range of resources external to the institution available to enhance the 4Cs | |
Availability of resources for students to create and actualize products, programs, events, etc. that require the exercise, promotion, or manifestation of the 4Cs |
* Educational-level dependent and potentially less available for younger students or in some contexts.
The grid itself can be used in several important and different ways by different educational stakeholders: (1) by the institution itself in its self-evaluation and possible preparation for a certification or labelization process, (2) as an explicit list of criteria for external evaluation of the institution and its 4Cs-related programs, and (3) as a potential long-term development targeting tool for the institution or the institution in dialogue with the labelization process.
Dropping the component of “creative person” that is not relevant at the institutional level, this evaluation grid is based on Rhodes’ ( 1961 ) classic “4P” model of creativity, which remains the most concise model today ( Lubart and Thornhill-Miller 2019 ). The three “P” components retained are: creative process , creative environment , and creative product . Creative process refers to the acquisition of a set of tools and techniques that students can use to enhance the creativity of their thinking and work. Creative environment (also called “Press” in earlier literature) is about how the physical and social surroundings of students can help them be more creative. Finally, creative product refers to the evaluation of actual “productions” (e.g., a piece of art, text, speech, etc.) generated through the creative process.
Our evaluation grid divides critical thinking into three main components: critical thinking about the world , critical thinking about oneself (self-reflection), as well as critical action and decision making . The first component refers to having an evidence-based view of the exterior world, notably by identifying and evaluating sources of information and using them to question current understandings and solve problems. Self-reflection refers to thinking critically about one’s own life situation, values, and actions; it presupposes the autonomy of thought and a certain distance as well as the most objective observation possible with regard to one’s own knowledge (“meta-cognition”). The third and final component, critical action and decision making, is about using critical thinking skills more practically in order to make appropriate life decisions as well as to be open to different points of view. This component also addresses soft skills and attitudes such as trusting information.
Our evaluation framework for critical thinking was in part inspired by Barnett’s “curriculum for critical being” (2015), whose model distinguishes two axes: one defined by the qualitative differences in the level of criticality attained and the second comprised of three different domains of application: formal knowledge, the self, and the world. The first two components of our framework (and the seven dimensions on which they are rated) reflect and encompass these three domains. Similar to Barrett’s proposal, our third rubric moves beyond the “skills-plus-dispositions” model of competency implicit in much theorizing about critical thinking and adds the importance of “action”—not just the ability to think critically and the disposition to do so, but the central importance of training and practicing “critical doing” ( Barnett 2015 ). Critical thinking should also be exercised collectively by involving students in collective thinking, facilitating the exchange of ideas and civic engagement ( Huber and Kuncel 2016 ).
The first component of collaboration skills in the IICD grid is engagement and participation , referring to the active engagement in group work. Perspective taking and openness concerns the flexibility to work with and accommodate other group members and their points of view. The final dimension— social regulation —is about being able to reach for a common goal, notably through compromise and negotiation, as well as being aware of the different types of roles that group members can hold ( Hesse et al. 2015 ; Rusdin and Ali 2019 ; Care et al. 2016 ). (These last two components include elements of leadership, character, and emotional intelligence as sometimes described in other soft-skill and competency-related systems.) Participation, social regulation, and perspective taking have been identified as central social skills in collaborative problem solving ( Hesse et al. 2015 ). Regarding social regulation in this context, recognizing and profiting from group diversity is key ( Graesser et al. 2018 ). When describing an assessment in an educational setting of collaborative problem solving (with a task in which two or more students have to collaborate in order to solve it, each using a different set of resources), two main underpinning skills were described for the assessment: the social skill of audience awareness (“how to adapt one’s own behavior to suit the needs of the task and the partner’s requirements”, Care et al. 2016, p. 258 ) and the cognitive skill of planning and executing (developing a plan to reach for a goal) ( Care et al. 2016 ). The former is included in the perspective taking and openness rubric and the latter in the social regulation component in the IICD grid. Evans ( 2020 ) identified four main collaboration skills consistently mentioned in the scientific literature that are assessed in the IICD grid: the ability to plan and make group decisions (example item from the IICD grid: teachers provide assistance to students to overcome differences and reach a common goal during group work); the ability to communicate about thinking with the group (assessed notably in the meta-reflection strand of the IICD grid); the ability to contribute resources, ideas, and efforts and support group members (included notably in the engagement and participation as well as the social regulation components); and finally, the ability to monitor, reflect, and adapt individual and group processes to benefit the group (example item from the IICD grid: students use perspective-taking tools and techniques in group activities).
The evaluation grid for communication is also composed of three dimensions: message formulation, message delivery, and message and communication feedback . Message formulation refers to the ability to design and structure a message to be sent, such as outlining the content of an argument. Message delivery is about effectively transmitting verbal and non-verbal aspects of a message. Finally, message and communication feedback refers to the ability of students and teachers to understand their audience, analyze their social surroundings, and interpret information in context. Other components of communication skills such as theory of mind, empathy, or emotional intelligence are also relevant and included in the process of applying the grid. Thompson ( 2020 ) proposes a four-component operationalized definition of communication for its assessment in students. First, they describe a comprehension strand covering the understanding and selection of adequate information from a range of sources. Message formulation in the IICD grid captures this dimension through its focus on content analysis and generation. Second, the presentation of information and ideas is mentioned in several different modes, adjusted to the intended audience, verbally as well as non-verbally. The message delivery component of the IICD grid focuses on these points. Third, the authors note the importance of communication technology and its advanced use. The IICD grid also covers the importance of technology use in its tools and techniques category, with, for example, an item that reads: students learn to effectively use a variety of formats of communication (social media, make a video, e-mail, letter writing, creating a document). Finally, Thompson ( 2020 ) describes the recognition of cultural and other differences as an important aspect of communication. The IICD grid aims at incorporating these aspects, notably in the meta-reflection category under each of the three dimensions.
5.1. the 4cs in informal educational contexts.
So far, the focus has been on rather formal ways of nurturing the 4Cs. Although institutions and training programs are perhaps the most significant and necessary avenues of education, they are not the sole context in which 4Cs’ learning and improvement can manifest. One other important potential learning context is game play. Games are activities that are present and participated in throughout human society—by those of all ages, genders, and socio-economic statuses ( Bateson and Martin 2013 ; Huizinga 1949 ; Malaby 2007 ). This informal setting can also provide favorable conditions to help improve the 4Cs ( van Rosmalen et al. 2014 ) and should not be under-appreciated. Games provide a unique environment for learning, as they can foster a space to freely explore possibilities and one’s own potential ( de Freitas 2006 ). We argue that games are a significant potential pathway for the improvement of the 4Cs, and as such, they merit the same attention as more formal ways of learning and developing competencies.
Compared to schools and educational institutions, the focus of IICD’s evaluation framework for games (see International Institute for Competency Development 2021 ) is more narrow. Thus, it is fundamentally different from the institutional grid: games, complex and deep as they can sometimes be, cannot directly be compared to the complexity of a school curriculum and all the programs it contains. The evaluation of a game’s effectiveness for training/improving a given C rests on the following principle: if a game presents affordances conducive to exercising a given skill, engaged playing of that game should help improve that skill.
The game’s evaluation grid is scored based on two criteria. For example, as a part of a game’s rating as a tool for the development of creativity, we determine the game must first meet two conditions. First, whether or not the game allows the opportunity for creativity to manifest itself: if creativity cannot occur in the game, it is obviously not eligible to receive ratings for that C. Second, whether or not creativity is needed in order to perform well in the game: if the players can win or achieve success in the game without needing creativity, this also means it cannot receive a rating for that C. If both conditions are met, however, the game will be considered potentially effective to improve creativity through the practice of certain components of creative behavior. This basic principle applies for all four of the Cs.
As outlined in Table 3 , below, the evaluation grid for each of the four Cs is composed of five components relevant to games that are different for each of the Cs. The grid works as follows: for each of the five components of each C, we evaluate the game on a list of sub-components using two yes/no scales: one for whether it is “possible” for that subcomponent to manifest and one for whether that sub-component is “required for success” in the game. This evaluation is done for all sub-components. After this, each general component is rated on the same two indicators. If 60% (i.e., three out of five) or more sub-components are positively rated as required, the general component is considered required. Then, the game is evaluated on its effectiveness for training and improving each of the 4Cs. If 60% or more components are positively rated as required, the game will be labelized as having the potential to be effective for training and improving the corresponding C.
Five different components evaluated for each C by the 4Cs assessment framework for games.
Originality | Divergent Thinking | Convergent Thinking | Mental Flexibility | Creative Dispositions | |
Goal-adequate judgment/ discernment | Objective thinking | Metacognition | Elaborate eeasoning | Uncertainty management | |
Collaboration fluency | Well-argued deliberation and consensus-based decision | Balance of contribution | Organization and coordination | Cognitive syncing, input, and support | |
Social Interactions | Social cognition | Mastery of written and spoken language | Verbal communication | Non-verbal communication |
The evaluation grid for creativity is based on the multivariate model of creative potential (see Section 2.1.1 and Lubart et al. 2013 for more information) and is composed of four cognitive factors and one conative factor: originality , divergent thinking , convergent thinking , mental flexibility , and creative dispositions . Originality refers to the generation of ideas that are novel or unexpected, depending on the context. Divergent thinking corresponds to the generation of multiple ideas or solutions. Convergent thinking refers to the combination of multiple ideas and the selection of the most creative idea. Mental flexibility entails changing perspectives on a given problem and breaking away from initial ideas. Finally, creative dispositions concerns multiple personality-related factors conducive to creativity, such as openness to experience or risk taking.
The evaluation grid for critical thinking echoes Halpern’s ( 1998 ) as well as Marin and Halpern’s ( 2011 ) considerations for teaching this skill, that is, taking into consideration thinking skills, metacognition, and dispositions. The five components of the critical thinking grid are: goal-adequate discernment, objective thinking, metacognition, elaborate reasoning, and uncertainty management. Goal-adequate discernment entails the formulation of inferences and the discernment of contradictions when faced with a problem. Objective thinking corresponds to the suspension of one’s own judgment and the analysis of affirmations and sources in the most objective manner possible. Metacognition, here, is about questioning and reassessing information, as well as the awareness of one’s own cognitive biases. Elaborate reasoning entails reasoning in a way that is cautious, thorough, and serious. Finally, uncertainty management refers to the dispositional propensity to tolerate ambiguity and accept doubt.
The evaluation grid for collaboration is based on the quality of collaboration (QC) method ( Burkhardt et al. 2009 ; see Section 2.4.2 for more details) and is composed of the following five components: collaboration fluidity, well-argued deliberation and consensus-based decision, balance of contribution, organization and coordination, and cognitive syncing, input, and support. Collaboration fluidity entails the absence of speech overlap and the presence of a good flow in terms of turns to speak. Well-argued deliberation and consensus-based decision is about contributing to the discussion and task at hand, as well as participating in discussions and arguments, in order to obtain a consensus. Balance of contribution refers to having equal or equivalent contributions to organization, coordination, and decision making. Organization and coordination refers to effective management of roles, time, and “deadlines”, as well as the attribution of roles depending on participants’ skills. Finally, cognitive syncing, input, and support is about bringing ideas and resources to the group, as well as supporting and reinforcing other members of the group.
The five components used to evaluate communication in games include both linguistic, pragmatic, and social aspects. Linguistic skills per se are captured by the mastery of written and spoken language component. This component assesses language comprehension and the appropriate use of vocabulary. Pragmatic skills are captured by the verbal and non-verbal communication components and refer to the efficient use of verbal and body signals in the context of the game to achieve one’s communicative goals ( Grassmann 2014 ; Matthews 2014 ). Finally, the grid also evaluates social skills with its two last components, social interactions and social cognition, which, respectively, refer to the ability to interact with others appropriately—including by complying with the rules of the game—and to the understanding of other people’ mental states ( Tomasello 2005 ).
Each of the 4Cs is a broad, multi-faceted concept that is the subject of a tremendous amount of research and discussion by a wide range of stakeholders in different disciplines, professions, and parts of the educational establishment. The development of evaluation frameworks to allow support for the 4Cs to be assessed and publicly recognized, using a label, is an important step for promoting and fostering these skills in educational contexts. As illustrated by IICD’s 4Cs Framework for educational institutions and programs, as well as its games/activities evaluation grid, the specific criteria to detect support for each C can vary depending upon the educational context (e.g., formal and institutional level or informal and at the activity level). Yet considering the 4Cs together highlights some additional observations, current challenges, and opportunities for the future that are worthy of discussion.
One very important issue for understanding the 4Cs and their educational implementation that can be simultaneously a help and a hindrance for teaching them—and also a challenge when assessing them—is their multidimensionality and interrelatedness. In other words, the 4Cs are not entirely separate entities but instead, as Figure 2 shows, should be seen as four interlinked basic “elements” for future-oriented education that can help individuals in their learning process and, together, synergistically “bootstrap” the development of their cognitive potentials. Lamri and Lubart ( 2021 ), for example, found a certain base level of creativity was a necessary but not sufficient condition for success in managerial tasks, but that high-level performance required a combination of all four Cs. Some thinkers have argued that one cannot be creative without critical thinking, which also requires creativity, for example, to come up with alternative arguments (see Paul and Elder 2006 ). Similarly, among many other interrelationships, there is no collaboration without communication—and even ostensibly individual creativity is a “collaboration” of sorts with the general culture and precursors in a given field. As a result, it ranges from impossible to suboptimal to teach (or teach towards) one of the 4Cs without involving one or more of the others, and this commingling also underscores the genuine need and appropriateness of assessing them together.
“‘Crea-Critical-Collab-ication’: a Dynamic Interactionist Model of the 4Cs”. (Illustration of the interplay and interpenetration of creativity, critical thinking, collaboration, and communication shown in dimensional space according to their differing cognitive/individual vs. social/interpersonal emphases; (© 2023, Branden Thornhill-Miller. All Rights Reserved. thornhill-miller.com; accessed on 20 January 2023)).
From this perspective, Thornhill-Miller ( 2021 ) proposed a “dynamic interactionist model of the 4Cs” and their interrelated contributions to the future of education and work. Presented in Figure 2 , this model is meant to serve as a visual and conceptual aid for understanding the 4Cs and their interrelationships, thereby also promoting better use and understanding of them in pedagogical and policy settings. In addition to suggesting the portmanteau of “crea-critical thinking” as a new term to describe the overlap of much of the creative and critical thinking processes, the title of this model, “Crea-Critical-Collab-ication”, is a verbal representation of the fluid four-way interrelationship between the 4Cs visually represented in Figure 2 (a title meant to playfully repackage the 4Cs for important pedagogical and policy uses). This model goes further to suggest some dimensional differences in emphases that, roughly speaking, also often exist among the 4Cs: that is to say, the frequently greater emphasis on cognitive or individual elements at play in creativity and critical thinking in comparison to the social and interpersonal aspects more central to communication and collaboration ( Thornhill-Miller 2021 ).
Similarly focused on the need to promote a phase change towards future-oriented education, Lucas ( 2019 ) and colleagues have suggested conflating creative thinking and critical thinking in order to propose “3Cs” (creative thinking, communication, and collaboration) as new “foundational literacies” to symmetrically add to the 3Rs (Reading, wRiting, and aRithmetic) of previous educational eras. Although we applaud these efforts, from our applied research perspective, we believe that the individual importance of, and distinct differences between, creative thinking and critical thinking support preserving them both as separate constructs in order to encourage the greatest development of each of them. Moreover, if only three categories were somehow required or preferable, one could argue that uniting communication and collaboration (as “collab-ication” suggests) might be preferable—particularly also given the fact that substantial aspects of communication are already covered within the 3Rs. In any case, we look forward to more such innovations and collaborations in this vibrant and important area of work at the crossroads between research, pedagogy, and policy development.
The rich literature in each of the 4Cs domains shows the positive effects of integrating these dimensions into educational and professional curricula. At the same time, the complexity of their definitions makes them difficult to assess, both in terms of reliability (assessment must not vary from one measurement to another) and of validity (tests must measure that which they are intended to measure). However, applied research in this area is becoming increasingly rigorous, with a growing capacity to provide the necessary tools for evidence-based practice. The development of these practices should involve interdisciplinary teams of teachers and other educational practitioners who are equipped and trained accordingly. Similarly, on the research side, further exploration and clarification of subcomponents of the 4Cs and other related skills will be important. Recent efforts to clarify the conceptual overlap and hierarchical relations of soft skills for the future of education and work, for example, have been helpful and promising (e.g., Joie-La Marle et al. 2022 ; Lamri et al. 2022 ). But the most definitive sort of taxonomy and measurement model that we are currently lacking might only be established based on the large-scale administration of a comprehensive battery of skill-measuring psychometric tests on appropriate cross sections of society.
The rapid development and integration of new technologies will also aid and change the contexts, resources, and implementation of the 4Cs. For example, the recent developments make it clear that the 4Cs will be enhanced and changed by interaction with artificially intelligence, even as 4Cs-related skills will probably, for the same reason, increasingly constitute the core of available human work in the future (see, e.g., Ross 2018 ). Similarly, research on virtual reality and creativity suggest that VR environments assist and expand individual and collaborative creativity ( Bourgeois-Bougrine et al. 2022 ). Because VR technologies offer the possibility of enhanced and materially enriched communication, collaboration, and information availability, they not only allow for the enhancement of creativity techniques but also for similar expansions and improvements on almost all forms of human activity (see Thornhill-Miller and Dupont 2016 )—including the other three Cs.
Traditional educational approaches cannot meet the educational needs of our emergent societies if they do not teach, promote, and assess in line with the new learner characteristics and contexts of the 21st century ( Sahin 2009 ). The sort of future-oriented change and development required by this shift in institutional practices, programming, and structure will likely meet with significant resistance from comfortably entrenched (and often outdated) segments of traditional educational and training establishments. Additional external evaluation and monitoring is rarely welcome by workers in any context. We believe, however, that top-down processes from the innovative and competition-conscious administrative levels will be met by bottom-up demands from students and education consumers to support these institutional changes. And we contend that efforts such as labelizing 4C processes will serve to push educators and institutions towards more relevant offerings, oriented towards the future of work and helping build a more successful future for all.
In the end, the 4Cs framework seems to be a manageable, focused model for modernizing education, and one worthy of its growing prevalence in the educational and research marketplace for a number of reasons. These reasons include the complexity and cumbersome nature of larger alternative systems and the 4Cs’ persuasive presence at the core of a number of early and industry-driven frameworks. In addition, the 4Cs have benefitted from their subsequent promotion by organizations such as the OECD and the World Economic Forum, as well as some more direct support from recent empirical research. The promotion, teaching, and assessment of the 4Cs will require a complex social intervention and mobilization of educational resources—a major shift in pedagogy and institutional structures. Yet the same evolving digital technologies that have largely caused the need for these massive, rapid changes can also assist in the implementation of solutions ( van Laar et al. 2017 ). To the extent that future research also converges on such a model (that has already been found pedagogically useful and policy-friendly by so many individuals and organizations), the 4Cs framework has the potential to become a manageable core for 21st century skills and the future of education and work—one that stakeholders with various agendas can already begin building on for a better educational and economic future together.
This research received no external funding.
Conceptualization, B.T.-M. and T.L.; writing—original draft preparation, B.T.-M., A.C., M.M., J.-M.B., T.M., S.B.-B., S.E.H., F.V., M.A.-L., C.F., D.S., F.M.; writing—review and editing, B.T.-M., A.C., T.L., J.-M.B., C.F.; visualization, B.T.-M.; supervision, B.T.-M., T.L.; project administration, B.T.-M., T.L. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.
Not applicable.
Data availability statement, conflicts of interest.
B.T.-M. and T.L. are unpaid academic co-founder and project collaborator for the International Institute for Competency Development, whose labelization frameworks (developed in cooperation with Afnor International and the LaPEA lab of Université Paris Cité and Université Gustave Eiffel) are used as examples in this review. S.E.H. and M.A.-L. are employees of AFNOR International. No funding was received to support this research or article, which reflects the views of the scientists and researchers and not their organizations or companies.
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Creative thinking refers to the ability to consider something in a new way, from a fresh perspective, or with novel ideas and solutions. It involves using one's imagination to generate original ideas, make new connections between seemingly unrelated concepts, and explore multiple possibilities.
Many people believe that creative thinking is something that strikes at random. In reality, there are many ways to use creative problem-solving every day, even if you don’t think you have innate creativity.
Building your creative skills is the key to innovation. But where do you start?
In this article, we’ll cover what creative thinking is, how it works, and how to strengthen your creative skills.
At its core, creative thinking is intentionally gaining new insights and different ideas through existing information. Often, creative thought involves tapping into different styles of thinking and examining information from different viewpoints to see new patterns. Anyone can foster a creative mind with some practice!
Using a wide variety of brainstorming strategies can help you discover new solutions for issues in every area of your life, including at work.
In fact, 61% of employees say they’re expected to come up with creative ideas or new ways to do things at work. But, with only 30% of employees saying they’re given time to think or discuss new ideas daily, it’s becoming increasingly important to develop our creative thinking muscles.
Fostering creative thinking starts with changing your perspective. Learning new and different styles of thinking can help give birth to powerful idea generation.
Aesthetic, divergent , lateral, convergent, and inspirational thinking are five types of innovative thinking to get the ball rolling.
( Image source )
Divergent and convergent thinking are the most common ways to foster more creative thought.
It’s easy to get stuck in the same thought patterns, especially at work. However, those thought patterns may be hampering your innovation and keeping you stuck in routines that don’t serve you.
Creative thinking shows us that there are many solutions to any problem, and developing your creative thinking skills helps you recognize innovative solutions more quickly.
Plus, creativity was the most sought-after soft skill in 2020 , so strengthening your creativity skills can set you apart at work, too.
Alongside critical thinking and focus , creative thinking is crucial to help recognize patterns that may not be obvious at first glance. Thinking creatively makes you a better problem-solver, which has far-reaching benefits in both your work and personal life.
Expressive, creative thinking helps us challenge our own assumptions, discover new things about ourselves and our perspective, stay mentally sharp, and even be more optimistic .
Many business leaders see creativity and innovation as something unpredictable, with 53% of businesses reporting that innovation occurs by chance . However, with the right tools, you can tap into creative thinking whenever you want.
There are many ways to get your creative juices flowing, and practicing creative thinking strategies can help you think outside the box more readily and more often:
Creative thinking is valuable in many situations, not just in traditionally creative industries. Whether you’re solving a problem , organizing your calendar, or at an impasse with your team, creative thinking can come in handy.
Here are 5 examples of using creative thinking in and out of the workplace:
The benefits of creative thinking
Creative thinking doesn’t just make you a better employee; it also makes you a better parent, student, and leader, too. By developing your creative thinking skills , the benefits of thinking creatively can show up throughout your daily life.
Here are a few major benefits of creative thinking.
We don’t just solve problems at work, and we shouldn’t only use our creative thinking skills at work, either! Developing your creative thinking abilities can help you solve a wide variety of problems faster.
As your mind becomes more accustomed to using different thought techniques, you’ll quickly recognize patterns that you might not have before.
Creative thinking can help you communicate your ideas more clearly , which leads to better conversations and relationships with your friends, family, and coworkers.
Plus, many creative thinking methods work best when they’re done in a group. Developing new ideas together can strengthen bonds and help you combine ideas to create something truly innovative.
It may seem like creative thinking is a time-consuming distraction from your work, but that couldn’t be further from the truth.
When we get stuck in thought patterns, it’s easy to get frustrated when something isn’t working correctly. That frustration can cause our productivity to plummet.
Taking a moment and engaging in a creative thinking strategy can renew your motivation , reinvigorate your passion, and help you find new solutions when you’re stuck.
Creative thinking allows you to try on perspectives that you may not have considered before.
As you’re exploring new perspectives, you may discover something about your own assumptions, viewpoints, or biases that you never noticed .
Challenging your traditional way of thinking can offer higher self-awareness and build your emotional intelligence. With creative thinking, you strengthen your ability to reframe your perspective and harness a growth mindset.
Breaking away from your normal routine and trying something new is the key to fostering creative thinking in your daily life.
There are many ways to do this. While practicing different thinking strategies and brainstorming with your team at work help to develop these skills, they’re far from the only way to foster a more creative thought process. Here are 13 suggestions to inspire you:
One powerful way to get your creativity flowing is to meet new people , especially if they’re in the arts or in a different industry from you. Sharing your interests and listening to others can inspire you to view the world differently.
Practicing boredom can help you develop your creativity , too. Allowing yourself to become bored and seeing what pulls your interest can help you practice letting your curiosity lead the way.
Ask questions about everything that piques your interest, and come up with possible answers before you look up the actual answer. Challenging the status quo and seeking new information can develop a beginner mindset and lead to innovative ideas.
Engage in different activities, travel, meet new people, and explore various cultures. Exposure to diverse experiences broadens your perspective.
Regular mindfulness and meditation can help clear your mind, reduce stress, and improve your focus, creating a fertile ground for creativity.
Work with people from different backgrounds and fields. Collaborative efforts often lead to the cross-pollination of ideas and new perspectives.
Maintain a journal to jot down thoughts, ideas, and observations. Writing regularly can help organize your thoughts and stimulate creativity.
Set aside time for brainstorming . Allow free flow of ideas without judgment. Quantity can often lead to quality in creative thinking.
Alter your workspace or take breaks in different settings. A new environment can provide fresh stimuli and break routine thinking patterns.
Read books , articles, and papers from various genres and fields. Reading widely exposes you to new ideas and ways of thinking.
Engage in activities like drawing, writing, playing music, or solving puzzles. Creative exercises can enhance your problem-solving skills and imaginative thinking.
Don’t be afraid to take risks and fail. Failure is a crucial part of the creative process , providing valuable lessons and insights for future endeavors.
Coaching can also help you hone your creative thinking. In fact, 71% of employers see managerial coaching as helpful for creative development . When you’re feeling distracted or uninspired, coaching can refocus your attention and help you get curious about your experience.
Thinking more creatively can take effort, but a little practice can offer a ton of benefits. Honing your skills to recognize patterns and find solutions shifts your perspective and offers a new vantage point for you to explore.
Not only can creative thinking improve your performance at work, but it can also improve every other area of your life too.
Coaching is a powerful tool to help foster your creativity skills. Are you ready to become more innovative?
Start working with a dedicated coach today to develop your own creative thinking skills.
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Maggie Wooll is a researcher, author, and speaker focused on the evolving future of work. Formerly the lead researcher at the Deloitte Center for the Edge, she holds a Bachelor of Science in Education from Princeton University and an MBA from the University of Virginia Darden School of Business. Maggie is passionate about creating better work and greater opportunities for all.
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by Rawzaba Alhalabi Published on January 17, 2021
So what is creative thinking?
Creative thinking is the process of nurturing your imagination allowing you to “think out of the box”.
Being able to train your mind to think creatively helps you invent, problem-solve, create and communicate in fresh, new ways. Moreover, studying art and design , along with diverse disciplines, provides a rich tapestry of perspectives and techniques, enriching your creative thinking process even further.
Creative thinkers are in high demand in the job market and creative thinking is one of the key skills needed in future jobs according to a recent report by the World Economic Forum.
So, let’s develop your creative thinking skills!
In this article, we will take you through a step by step process of how to improve your creative thinking skills. You will learn about different ways used to help you become more open-minded, innovative and creative .
Every person can improve their creative thinking skills. By doing so, it will help you create, interpret and come with solutions to challenges in your daily life routines at school, university, organization or simply at home.
“Everyone is born creative” – Hugh Macleod
A group of CEOs were asked “What is the skill you most value in your people?” as part of a survey , they said creativity, the ability to solve problems, come up with new solutions, and use brainpower to figure things out. Moreover, developing creative thinking skills not only involves nurturing your imagination but also understanding your personality traits and how they influence your thinking process. Taking a DISC personality test can provide valuable insights into your unique behavioral styles, helping you to enhance your creative thinking capabilities. By knowing your strengths and areas for improvement, you can better leverage your natural tendencies to think outside the box. Discover more about your personality by taking our online DISC test today.
Before we get into the techniques, let us explore why is it important to become a creative thinker.
Being able to train your mind to think creatively helps you invent, problem-solve, create and communicate in fresh, new ways.
When you think open-mindedly you become a happier person ready to accept exciting surprises from life.
The following are 8 reasons why you are advised to be creative in your everyday life:
As explained, creative thinking has many advantages but most importantly it will make you a happier and better person so start practicing!
Check out the below infographic extracted from a global study done by Adobe.
Successful people today are great creative thinkers.
Practicing creativity on a daily basis guides you to become a great success in the future.
The most important thing is to feel free when trying to apply creativity in your life. Creativity is having the power to expand your imagination bringing the most out of your potentials.
The following are 6 ways to apply creative thinking in your life:
Therefore, by working on being a risk taker, a day dreamer and a good reader you are forcing your mind to grow in all directions.
So follow the above steps to WOW your way to become a high-standard creative thinker as opposed to being a boring, traditional thinker with limited abilities!
See also: Innovation Design Thinking
The “6 Thinking Hats” is a system designed by Edward de Bono as an approach to promote creative thinking. It is a tool used to enhance real thinking to make the process more productive and focused.
The ‘6 Thinking Hats’ separates thinking into 6 different roles, each role identified with a colored symbolic thinking hat. This approach helps to redirect thoughts by mentally switching from one hat to the other.
The following are the 6 thinking hats and what each color represents:
The above 6 hats, when combined together, allows your mind to think clearly and objectively.
For example, you can start by grabbing the “Blue Hat” asking yourself questions such as: what is our goal? Are the 6 guidelines observed clearly? What is the subject addressed? This helps you get an overall view of your problem.
Next, you can grab the “Red Hat” expressing what you feel towards the problem and asking yourself who might be affected by this problem.
Then, you can grab “Yellow” and later “Green Hat” to invent new concepts and solutions.
Finally, you can switch between the “White” and “Black hat” in order to validate your solution by using information that you already know.
Start training your mind to switch directions from one hat to another to solve problems efficiently, effectively bringing out benefits too!
Here’s a video to explain the process:
Lateral Thinking is a phrase invented by Edward de Bono that means thinking about a problem in a different way than what is usually used.
You can check out Edward de Bono’s book on the topic:
Lateral thinking is far from logical thinking most people use today.
It is expanding your thinking limits, freeing yourself from boundaries giving you the chance to explore things you never knew existed.
Creative thinking is the ability to free your mind to create, interpret and visualize possibilities.
See also: How to become an exceptional critical thinker
Whether you decide to use lateral thinking or the 6 hats thinking approach, work your way to become a WOW creative thinker!
Creative thinking pushes passion allowing you to love and live beyond your limits.
However, sometimes situations happen in life that restricts your freedom. It’s up to you to break down these walls and live up to your full potential, with the support and resources from Customwritings to help you overcome any obstacles.
The following are 8 things you are advised to avoid in order to be able to unleash your creativity:
Worry about what others think: , stay in your ‘comfort zone’: , school limiting your creativity: , hold back when you have a good idea: , stop learning: , assume certain perceptions: .
We suggest you try to avoid the 8 points mentioned above in order to free your mind to think creatively.
It is a step forward to raise hidden talents that will push our world to lasting global success!
There’s no one-size-fits-all solution to succeeding in your career. Some personality types thrive when put in front of a crowd, but for others, it’s their worst nightmare! Similarly, some personality types have the potential to be amazing employees but their personalities may be able to show success in a different way.
Understanding your career personality type is a great way to figure out how to succeed in your career. Using your Enneagram type , you can learn personality-specific ways that you can thrive. For example, type five does well when they can work independently and can use “heads down” (no meeting) days to get the space they need to be productive.
Ready to find your career Enneagram? Check out the infographic below to get started.
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Creativity, critical thinking, communication, and collaboration: assessment, certification, and promotion of 21st century skills for the future of work and education.
“21st century skills”, “soft skills”, and the “4cs”, 2. the 4cs, assessment, and support for development, 2.1. creativity, 2.1.1. individual assessment of creativity, 2.1.2. institutional and environmental support for development of creativity, 2.2. critical thinking, 2.2.1. individual assessment of critical thinking, 2.2.2. institutional and environmental support for development of critical thinking skills, 2.3. communication, 2.3.1. individual assessment of communication, 2.3.2. institutional and environmental support for development of communication skills, 2.4. collaboration, 2.4.1. individual assessment of collaboration, 2.4.2. institutional and environmental support for development of collaboration and collaborative skills, 3. labelization: valorization of the 4cs and assessing support for their development, 3.1. labeling as a means of trust and differentiation, 3.2. influence on choice and adoption of goods and services, 3.3. process of labelizing products and services, 3.4. labelization of 21st century skills, 4. the international institute for competency development’s 21st century competencies 4cs assessment framework for institutions and programs, 4.1. evaluation grid for creativity, 4.2. evaluation grid for critical thinking, 4.3. evaluation grid for collaboration, 4.4. evaluation grid for communication, 5. assessing the 4cs in informal educational contexts: the example of games, 5.1. the 4cs in informal educational contexts, 5.2. 4cs evaluation framework for games, 6. discussion and conclusions, 6.1. interrelationships between the 4cs and a new model for use in pedagogy and policy promotion, 6.2. limitations and future work, 6.3. conclusion: labelization of the 4cs and the future of education and work, author contributions, institutional review board statement, informed consent statement, data availability statement, conflicts of interest.
Click here to enlarge figure
Creative Process | Creative Environment | Creative Product | |
Critical thinking about the world | Critical thinking about oneself | Critical action and decision making | |
Engagement and participation | Perspective taking and openness | Social regulation | |
Message formulation | Message delivery | Message and communication feedback |
Aspects of the overall educational program teaching, emphasizing, and promoting the 4Cs | |
Availability and access to different means, materials, space, and expertise, digital technologies, mnemonic and heuristic methods, etc. to assist in the proper use and exercise of the 4Cs | |
Actual student and program use of available resources promoting the 4Cs | |
Critical reflection and metacognition on the process being engaged in around the 4Cs | |
The formal and informal training, skills, and abilities of teachers/trainers and staff and their program of development as promoters of the 4Cs | |
Use and integration of the full range of resources external to the institution available to enhance the 4Cs | |
Availability of resources for students to create and actualize products, programs, events, etc. that require the exercise, promotion, or manifestation of the 4Cs |
Originality | Divergent Thinking | Convergent Thinking | Mental Flexibility | Creative Dispositions | |
Goal-adequate judgment/ discernment | Objective thinking | Metacognition | Elaborate eeasoning | Uncertainty management | |
Collaboration fluency | Well-argued deliberation and consensus-based decision | Balance of contribution | Organization and coordination | Cognitive syncing, input, and support | |
Social Interactions | Social cognition | Mastery of written and spoken language | Verbal communication | Non-verbal communication |
The statements, opinions and data contained in all publications are solely those of the individual author(s) and contributor(s) and not of MDPI and/or the editor(s). MDPI and/or the editor(s) disclaim responsibility for any injury to people or property resulting from any ideas, methods, instructions or products referred to in the content. |
Thornhill-Miller, B.; Camarda, A.; Mercier, M.; Burkhardt, J.-M.; Morisseau, T.; Bourgeois-Bougrine, S.; Vinchon, F.; El Hayek, S.; Augereau-Landais, M.; Mourey, F.; et al. Creativity, Critical Thinking, Communication, and Collaboration: Assessment, Certification, and Promotion of 21st Century Skills for the Future of Work and Education. J. Intell. 2023 , 11 , 54. https://doi.org/10.3390/jintelligence11030054
Thornhill-Miller B, Camarda A, Mercier M, Burkhardt J-M, Morisseau T, Bourgeois-Bougrine S, Vinchon F, El Hayek S, Augereau-Landais M, Mourey F, et al. Creativity, Critical Thinking, Communication, and Collaboration: Assessment, Certification, and Promotion of 21st Century Skills for the Future of Work and Education. Journal of Intelligence . 2023; 11(3):54. https://doi.org/10.3390/jintelligence11030054
Thornhill-Miller, Branden, Anaëlle Camarda, Maxence Mercier, Jean-Marie Burkhardt, Tiffany Morisseau, Samira Bourgeois-Bougrine, Florent Vinchon, Stephanie El Hayek, Myriam Augereau-Landais, Florence Mourey, and et al. 2023. "Creativity, Critical Thinking, Communication, and Collaboration: Assessment, Certification, and Promotion of 21st Century Skills for the Future of Work and Education" Journal of Intelligence 11, no. 3: 54. https://doi.org/10.3390/jintelligence11030054
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Home — Essay Samples — Sociology — Effective Communication — Effective Communication: The Key to Building Strong Connections
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The importance of effective communication, key elements of effective communication, barriers to effective communication, strategies for improving communication, 1. building relationships:, 2. resolving conflicts:, 3. achieving goals:, 4. personal development:, 5. success in the workplace:, 1. clarity:, 2. active listening:, 3. empathy:, 4. nonverbal communication:, 5. respect:, 1. misunderstandings:, 2. lack of active listening:, 3. emotional barriers:, 4. assumptions and stereotypes:, 5. lack of feedback:, 1. practice active listening:, 2. foster empathy:, 3. be mindful of nonverbal cues:, 4. seek feedback:, 5. adapt to your audience: h3>, 6. practice constructive communication:, 7. educate yourself:.
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Creativity helps us understand and solve problems in different ways. Discover our top essays about creativity examples and use our prompts for your writing.
Albert Einstein defines creativity as “seeing what others see and thinking what others have not thought.” But what makes it such a popular topic to write about? Every person has a creative view and opinion on something, but not everyone knows how to express it. Writing utilizes ideas and imagination to produce written pieces, such as essays.
Creativity reinforces not only new views but also innovation around the world. Because creativity is a broad topic to write about, you’ll need several resources to help you narrow down what you want to discuss in your essay.
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1. way to foster creativity in young children by anonymous on ivypanda.com, 2. phenomenon of creativity and success by anonymous on ivypanda.com, 3. do schools kill creativity: essay on traditional education by anonymous on gradesfixer.com, 4. creativity in dreams essay by writer pete, 5. the importance of creativity in higher education by anonymous on gradesfixer.com, 1. what is creativity, 2. how creativity affects our daily lives, 3. the impact of creativity on students, 4. the importance of creativity, 5. creativity: a product of perception, 6. types of creativity, 7. art and creativity.
“There are different ways to foster creativity in young children. They include different approaches to the problem of making children more self-reliant, more creative, and more interested in the process of receiving education, obtaining experience, achieving certain results in the sphere of self-study.”
The essay delves into the importance of promoting creativity by teaching music to young students. The author says music’s intention, rhythm, and organizational features help people understand performance, improve their mood, and educate them about the world they live in, unlike noise. Music is an important area of life, so it is important to teach it correctly and inspire children.
Since music and creativity are both vital, the author notes that music teachers must find ways to facilitate ventures to enhance their students’ creativity. The author also believes that teachers must perform their duties appropriately and focus on shaping their students’ behavior, personality, and worldview. You might be interested in these articles about art .
“Over the past few decades, creativity has evolved from a characteristic normally associated with artistic activities into a quality that is found in people of various professions. However, in the 21st century, creativity has become a rather controversial issue.”
The author discusses that while creativity dramatically contributes to the success of individuals and companies, creativity in the 21st-century workplace still has mixed reception. They mention that creativity leads to new ideas and innovations, helps solve complex problems, and makes great leaders.
However, some still see creative people as irrational, disorganized, and distracting in the workplace. This often results in companies rejecting applicants with this quality. Ultimately, the writer believes creativity is vital in all organizations today. Hiring people with this unique trait is highly beneficial and essential to achieving the company’s goals. For more inspiration, check out these essays about achievement and essays about curiosity .
“… the traditional education system has caused much controversy since the beginning of formal education because traditional education can hurt children’s ability to think creatively, innovate, and develop fascinating minds.”
The essay discusses how school rules and norms affect students’ expression of true individuality. The author mentions that today’s schools focus on students’ test performance, memorization, and compliance more than their aspirations and talents, preventing students from practicing and enhancing their creativity.
The author uses various articles, shows, and situations to elaborate on how schools kill a student’s creativity by forcing them to follow a specific curriculum as a means to succeed in life. It kills the student’s creativity as they become “robots” with the same beliefs, knowledge, and values. According to the writer, killing a child’s creativity leads to a lack of motivation and a wrong career direction.
“Creativity is enhanced whether one chooses to pay attention to it, or not. Each person has the capacity to learn much from their creative dreaming, if they would only think more creatively and openly when awake.”
The essay contains various studies to support claims about people being more creative when asleep. According to the author, the human brain processes more information when dreaming than in the waking state. While the brainstem is inactive, it responds to PGO Waves that trigger the human CMPG, which puts images into the dream to move. The author discusses two main perspectives to discuss how creative dreaming occurs.
First, creativity is enhanced when a person sleeps, not through dreaming but because the mind is free from stress, making the brain more focused on thinking and creating images. The second is that the dreaming mind gathers and processes more information than the human brain unconsciously accumulates daily. The author states that creativity helps express feelings and believes people should not take their creativity in dreams for granted.
“When students have the opportunity to be creative, they’ll have the freedom to express themselves however they want, which satisfies them and drives them to work hard.”
The essay focuses on how the role of creativity is getting slimmer as a student enters higher education. To explain the importance of creativity, the author shares their experience showing how elementary schools focus more on improving and training students’ creativity than higher education. Although rules and restrictions are essential in higher education, students should still practice creativity because it enhances their ability to think and quickly adapt to different situations.
If you want to use the latest grammar software, read our guide to using an AI grammar checker .
Creativity is an important topic that significantly affects an individual’s development. For this prompt, discuss the meaning of creativity according to experts versus the personal interpretation of creative individuals. Compare these explanations and add your opinion on these similarities and differences. You can even discuss creativity in your life and how you practice creativity in your hobbies, interests, and education.
There are several impacts of creativity in one’s life. It improves mental health, strengthens the immune system, and affects one’s ability to solve problems in school and real life. Sometimes, being creative helps us be more open to various perspectives to reduce our biases.
Use this prompt to write about a specific situation you experienced where creativity made you more innovative, inventive, or imaginative. Discuss these particular moments by pointing out creativity’s impact on your goal and how things would differ without creativity. You may also be interested in learning about the different types of creativity .
Creativity significantly impacts students’ enthusiasm and feeling of belongingness as they share their passion. Additionally, creativity’s effects stretch to students’ career choices and mental health.
Use this prompt to start a discussion of the pros and cons of creativity with students. Give examples where a student’s creativity leads to their success or failure. You can also share your observations as a guardian or a student.
Sometimes, when we lose touch with our creative side, our viewpoint becomes shallow. Creativity not only works for art but also broadens everyone’s perspectives in life.
For this prompt, speak about how creativity matters and prove its importance by providing a situation. Theorize or discuss how creative people and people who fail to increase their creativity respond to the case.
Perception is an underlying characteristic of creativity. It interprets what we observe, while creativity allows us to make sense of them. Use this prompt to define perception to the readers through the lens of creativity.
List your experience proving creativity is a product of perception. For example, people can have vastly different interpretations of a painting or sound depending on how they perceive it.
There are several types of creativity, some people believe creativity is a natural talent, but others say it can be cultivated. In this prompt, briefly define creativity and identify each type, such as musical, artistic, or logical.
Discuss how creativity can be taught and cultivated, and look into how some people are naturally creative. In your essay, use real-life examples; this could be someone you know who has studied a creative subject or a friend who is a naturally creative songwriter.
When people say creativity, they usually think about art because it involves imaginative and expressive actions. Art strongly indicates a person’s ongoing effort and emotional power.
To write this essay effectively, show how art relates to a person’s creativity. Briefly explain creativity and art and incorporate the factors that link these two. Note that art can be anything from contemporary dance and music to sculptures and paintings. For help with your essay, check our round-up of best essay writing apps .
Psychologists and neuroscientists are exploring where creativity comes from and how to increase your own
Vol. 53 No. 3 Print version: page 40
Paul Seli, PhD, is falling asleep. As he nods off, a sleep-tracking glove called Dormio, developed by scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, detects his nascent sleep state and jars him awake. Pulled back from the brink, he jots down the artistic ideas that came to him during those semilucid moments.
Seli is an assistant professor of psychology and neuroscience at the Duke Institute for Brain Sciences and also an artist. He uses Dormio to tap into the world of hypnagogia, the transitional state that exists at the boundary between wakefulness and sleep. In a mini-experiment, he created a series of paintings inspired by ideas plucked from his hypnagogic state and another series from ideas that came to him during waking hours. Then he asked friends to rate how creative the paintings were, without telling them which were which. They judged the hypnagogic paintings as significantly more creative. “In dream states, we seem to be able to link things together that we normally wouldn’t connect,” Seli said. “It’s like there’s an artist in my brain that I get to know through hypnagogia.”
The experiment is one of many novel—and, yes, creative—ways that psychologists are studying the science of creativity. At an individual level, creativity can lead to personal fulfillment and positive academic and professional outcomes, and even be therapeutic. People take pleasure in creative thoughts, research suggests—even if they don’t think of themselves as especially creative. Beyond those individual benefits, creativity is an endeavor with implications for society, said Jonathan Schooler, PhD, a professor of psychological and brain sciences at the University of California, Santa Barbara. “Creativity is at the core of innovation. We rely on innovation for advancing humanity, as well as for pleasure and entertainment,” he said. “Creativity underlies so much of what humans value.”
In 1950, J. P. Guilford, PhD, then president of APA, laid out his vision for the psychological study of creativity ( American Psychologist , Vol. 5, No. 9, 1950). For half a century, researchers added to the scientific understanding of creativity incrementally, said John Kounios, PhD, an experimental psychologist who studies creativity and insight at Drexel University in Philadelphia. Much of that research focused on the personality traits linked to creativity and the cognitive aspects of the creative process.
But in the 21st century, the field has blossomed thanks to new advances in neuroimaging. “It’s become a tsunami of people studying creativity,” Kounios said. Psychologists and neuroscientists are uncovering new details about what it means to be creative and how to nurture that skill. “Creativity is of incredible real-world value,” Kounios said. “The ultimate goal is to figure out how to enhance it in a systematic way.”
What, exactly, is creativity? The standard definition used by researchers characterizes creative ideas as those that are original and effective, as described by psychologist Mark A. Runco, PhD, director of creativity research and programming at Southern Oregon University ( Creativity Research Journal , Vol. 24, No. 1, 2012). But effectiveness, also called utility, is a slippery concept. Is a poem useful? What makes a sculpture effective? “Most researchers use some form of this definition, but most of us are also dissatisfied with it,” Kounios said.
Runco is working on an updated definition and has considered at least a dozen suggestions from colleagues for new components to consider. One frequently suggested feature is authenticity. “Creativity involves an honest expression,” he said.
Meanwhile, scientists are also struggling with the best way to measure the concept. As a marker of creativity, researchers often measure divergent thinking—the ability to generate a lot of possible solutions to a problem or question. The standard test of divergent thinking came from Guilford himself. Known as the alternate-uses test, the task asks participants to come up with novel uses for a common object such as a brick. But measures of divergent thinking haven’t been found to correlate well with real-world creativity. Does coming up with new uses for a brick imply a person will be good at abstract art or composing music or devising new methods for studying the brain? “It strikes me as using way too broad a brush,” Seli said. “I don’t think we measure creativity in the standard way that people think about creativity. As researchers, we need to be very clear about what we mean.”
One way to do that may be to move away from defining creativity based on a person’s creative output and focus instead on what’s going on in the brain, said Adam Green, PhD, a cognitive neuroscientist at Georgetown University and founder of the Society for the Neuroscience of Creativity . “The standard definition, that creativity is novel and useful, is a description of a product,” he noted. “By looking inward, we can see the process in action and start to identify the characteristics of creative thought. Neuroimaging is helping to shift the focus from creative product to creative process.”
That process seems to involve the coupling of disparate brain regions. Specifically, creativity often involves coordination between the cognitive control network, which is involved in executive functions such as planning and problem-solving, and the default mode network, which is most active during mind-wandering or daydreaming (Beaty, R. E., et al., Cerebral Cortex , Vol. 31, No. 10, 2021). The cooperation of those networks may be a unique feature of creativity, Green said. “These two systems are usually antagonistic. They rarely work together, but creativity seems to be one instance where they do.”
Green has also found evidence that an area called the frontopolar cortex, in the brain’s frontal lobes, is associated with creative thinking. And stimulating the area seems to boost creative abilities. He and his colleagues used transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) to stimulate the frontopolar cortex of participants as they tried to come up with novel analogies. Stimulating the area led participants to make analogies that were more semantically distant from one another—in other words, more creative ( Cerebral Cortex , Vol. 27, No. 4, 2017).
Green’s work suggests that targeting specific areas in the brain, either with neuromodulation or cognitive interventions, could enhance creativity. Yet no one is suggesting that a single brain region, or even a single neural network, is responsible for creative thought. “Creativity is not one system but many different mechanisms that, under ideal circumstances, work together in a seamless way,” Kounios said.
Creativity looks different from person to person. And even within one brain, there are different routes to a creative spark, Kounios explained. One involves what cognitive scientists call “System 1” (also called “Type 1”) processes: quick, unconscious thoughts—aha moments—that burst into consciousness. A second route involves “System 2” processes: thinking that is slow, deliberate, and conscious. “Creativity can use one or the other or a combination of the two,” he said. “You might use Type 1 thinking to generate ideas and Type 2 to critique and refine them.”
Which pathway a person uses might depend, in part, on their expertise. Kounios and his colleagues used electroencephalography (EEG) to examine what was happening in jazz musicians’ brains as they improvised on the piano. Then skilled jazz instructors rated those improvisations for creativity, and the researchers compared each musician’s most creative compositions. They found that for highly experienced musicians, the mechanisms used to generate creative ideas were largely automatic and unconscious, and they came from the left posterior part of the brain. Less-experienced pianists drew on more analytical, deliberative brain processes in the right frontal region to devise creative melodies, as Kounios and colleagues described in a special issue of NeuroImage on the neuroscience of creativity (Vol. 213, 2020). “It seems there are at least two pathways to get from where you are to a creative idea,” he said.
Coming up with an idea is only one part of the creative process. A painter needs to translate their vision to canvas. An inventor has to tinker with their concept to make a prototype that actually works. Still, the aha moment is an undeniably important component of the creative process. And science is beginning to illuminate those “lightbulb moments.”
Kounios examined the relationship between creative insight and the brain’s reward system by asking participants to solve anagrams in the lab. In people who were highly sensitive to rewards, a creative insight led to a burst of brain activity in the orbitofrontal cortex, the area of the brain that responds to basic pleasures like delicious food or addictive drugs ( NeuroImage , Vol. 214, 2020). That neural reward may explain, from an evolutionary standpoint, why humans seem driven to create, he said. “We seem wired to take pleasure in creative thoughts. There are neural rewards for thinking in a creative fashion, and that may be adaptive for our species.”
The rush you get from an aha moment might also signal that you’re onto something good, Schooler said. He and his colleagues studied these flashes of insight among creative writers and physicists. They surveyed the participants daily for two weeks, asking them to note their creative ideas and when they occurred. Participants reported that about a fifth of the most important ideas of the day happened when they were mind-wandering and not working on a task at hand ( Psychological Science , Vol. 30, No. 3, 2019). “These solutions were more likely to be associated with an aha moment and often overcoming an impasse of some sort,” Schooler said.
Six months later, the participants revisited those ideas and rated them for creative importance. This time, they rated their previous ideas as creative, but less important than they’d initially thought. That suggests that the spark of a eureka moment may not be a reliable clue that an idea has legs. “It seems like the aha experience may be a visceral marker of an important idea. But the aha experience can also inflate the meaningfulness of an idea that doesn’t have merit,” Schooler said. “We have to be careful of false ahas.”
Much of the research in this realm has focused on creativity as a trait. Indeed, some people are naturally more creative than others. Creative individuals are more likely than others to possess the personality trait of openness. “Across different age groups, the best predictor of creativity is openness to new experiences,” said Anna Abraham, PhD, the E. Paul Torrance Professor and director of the Torrance Center for Creativity and Talent Development at the University of Georgia. “Creative people have the kind of curiosity that draws them toward learning new things and experiencing the world in new ways,” she said.
We can’t all be Thomas Edison or Maya Angelou. But creativity is also a state, and anyone can push themselves to be more creative. “Creativity is human capacity, and there’s always room for growth,” Runco said. A tolerant environment is often a necessary ingredient, he added. “Tolerant societies allow individuals to express themselves and explore new things. And as a parent or a teacher, you can model that creativity is valued and be open-minded when your child gives an answer you didn’t expect.”
One way to let your own creativity flow may be by tapping into your untethered mind. Seli is attempting to do so through his studies on hypnagogia. After pilot testing the idea on himself, he’s now working on a study that uses the sleep-tracking glove to explore creativity in a group of Duke undergrads. “In dream states, there seems to be connectivity between disparate ideas. You tend to link things together you normally wouldn’t, and this should lead to novel outcomes,” he said. “Neurally speaking, the idea is to increase connectivity between different areas of the brain.”
You don’t have to be asleep to forge those creative connections. Mind-wandering can also let the ideas flow. “Letting yourself daydream with a purpose, on a regular basis, might allow brain networks that don’t usually cooperate to literally form stronger connections,” Green said.
However, not all types of daydreams will get you there. Schooler found that people who engage in more personally meaningful daydreams (such as fantasizing about a future vacation or career change) report greater artistic achievement and more daily inspiration. People who are prone to fantastical daydreaming (such as inventing alternate realities or imaginary worlds) produced higher-quality creative writing in the lab and reported more daily creative behavior. But daydreams devoted to planning or problem-solving were not associated with creative behaviors ( Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts , Vol. 15, No. 4, 2021).
It’s not just what you think about when you daydream, but where you are when you do it. Some research suggests spending time in nature can enhance creativity. That may be because of the natural world’s ability to restore attention, or perhaps it’s due to the tendency to let your mind wander when you’re in the great outdoors (Williams, K. J. H., et al., Journal of Environmental Psychology , Vol. 59, 2018). “A lot of creative figures go on walks in big, expansive environments. In a large space, your perceptual attention expands and your scope of thought also expands,” Kounios said. “That’s why working in a cubicle is bad for creativity. But working near a window can help.”
Wherever you choose to do it, fostering creativity requires time and effort. “People want the booster shot for creativity. But creativity isn’t something that comes magically. It’s a skill, and as with any new skill, the more you practice, the better you get,” Abraham said. In a not-yet-published study, she found three factors predicted peak originality in teenagers: openness to experience, intelligence, and, importantly, time spent engaged in creative hobbies. That is, taking the time to work on creative pursuits makes a difference. And the same is true for adults, she said. “Carve out time for yourself, figure out the conditions that are conducive to your creativity, and recognize that you need to keep pushing yourself. You won’t get to where you want to go if you don’t try.”
Those efforts can benefit your own sense of creative fulfillment and perhaps lead to rewards on an even grander scale. “I think everyday creativity is the most important kind,” Runco said. “If we can support the creativity of each and every individual, we’ll change the world.”
1. Put in the work: People often think of creativity as a bolt of inspiration, like a lightbulb clicking on. But being creative in a particular domain—whether in the arts, in your work, or in your day-to-day life—is a skill. Carve out time to learn and practice.
2. Let your mind wander: Experts recommend “daydreaming with purpose.” Make opportunities to let your daydreams flow, while gently nudging them toward the creative challenge at hand. Some research suggests meditation may help people develop the habit of purposeful daydreaming.
3. Practice remote associations: Brainstorm ideas, jotting down whatever thoughts or notions come to you, no matter how wild. You can always edit later.
4. Go outside: Spending time in nature and wide-open spaces can expand your attention, enhance beneficial mind-wandering, and boost creativity.
5. Revisit your creative ideas: Aha moments can give you a high—but that rush might make you overestimate the merit of a creative idea. Don’t be afraid to revisit ideas to critique and tweak them later.
Creativity: An introduction Kaufman, J. C., and Sternberg, R. J. (Eds.), Cambridge University Press, 2021
The eureka factor: Aha moments, creative insight, and the brain Kounios, J., & Beeman, M., Random House, 2015
Creativity anxiety: Evidence for anxiety that is specific to creative thinking, from STEM to the arts Daker, R. J., et al., Journal of Experimental Psychology: General , 2020
Predictors of creativity in young people: Using frequentist and Bayesian approaches in estimating the importance of individual and contextual factors Asquith, S. L., et al., Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts , 2020
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In today’s fast-paced world, effective communication and critical thinking have become increasingly important skills for both personal and professional success. Critical thinking refers to the ability to analyze situations, gather information, and make sound judgments, while effective communication involves not only conveying ideas clearly but also actively listening and responding to others. These two crucial abilities are intertwined, as critical thinking often mediates information processing, leading to a more comprehensive understanding and ultimately enhancing communication.
Critical thinking fundamentals, skill and knowledge.
Critical thinking is an essential cognitive skill that individuals should cultivate in order to master effective communication. It is the ability to think clearly and rationally, understand the logical connections between ideas, identify and construct arguments, and evaluate information to make better decisions in personal and professional life [1] . A well-developed foundation of knowledge is crucial for critical thinkers, as it enables them to analyze situations, evaluate arguments, and draw, inferences from the information they process.
A key component of critical thinking is the ability to analyze information, which involves breaking down complex problems or arguments into manageable parts to understand their underlying structure [2] . Analyzing evidence is essential in order to ascertain the validity and credibility of the information, which leads to better decision-making. Critical thinkers must consider factors like the source’s credibility, the existence of potential biases, and any relevant areas of expertise before forming judgments.
In summary, mastering critical thinking fundamentals, including skill and knowledge, analysis of evidence, and clarity of thought, is essential for effective communication. Cultivating these abilities will enable individuals to better navigate their personal and professional lives, fostering stronger, more efficient connections with others.
Workplace and leadership.
Critical thinking is a vital skill for individuals in the workplace, particularly for those in leadership roles. It contributes to effective communication, enabling individuals to articulate their thoughts clearly and understand the perspectives of others. Furthermore, critical thinking allows leaders to make informed decisions by evaluating available information and considering potential consequences. Developing this skill can also empower team members to solve complex problems by exploring alternative solutions and applying rational thinking.
Confidence and emotions.
Critical thinking plays a significant role in managing one’s emotions and cultivating self-confidence. By engaging in rational and objective thinking, individuals can develop a clearer understanding of their own beliefs and values. This awareness can lead to increased self-assurance and the ability to effectively articulate one’s thoughts and opinions. Additionally, critical thinking can help individuals navigate emotionally-charged situations by promoting logical analysis and appropriate emotional responses. Ultimately, honing critical thinking skills can establish a strong foundation for effective communication and emotional intelligence.
Verbal communication, nonverbal communication, visual communication.
Visual communication involves the use of visual aids such as images, graphs, charts, and diagrams to support or enhance verbal messages. It can help to make complex information more understandable and engaging. To maximize the effectiveness of visual communication, consider the following tips:
Listening and analyzing.
Developing strong listening and analyzing skills is crucial for critical thinking in communication. This involves actively paying attention to what others are saying and sifting through the information to identify key points. Taking a step back to analyze and evaluate messages helps ensure a clear understanding of the topic.
Considering other people’s perspectives allows you to view an issue from multiple angles, eventually leading to a more thorough understanding. Approaching communications with an open and receptive mind gives you a greater ability to relate and empathize with others, which in turn enhances the overall effectiveness of communication.
Critical thinking is intrinsically linked to problem-solving and asking questions. By incorporating these skills into the communication process, you become more adept at identifying issues, formulating solutions, and adapting the way you communicate to different situations.
Ultimately, enhancing your critical thinking skills in communication leads to better understanding, stronger connections, and more effective communication. By combining active listening, awareness of biases and perspectives, and problem-solving through questioning, you can significantly improve your ability to navigate even the most complex communications with confidence and clarity.
Methods and techniques.
By honing these skills, individuals can better navigate the complexities of modern life and develop more effective communication capabilities.
By mastering this framework, individuals can tackle problems more effectively and communicate their solutions with clarity and confidence.
By maintaining focus throughout your communication, you can improve your ability to think critically and communicate more effectively.
Content and curriculum, instructors and teachers.
The role of instructors and teachers in promoting critical thinking cannot be underestimated. They should be trained and equipped with strategies to stimulate thinking, provoke curiosity, and encourage students to question assumptions. Additionally, they must create a learning environment that supports the development of critical thinking by being patient, open-minded, and accepting of diverse perspectives.
Conversations play a significant role in the development of critical thinking and effective communication skills. Instructors should facilitate engaging discussions, prompt students to explain their reasoning, and ask open-ended questions that promote deeper analysis. By doing so, learners will be able to refine their ideas, understand various viewpoints, and build their argumentation skills, leading to more effective communication overall.
What are the essential aspects of critical thinking, how do communication skills impact problem-solving.
Effective communication skills are crucial in problem-solving, as they facilitate the exchange of information, ideas, and perspectives. Clear and concise communication helps ensure that all team members understand the problem, the proposed solutions, and their roles in the process. Additionally, strong listening skills enable better comprehension of others’ viewpoints and foster collaboration.
What strategies can enhance communication in critical thinking, what are the benefits of critical thinking in communication.
Critical thinking enhances communication by promoting clarity, objectivity, and logical reasoning. When we engage in critical thinking, we question assumptions, consider multiple viewpoints, and evaluate the strength of arguments. As a result, our communication becomes more thoughtful, persuasive, and effective at conveying the intended message .
You may also like, critical thinking and decision making, critical thinking vs creative thinking.
Thinking critically about your personal finance in a recession, download this free ebook.
Aligning maritime education: enhancing industry relevance through lecturer internship programs, effectiveness of contextual teaching and learning (ctl) through differentiated instruction on students’ critical thinking skills in economics, 76 references, transforming traditional teaching practices with 21st century skills in k-12 classrooms, the complexities in fostering critical thinking through school-based curriculum innovation: research evidence from singapore, integrating the 4 cs in the learning of science and mathematics, student negotiated learning, student agency and general capabilities in the 21st century: the delorean project, project-based learning for the 21st century: skills for the future, effecting change on students’ critical thinking in problem solving, innovative pedagogies in higher education to become effective teachers of 21st century skills: unpacking the learning and innovations skills domain of the new learning paradigm, collaborative learning: increasing students' engagement outside the classroom, a study of student technological creativity using online problem-solving activities, how do students value the importance of twenty-first century skills, related papers.
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The twenty-first century has seen a rapid growth of curriculum initiatives that consider the development of cross-curriculum competencies as a core issue, and significant for every discipline area. Both because of such cross-curriculum developments and because of the nature of STEM itself, the integration of the particular core competencies of ‘creativity’ and ‘critical thinking’ across the STEM disciplines has also grown rapidly in educational importance. Creativity and critical thinking in education are best viewed from the perspectives of both learner development and teacher expertise, with the attributes specific to each concept appropriately seen as increasing in sophistication or complexity over time. A broad examination of each of the two concepts and their interrelatedness, and the consequent implications for educational practice concerned with developing them, creates a lens through which to view the application of creativity and critical thinking across the complexity and diversity of the STEM disciplines and their integrated forms.
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Ellerton, P., Kelly, R. (2021). Creativity and Critical Thinking. In: Berry, A., Buntting, C., Corrigan, D., Gunstone, R., Jones, A. (eds) Education in the 21st Century. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-85300-6_2
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Department of Education
Date Written: August 12, 2024
Globalization, quick technological advancement, and the necessity of individuals who can think critically, communicate clearly, collaborate effectively with others, and be creative (the 4Cs) define the demands of the twenty-first century. Our schools must adapt to these requirements. We must cease depending so much on inflexible, set-in-stone instructional approaches and replace them with more flexible, skill-based methods suitable for a future we have yet to learn about. The COVID-19 epidemic is driving more classes and examinations conducted online. This emphasizes the need for robust, flexible educational institutions to manage such issues. While some instructors need more training, some children perform well, and others do not. Local educational systems have to cope with these all-around issues. Regarding the instructors and the tools they use for learning, schools in the country and those in the city differ greatly. More major problems causing students to do poorly on their work include stress before examinations and online proctoring systems failing as they used to be. Problems in the neighborhood that aggravate these include socioeconomic ones influencing entrance into the justice system and the school. Furthermore, people dislike the unequal application of STEM education, which compromises the 21st-century competencies of pupils. Research on best teaching and assessing 21st-century skills in many environments still needs to be completed. This article will examine the 4Cs, teacher independence, and professional development today in light of one another. The aim is to uncover evidence capable of influencing educational policy and practice. Understanding this will help political leaders and educators create better classrooms for every child. Every child will do better in school, enabling them to prepare for difficult circumstances ahead. Researchers must understand how 21st-century abilities influence students' performance in various spheres, including math if they are to create decent educational strategies. Since they determine how well college students do in the classroom, 21st-century skills are applicable at all academic levels. People discuss many issues related to student performance in the twenty-first century, including student knowledge and performance, teacher performance and behavior, technology, and integrated learning approaches, curriculum development policies and plans, and the necessity of significant legislative reforms. Six distinct approaches to viewing and analyzing education assist us in grasping its current dynamics. DiBenedetto and Myers (2016) see things differently regarding preparing children for the year 2000. Williams (2021) explores how federal and state policies may help bridge the achievement disparity among early children by linking policy initiatives to school performance. Many authors have commented on the problems that result from applying contemporary education in various global locations. Voogt and Roblin published a study in 2010 on 21st-century talents. The two guys discussed the difficulties of teaching Latin American children more in 2007. People will consider the issues and opportunities schools worldwide have to handle.
Keywords: Communication, Critical Thinking, Creativity, Teamwork, Student Performance
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Creative thinking is the ability to come up with unique, original solutions. Also known as creative problem-solving, creative thinking is a valuable and marketable soft skill in a wide variety of careers. Here’s what you need to know about creative thinking at work and how to use it to land a job.
Creative thinking is all about developing innovative solutions to problems. Creative thinkers brainstorm not only a large number of ideas but also a variety and range of them. In the workplace, creative thinking is highly valuable because employers look to hire innovative employees who can help them solve the company’s problems.
So, what does creative thinking in the workplace look like? First, a creative person brainstorms their ideas, then they’ll experiment with them. They look at ideas from multiple perspectives and examine how their solutions fit into the scope of what they’re working on. Creative thinkers aren’t afraid to take risks and try new ideas. In fact, this ability to develop, test, and implement original solutions makes them a valuable asset to just about any workplace.
Creative thinking in the workplace might look like:
Finding patterns in a company’s revenue growth and using data trends to strategize a new sales plan
Creative thinking includes the process of innovative problem-solving — from analyzing the facts to brainstorming to working with others. Creative thinking examples include analytical skills, innovation, and collaboration.
Analytical skills are problem-solving skills that help you sort through facts, data, and information to develop rational solutions. These skills aid you in the first part of the creative thinking process as you brainstorm and start to generate ideas.
Analytical skills include:
Innovation is the ability to come up with something new; however, you don’t need to develop the first flying car to be an innovative thinker. “Something new” at work might mean a method you haven’t tried before or experimenting with an unfamiliar process. Innovators in the workplace aren’t afraid to step away from tradition and explore something original, even if it might fail.
Innovation skills include:
Creative thinking doesn’t have to happen alone; you might have your most creative ideas when bouncing your work off others. Collaboration skills ensure you consider multiple perspectives and ways of thinking when you develop and refine ideas.
Collaboration skills include:
A soft skill like creative thinking will always be valuable to employers, whether you’re looking for a marketing job or trying to land a career in finance . Employers need employees who can develop and experiment with new ideas to help them solve complex problems.
“Many employers seek candidates that are analytical and outside-the-box thinkers which are iterations of creative thinking skills,” says Alejandra Garcia, manager, alumni college and career success at Code2College and Forage content development partner. “Thus, creative thinking, creative problem solving, innovative thinking, and analytical skills are all valuable in the current workplace — these skills are especially important in our ever-changing workplaces with new emerging technologies.”
The data supports this idea, too. According to the World Economic Forum’s 2023 Future of Jobs report , creative thinking is the second most important skill for workers in 2023, preceded only by analytical skills. Other top skills include soft skills like resilience, flexibility and agility, motivation and self-awareness, and curiosity and lifelong learning .
“The ability to navigate new challenges quickly can benefit any workplace!” Laura Fontenot, resume writing expert, ACRW, and CPRW, says. “The current world of work is fast-paced, technically driven, and constantly changing. Being intuitive, creative, driven, and a problem solver are key.”
If creative thinking is one of the top soft skills employers look for, how do you show you have it in a job application? The key is to prove these skills through examples of how you’ve used them rather than just naming them.
While creative thinking is a skill employers might look for, you don’t necessarily need to write “creative thinking” on your resume to show you have this skill. Instead, it’s better to demonstrate how you’ve used creative thinking skills to drive results.
“Think of your best mental strengths,” says Fontenot. “Are you a great problem solver? Do you understand how to phrase things differently? Can you learn a new skill quickly? Those questions can help you find great words for the resume . Consider adding things like problem-solving, intuition, collaboration, fast learner, organized, or communication.”
Log in to view and download a customizable resume template with examples of how to include creative thinking skills:
You can show these skills outside of your resume in creative ways — including on your LinkedIn profile and website (if you have one!).
“Early professionals can make creative thinking a part of their professional brand by explicitly adding creative thinking or creative problem solving to their list of skills on their resumes and LinkedIn profiles — this will help with ATS optimizations,” Garcia advises.
Yet beyond just listing this skill, Garcia adds that you can provide real proof of your creativity online, too.
“Consider adding projects or an online portfolio website link to your resume and LinkedIn where you can showcase projects you’ve worked on that demonstrate their problem-solving skills.”
In the interview , make sure you can describe your workflow and process for these projects or any other situation when you’ve used creative thinking. Elaborate how you brainstormed ideas, what range of ideas you had, how you tested and experimented, and how you decided on a final solution.
It’s best to use the STAR method to structure your answers. This will ensure you clearly explain the situation and the results you brought by using your creative thinking skills.
>>MORE: Prepare to speak about your soft skills by practicing answers to commonly asked behavioral interview questions .
Creative thinking is about “thinking outside the box,” but putting limitations on your problem-solving can help you think more freely and innovatively. For example, if someone tells you to make dinner, you may struggle to come up with a meal you don’t always cook. Yet if they ask you to make a hot dinner with three specific ingredients and two spices, you’ll more likely come up with something original.
Putting yourself inside a box can help expand your thinking, whether that’s by telling yourself you need to include three charts in your presentation or giving yourself a strict word count for an article.
Routine can be a great productivity booster, but it also can get in the way of your creativity. So, switch up your routine for one project, day, or even an hour. This can be something as small as where you’re physically sitting when you do your work or something as big as your process for approaching projects. Challenging yourself to do something different will help you find creative ways to adapt to your new environment.
Think about how you might expand or improve upon a current process. What would you do if you had more resources, whether that’s time, money, or another expert? What would you do if you had fewer resources? If this project was taking place at a different time of year? If the target audience was different? Imagining these different potential scenarios will force you to problem-solve and adjust for various (very possible!) circumstances.
Creative thinking doesn’t happen in a bubble. It’s vital to ask for others’ opinions and ideas. Creative thinkers consider multiple perspectives and are curious about how others think. Ask your colleague about their work processes, whether it’s how they research for a client deliverable or how they approach meeting an external buyer.
The best way to improve a skill is to get feedback from others on how you’re using it — and you don’t need to set up a formal feedback session to do so. Instead, ask questions when you’re working with others about your work. Keep these questions open-ended and lead with curiosity instead of looking for a specific answer. What did they think of how you led the brainstorm? What would they have done differently? What strikes them about the final product? Keep an open mind and remember not to take the feedback personally. It’s an opportunity to grow, and growing those skills might just help you land your next job!
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(17 reviews)
Tanya Long Bennet
Copyright Year: 2017
ISBN 13: 9781940771236
Publisher: University of North Georgia Press
Language: English
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Reviewed by Gina Burkart, Director of Learning Services and Adjunct Instructor of English, Clarke University on 12/13/22
I was very impressed. Bennet covered all of the necessary topics that are covered in the Intro to Literature course that I normally teach and used the same approach that I use with students. The glossary and index were helpful. There were also... read more
Comprehensiveness rating: 5 see less
I was very impressed. Bennet covered all of the necessary topics that are covered in the Intro to Literature course that I normally teach and used the same approach that I use with students. The glossary and index were helpful. There were also great resources and examples provided.
Content Accuracy rating: 5
The accuracy of the material was spot on. It matched how I present the material and was accessible to students.
Relevance/Longevity rating: 5
The examples were very relevant--even Call of Duty was included for students to relate to. The stories and and literature used were the same as which I often use. The language and tone was perfect and accessible/authentic for students.
Clarity rating: 5
As mentioned above, the language and tone was very accessible for students.
Consistency rating: 5
It seemed consistent.
Modularity rating: 5
The headings worked well . It was easy to navigate.
Organization/Structure/Flow rating: 5
It was organized in a format similar to how I organize my course.
Interface rating: 5
I didn't have any issues.
Grammatical Errors rating: 5
I didn't notice any.
Cultural Relevance rating: 4
It seemed more traditional in the use of texts/stories--but those are the same texts/stories that I use and this university uses--so I didn't have a problem with it.
I think it is an excellent text and will recommend it to our department!
Reviewed by Katherine Ramsey, Academic Director of English/Literature, Spartanburg Community College on 9/22/22
This text includes a detailed table of contents, a glossary of terms, and a bibliography. It does not include an index. The books consist of nine chapters. It does include a review of rhetorical appeals and effective argumentation, which is... read more
Comprehensiveness rating: 4 see less
This text includes a detailed table of contents, a glossary of terms, and a bibliography. It does not include an index. The books consist of nine chapters. It does include a review of rhetorical appeals and effective argumentation, which is helpful. The major literary genres are covered, including creative non-fiction, which is not typically included in this type of literature anthology. This text also includes suggested texts based on theme to support instructors. However, there is only one chapter each devoted to short fiction, drama, and poetry, so the information on the various literary elements could be developed more thoroughly. Overall, this hits all the necessary basic information about literary genres and literary elements, with a decent assortment of literary works and essay assignment ideas.
I did not notice any typographic or content errors in the text. There is no overt bias detected.
Content is up to date. Links to the MLA formatting go to the most updated version of the handbook. Most of the linked materials are to readings, which will not go out of date. This text would be fairly simple to modify and update. Instructors could add additional readings and poems.
This text is a straightforward and concise book that is student centered and not so in-depth that it would intimidate students. It is an “easy read” for students; the phrasing is not overly dense or wordy. With only 9 chapters, all of the essentials are covered. Terms are in bold type face, and a glossary is provided.
The formatting of the textbook is consistent and uniform. It progresses logically and is effectively laid out for the reader, so it is easy to follow.
This text is well divided into 9 chapters, with subheadings/subsections within, making this easy to “chunk” into reading assignments.
The material is well organized, includes a review of the elements of rhetoric and argumentation, in addition to the genre studies, critical theory, terminology, and a variety of readings throughout. It flows smoothly and logically from topic to topic.
Interface rating: 4
There were no significant issues in this area. Although one text link did not open when I tried it, all of the other links were working. The charts that were included were displayed correctly and were easy to read although one chart was in landscape orientation, but it was still fairly easy to read. The margins, spacing, and general page appearance is pleasing to the eye and simple to read/navigate. The page numbers are clearly labeled, and the chapter information is in the right header bar. The book effectively uses text structures such as bolding, headings, italics, etc. in an effective manner.
I detected no grammatical errors while I was reviewing this text.
This text is well rounded and inclusive with works, both contemporary and canonical, from a wide variety of authors with diverse genders, ethnicity, and cultural backgrounds. Instructors could add additional readings to further diversify the literary perspectives, but overall, there was effort made to present a variety of authors, considering the issue of copyright that governs the use of literary texts.
Reviewed by Rebecca Owen, Part-Time Faculty, Chemeketa Community College on 3/10/22
This book covers all the major writing projects that they might encounter in a writing or literature class. Chapters are conversational, easy to follow, and provide good examples of texts and questions. It gives sample essays for the genres and... read more
This book covers all the major writing projects that they might encounter in a writing or literature class. Chapters are conversational, easy to follow, and provide good examples of texts and questions. It gives sample essays for the genres and does a fine job at explaining the why behind common writing assignments.
Content Accuracy rating: 4
The content is clear, straightforward, and easily navigable for a student reader. It does feel like there could be more possible examples to include--especially by delivering links to more representative content in some chapters, like Creative Nonfiction vs. providing whole excerpts or stories (like in the fiction chapter). I wouldn't have minded more examples, though! I think a student reader or instructor might also appreciate more examples of texts to analyze and review.
Relevance/Longevity rating: 4
I felt like the introduction led us toward an idea that this would be a way to see a similarity between popular movies/literature and social media alongside the classics (like Shakespeare, Hemingway, Joan Didion, etc). I wouldn't have minded more of those types current examples as well as the classics. It might help students see a link between the content they consume and the content they're using for class.
Very clear, very easy to follow writing throughout. I think a student reader would find this as a very helpful intro-level guide. It's very accessible for new writers.
Consistency rating: 4
I felt like the book is overall very comprehensive and complete--but it does feel like a very basic or brief look at literature analysis. I felt like it is a book that might come up when looking for texts for a composition class, but it felt much more focused on reading and interpreting literature than learning about composition. That's where the consistency felt a little off to me.
I could see using a chapter--the discussion of scholarly vs. non-scholarly sources, for instance, or ethos/logos/pathos--and posting those links to my composition students. I might not assign the whole textbook, but there are very easily digestible pieces to add to students' understanding of the subject.
Very clear, very well organized throughout. Each chapter is nicely organized with a conversational style. I liked that it included creative nonfiction as a genre, too. Lots of useful information about personal writing (and reading personal essays), too.
For the most part, everything is great. Once we get into the research paper chapter, though, there is a graph that presents sideways (chapter 8). I was reading on both a phone and a laptop, and it was tricky to access that chart both times.
I didn't notice anything alarming, grammar-wise.
I think some of the examples of texts to read could be a little more modern--more recent texts from a variety of backgrounds, cultures, original languages, ethnicity. I think it could make more of an appeal to students through new media and other multimedia examples as well.
This book was clear and easy to follow--I don't know if I would assign the entire book for a composition class, but I could see several chapters as really helpful, easy resources for certain assignments.
Reviewed by Annamaria Formichella, Professor, Buena Vista University on 12/28/21
The chapters on writing are relatively comprehensive, and I appreciated the prefatory comments in the “Why Write About Literature” section. They helped to establish the usefulness of this approach for students. On the other hand, certain of the... read more
Comprehensiveness rating: 3 see less
The chapters on writing are relatively comprehensive, and I appreciated the prefatory comments in the “Why Write About Literature” section. They helped to establish the usefulness of this approach for students. On the other hand, certain of the genre chapters are brief. The drama chapter has only about one page of content regarding dramatic structure, followed by about 117 pages of sample plays. The creative nonfiction chapter is only about five pages long. More information defining the literary genres would have been helpful as I taught my course.
The content was accurate and unbiased.
Much of the content is relevant and current, especially the sample student papers. In order to strengthen the relevance, I would recommend revising the drama chapter to include the genre of film. Film is our contemporary medium for telling visual stories, has become much more popular than traditional plays, and would resonate more powerfully with undergraduates. In a similar vein, most of the poems at the end of chapter 4 were published in the 19th-century or earlier. Contemporary poetry has changed significantly in terms of form and content, and again would appeal more strongly to young people today. Including song lyrics or links to spoken-word poetry performances would resonate with this generation of students.
The writing style is clear and jargon-free. The conversational style is likely to appeal to young readers.
The text is consistent in terms of the way the chapters are structured. Most contain bolded key terms, relevant student examples, and discussion questions. Again, as I mentioned above, the four chapters that focus on literary genres might have been more consistent in terms of depth. The poetry chapter contains much more terminology than the others.
The chapters are relatively short, which makes them easy to assign in the course. The exception would be the lengthy sample texts. Shakespeare’s The Tempest, for example, takes up almost 100 pages (and the entire book is only about 260 pages).
Organization/Structure/Flow rating: 4
The text begins with chapters about analytical writing, then moves into the four literary genres, then returns to writing assignments (literary analysis and the research paper). Although this order might have worked well for the author’s purposes, in my course it would have been preferable to begin with the genre chapters and then move on to the writing chapters. I would put chapters 2 and 3 just prior to chapter 8, so that the writing guidance could be more effectively integrated.
The text does not contain many graphic elements. In fact, there are no images at all. The few charts that are included are displayed clearly, and the reader can interact easily with the text. Because the textbook is available as a pdf, the highlighted links to outside texts do not work as hotlinks. The student must copy and paste the link into a browser. That might dissuade some young readers from pursuing extra-textual content. While the majority of the links work, I found three (Didion on p. 233, Feynman on p. 234, and Anzaldua on p. 269) that were broken (page not found or forbidden access).
There are no grammatical errors in the text.
For the most part, the textbook is inclusive. I appreciated, for example, the nuanced discussion of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn in chapter 5. I do think the list of additional readings, included in the Resources for Instructors section, could be more diverse. Of the fifteen readings listed, only three are written by women, and only two have nonwhite authors.
I used this textbook in my composition II class in the fall of 2021. Midway through the semester, I asked the students for feedback on the readings. I thought I’d include a few representative comments. “I think that this textbook is ok. I appreciate that it is free but sometimes the chapters seem like they are only examples. I feel like some of the information in each chapter is unnecessary.” “I think that the chapters are helpful in certain aspects. I do wish that they used fewer examples and just discussed the topics themselves more. I feel that it uses the examples as an out to avoid having to elaborate, but that can make the concepts confusing at times. Especially when they are topics that I have never heard of before.” “The chapters are very long and there are a lot of inserts of outside text.” “The chapters themselves are not bad for the book being free, but sometimes the text seems very simple which is not a bad thing, but it is something that I noticed.” “I think this book does its job. It is not the best book in the world, but I think considering it is free, it does everything it needs to. After reading the chapters I know what the main idea was and know what I was supposed to learn. I think the chapters are short and to the point which makes it easy to read. Sometimes it is hard to get myself to spend the five to ten minutes reading the chapter when the examples are long and harder to read. I have trouble focusing on lengthy examples.” From the students’ perspective, the main takeaways seem to be that the sample texts are lengthy, and the content is fairly simple. The simplicity can make it a very useful and accessible text for some students, especially those just beginning to think about writing and literature. I did find myself quite often needing to supplement with content. Shorter sample texts might make it more likely that students would complete those readings.
Reviewed by Marion Hernandez, Adjunct Instructor English Department/DCE, Bunker Hill Community College on 6/30/21
This text covers every aspect of literature, writing skills. instructions for writing papers i each genre as well as giving clear writing lessons and sample essays. read more
This text covers every aspect of literature, writing skills. instructions for writing papers i each genre as well as giving clear writing lessons and sample essays.
The point of view is written with the student in mind and the terminology and focus are very student centered. No grammar errors are present and the level is definitely focused on college level readers.
Because the focus is on the student, concerns particular to first year students is the priority. Agin, the terminology is consistent with any pedagogy teachers might decide to present.
The writing lessons are present is a very clear manner. The format here is using bold face type to work in an outline form when describing the various points to consider in reading and writing. The materials and sample essays are pinpointed to include advanced readings suitable for college and points of view that are challenging, that is, not talking down to the students.
The chapters are consistent because the format repeats itself in a good way as it works from genre to genre giving instruction, reading and sample students papers. The format is repeated by the content is specific to the genre under study.
One of the very best features of the text is that the terminology dictates the order of both the chapters and the presentations. The chapters are clear-cut and the student could easily use only the chapters pn which the class focuses.
All the previous recommendations focus on just this point of organization. The clear cut sections are presented in clearly defined sequences would give students confidence in the text, knowing that the information is right on target and presented in an academic but casual voice. Only one thing seems to be a small weakness in the text: adequate work on building a thesis. This is not that important because every chapter cover thesis in some way, but in the research writing section, only half a page is devoted to thesis statements.
There are no distractions such as visuals, cartoons, and charts. There are diagrams and subtitles and some charts. Fro instance in the Critical Thinking chapter deductive and inductive reasoning skills. pathos and logos are charted in a clear and informative manner.
There are no grammatical errors. Sentence structure is varied and employs longer sentences with complex and compound clauses. The terminology dictates the the vocabulary would be at a college level.
Cultural Relevance rating: 5
The readings span many various time periods and points of view. Everything from Susan Glaspell to Shakespeare. Poetry has a separate unit as well as drama and all selections are provocative without being biased.
This is a wonderful text that covers every aspect of what one expects to find in an English course. Because to its comprehensive nature, the text would be perfect for a two semester course. However the organization into separate chapters and genres lends itself to a one semester course as well. i will use this for my research writing course.
Reviewed by Kirstin Krick, Instructor, Community College of Aurora on 5/30/21
The information presented in this resource outlines the major elements of literature analysis while also focusing on traditional genres. There are added segments discussing common settings in which students might also use academic research writing... read more
The information presented in this resource outlines the major elements of literature analysis while also focusing on traditional genres. There are added segments discussing common settings in which students might also use academic research writing principles. Chapters are well-rounded and easy to maneuver.
Overall, the content is simple in nature, each section breaks down a topic, expands on it, then there are exercises or sample readings that illustrate further. This text contains few to no errors as far as content in general; but the author does juxtapose questionable phraseology, opinion language, and superfluous imagery [often found in hypothetical examples] with the contradictory idea of research writing needing to be based in fact and conformed to a rigid set of formatting guidelines and structural parameters.
There are up to date samples and references mixed with outdated terminology [names, issues, trends] throughout this source. Where the author includes quite a few classical or contemporary titles, there is nothing after 2018, which is ancient history by now (2021). Although use of current examples and associations is lacking, instructors can easily implement ancillary materials more suited to the evolving world condition.
Clarity rating: 4
A majority of the text is easily readable whereas some illustrations [charts, essay samples, annotations] may have accessibility issues if students are using older versions of Windows or Word, a Mac, etc. In these cases, it might get tricky viewing and working with the source information outside of its original formatting. Annotation examples are not tabled, the only thing distinguishing the notes from the original excerpt being annotated is font style. That is being really picky though, some instructors may not feel that it affects the flow at all. To each their own.
This resource provides consistent, relevant information pertaining to topics typically discussed in literature courses, with the added bonus of outlining the essential format and structure of college-level research writing. Activities and exercises are carried out in similar fashion throughout. Additionally, the author clearly attempts to balance the amount of content presented [to the reader] in each section so it is never overwhelming.
In terms of modularity, the layout of contents is very user friendly. It’s easy to “get around” and sections are not too congested with distracting visual implements. What is promised in the introduction is delivered to its conclusion, the author does a great job of keeping expectations transparent without oversimplifying.
For the most part, the ideas in this source are fleshed out clearly, save a few rocky areas. One thing that might throw the reader off is the order in which writing concepts are presented. As an example, Argument is discussed in depth at the beginning, but Analysis is not mentioned except in reference to specific genres. It seems slightly counterintuitive not to have a section on critical/analytical thinking and reasoning before delving into the complexities of argumentation.
Navigating through this resource is a breeze! There aren’t excessive advertisements on the sites the reader is linked to either, just nice, clean web pages that have been well vetted (most of which are also mainstays in the field of literature). That being said, whether it will quench the modern day student’s thirst for interaction or obsession with social media, remains to be seen.
Grammatical Errors rating: 4
Due to the author’s choice of simple, relatable terms, along with clearly outlined activities and examples, there are no obvious errors when it comes to the overall content. Tiny incongruities may exist, such as sources not being quoted or cited with appropriate punctuation. The concern there is that parts of the text are incorrectly formatted [APA, MLA, CMS] which contradicts parameters illustrated in later chapters.
In the author’s defense, this resource was created in 2018, pre-pandemic; which now seems like light years in the past, so although it could use a touch-up, there is no need for a full on make-over here. When the writer puts forth hypotheticals, they pass the basic test of not being gender or race bias but the full source doesn’t include cultural considerations (like a multiple language learner’s perspective) or present case studies specifically designed to exemplify instances of diversity. Under some circumstances, the cultural aspect is lost in time, there are several outdated references and examples that present missed opportunities to get students communicating about people with different cultural backgrounds and unique world views. Instructors may want to do some maintenance in those sections.
In OER (whenever referenced) the author's name is spelled Bennet, but on the original source it is Bennett. That could be an issue for the writer, especially when citing or documenting.
Reviewed by Donald Carreira Ching, Instructor, Leeward Community College on 3/12/21
Overall, what I like about this text is that it concisely covers what it needs to. There is a table of contents, a glossary, additional resources for instructors, and a bibliography. read more
Overall, what I like about this text is that it concisely covers what it needs to. There is a table of contents, a glossary, additional resources for instructors, and a bibliography.
The content is accurate and concise. This text works as a great reference point for instructors and students. I also like that it covers a wide-range of writing forms.
This is great for a wide-range of courses. The fact that you can re-mix and build the work in various ways makes it particularly relevant, especially when combined with other outside resources and readings.
Text is written in a clear and concise way. Examples are provided. Text is student-focused.
The text is ordered and organized consistently. Sections are broken up in a consistent way.
As mentioned in the relevance section, the license allows the text to be remixed and integrated in the way that suits the instructor. It is easily and readily divisible. I also like the concision of the sections.
Well organized and presented. Concise.
I didn't notice any errors in regard to the interface. Everything was readable and accessible.
Text is free of grammatical errors.
Cultural Relevance rating: 2
The book does not contain readings but what is contained in the text is focused on a Western-audience. More diversity in perspective and content would be appreciated. This is perhaps my biggest concern with the text, but it's a common one across all of the OER texts.
Reviewed by C. Mason, Adjunct Instructor of English, Middlesex Community College on 6/30/20
The text aspires to comprehensiveness, but serves better as a useful introduction to literary analysis. The examples of literature provided may appear limited, but that opens the door for instructors to introduce their own examples and have... read more
The text aspires to comprehensiveness, but serves better as a useful introduction to literary analysis. The examples of literature provided may appear limited, but that opens the door for instructors to introduce their own examples and have students implement these various critical approaches. The initial chapters are a bit underdeveloped. For example, Historical Analysis gets a sentence. A more thorough examination of logical fallacies would be appreciated. That said, the sections on comprehending and writing about fiction, poetry and drama are the heart of the text and are effective.
The analytical content is accurate. With respect to MLA citation, the text may need to be updated in the future.
As stated, the text provides students with a foundational grounding in literary criticism. This analysis is often applied to traditional works of literature. One might welcome more contemporary works of literature, along with more recent forms of literary criticism. This is not the primary focus of the text. These gaps provide an excellent opportunity for instructors to introduce recent critical approaches, or ask students to seek these out and evaluate these approaches as part of a project. On another note, there is always the possibility that the sample student paper on Call of Duty may be viewed as outdated by future students.
The procession through the subject matter, from the introduction through fiction, poetry, and drama, is logical. This will certainly benefit students who wish to use the text as quick reference for composing assignments.
The chapters are thoughtfully and consistently organized.
The modules clearly follow a logical pattern. An instructor could break it apart if necessary. For example, the poetry chapter could stand on its own. Overall, each chapter is informed by previous chapters and anticipates future chapters, providing a holistic approach to examining literature.
Overall, the structure of the book holds together quite well. Occasionally, transitions between chapters are a bit clunky. A careful instructor can easily bridge these gaps for the class.
The formatting is consistent. Students should be able to navigate the text on their phones, if necessary.
There are apparently none.
One would certainly appreciate a more diverse grouping of authors. Obtaining author permissions may have posed difficulties. That said, because the offerings of open source materials are fluid, one may be able successfully supplement the readings by drawing from other texts.
I would strongly consider this text for an introductory literature course.
Reviewed by Laurette Folk, Adjunct Professor of English, North Shore Community College on 6/30/20
While I enjoyed reading Writing and Literature and found it very accessible, it seems to be missing some key elements and is out of scope in others. 1. While the works included here are exemplary and timeless, there are few modern-day, living... read more
While I enjoyed reading Writing and Literature and found it very accessible, it seems to be missing some key elements and is out of scope in others. 1. While the works included here are exemplary and timeless, there are few modern-day, living writers discussed. How are students supposed to know where we are now with respect to the literary canon? I think of writers/poets like Marie Howe, Sharon Olds, Billy Collins, Jhumpa Lahiri, Alice Munro, Lynn Nottage. Also, the diversity of the literary canon is not exactly obvious through the work selected. We have primarily white and African American writers studied here. 2. The Effective Argument chapter needs to be condensed. Some of the law terms such as "enthymeme" are out of scope and not needed. Inductive reasoning is really the only type of logic needed for this class. 3. I found the discussion on thesis statements to be weak. Students in an introductory literature class struggle with thesis statements and need examples of working, final, and erroneous statements. 4. In chapter 2, "Forming a Perspective on a Subject/Discovering and Honoring Your Passions and Values" the sample paper "Call of Duty: Short of Reality" is better suited for a first semester composition class via the concept essay. I understand that it is important for students to hone in on their passions, but professors must hold the primary texts as paramount for a literature class. Where is the connection to the character in the story regarding his war experience? There in no evidence of this, no in-text citations; the novel The Sun Also Rises is not even in the Works Cited page.
Although somewhat verbose at times, I found the discussion to be quite accurate, with the exception of number 4 in "Comprehensiveness."
Modifying the text with modern-day poets, fiction writers, and playwrights can be easily implemented.
This text is written in conversational language with concrete examples that are easy to comprehend.
The consistency of the main literary elements of theme, imagery, character/narrator, setting, etc could be better emphasized with respect to the genres. For instance, theme is common to all of the literary genres discussed.
Text can be easily used to teach the different genres of literature in a particular sequence for each semester.
Organization/Structure/Flow rating: 3
I don't agree with the author's philosophy of teaching poetry first. Poetry is often dense, complex, and abstract ("Ode on a Grecian Urn" is a perfect example of this) and will surely send students mentally heading for the hills. Beginning the course with concrete, relatable stories in short fiction and introducing the main literary elements regarding this genre is a better strategy.
The interface of the text is mostly fine; there were some links that didn't work, however. These are p. 37, link to the Poetry Foundation; p. 47 link to "Blackberry Eating" (link does not take you directly to the poem, but to the home page); p. 258, "The Hunting of the Hare" story in the Works Cited page, EBSCO link in Works Cited.
Ostentatious grammatical errors were not immediately apparent.
Cultural Relevance rating: 3
See comment in "Comprehensiveness."
I liked the main philosophy of the book--to reach students. Discussions on passive vs. active reading, why we need literary terminology, evidence, writing as a process, and research are thorough. My main complaint is the lack of literary diversity and the esoteric law terms.
Reviewed by Michael Alleman, Associate Professor, LSUE on 4/30/20
The textbook provides what few others do: analysis of and guidance in the core methods of literary argumentation in particular, although Chapter 3 (Effective Argument) would be valuable in a number of writing situations. The writer has done a... read more
The textbook provides what few others do: analysis of and guidance in the core methods of literary argumentation in particular, although Chapter 3 (Effective Argument) would be valuable in a number of writing situations. The writer has done a commendable job of covering critical reading compositional strategies, including literary research in an economical way. The only quibble I have is the limited literary pieces, but these author is limited to what they can choose, so I do not hold this against the text.
I find the concepts and strategies to conform to best practices.
The textbook could have made better use of hyperlinks to online texts or supplemental material. Some links do not work.
The writing is clear because the writer focuses on conveying ideas and methods in a simple and succinct style.
No problems here.
The nine chapters can work for either a short (7-8 week) course or long (15 week) course, and the text provides a mix-and-match flexibility that can be easily adapted to a long or short session.
I love the organization, especially the Tractatus-like numbering system which make it easy to organize the sections and subsections to suit a particular course's emphasis.
Interface rating: 3
Some problems with dead links or links leading to sites access to which is denied.
No noticeable errors.
The text is inclusive and sensitive.
There's a lot you can do with this book. It can act as the foundation of the course, or it can be used in a supplementary fashion. I might consider assigning one or two of the chapters to any of my classes that require critical writing about texts. This
Reviewed by Alissa Cruz, Adjunct English Instructor, Blue Ridge Community College on 4/13/20
The book covers genre, approach, reasoning and more. I was impressed with the range it was able to cover. read more
The book covers genre, approach, reasoning and more. I was impressed with the range it was able to cover.
This book is accurate and thorough.
The examples and ideas in this book are relevant and current, but will not be outdated quickly. The book is arranged in a way that is logical and easy to follow.
This book is excellent in terms of clarity. The tone is perfect for students. Everything is explained well with strong, relevant examples that students can relate to. In some cases, such as the Effective Argument section, there could have been more explanation or more examples given. Sometimes a student needs more than one example to understand the concept.
The text is consistent and thorough. The glossary of terms in the back is particularly helpful.
The text is divided into sections that are readable and that make sense for the student. Everything is presented well and has relevant titles.
It is organized in a logical, helpful manner. I would not change a thing about how the text is presented.
The books interface is perfect until Chapter 8 (pages 241-42). This section has a very helpful calendar example of how a student should break up working on their essay. The drawback is that the calendar is vertical and not easy to read. If this was flipped to a horizontal structure it would be easier to follow. Everything else in the book is set up well.
The book is grammatically sound.
The text is not insensitive in any way. There could be more inclusion of literature that includes a variety of races, ethnicities, and backgrounds.
An aspect that I really enjoyed was the style in which it was written. It is casual and accessible for the student. The author uses many examples that allow the student to see the relevance of the topic. There are a good number of diverse stories, plays, essays, and poems to look at. There are helpful links to outside sources, sample essays, and helpful diagrams to enhance the students' understanding.
Reviewed by Kathryn Enders, Lecturer, Shenandoah University on 7/17/19
As a textbook addressing students in a freshman composition course, "Writing and Literature" has very little about writing. Chapters on "The Literary Analysis Essay" and "The Research Paper" are pushed to the end of the book. The two paragraphs on... read more
Comprehensiveness rating: 2 see less
As a textbook addressing students in a freshman composition course, "Writing and Literature" has very little about writing. Chapters on "The Literary Analysis Essay" and "The Research Paper" are pushed to the end of the book. The two paragraphs on "Articulating an Effective Thesis" fail to offer examples, and although sample student papers are later included, they do not identify the strengths or weaknesses of those papers or show the writing process. Overall, this is not a helpful textbook on composition. Nor is this textbook especially comprehensive when it comes to analyzing literature. The chapter on drama consists mostly of two complete plays that would be better accessed through online links. Chapters on poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction are slightly more thorough. The questions about literature that seem to be the impetus for the subtitle "Composition as Inquiry, Learning, Thinking, and Communication" really are nothing more than questions at the end of a reading. Nothing new here!
Content Accuracy rating: 3
The information presented here is accurate enough, but shallow. An instructor could use the textbook as a starting point, perhaps, though many other textbooks provide this information in more accessible and engaging formats.
Relevance/Longevity rating: 1
With little variety of literature and few samples of the process of writing, this textbook is probably already irrelevant one year after publication with the content easily found elsewhere. As the author writes, "For success in any project, a writer must be aware of and carefully consider his [sic] audience." Unfortunately, Bennett did not take her own advice. This textbook does not address the situation of a contemporary student. For example, in arguing the benefits of writing about literature in a composition course, her first explanation is that an imaginary professor, Dr. Lopez, would have chosen this approach because, "He is better able to evaluate the effectiveness of your compositions if they are written on a topic with which he has some expertise." That rationale gives students little reason to want to read literature or write about it, other than to please the professor and get out of the class as quickly as possible.
Clarity rating: 3
The language used in this textbook is clear and defines terms used, but it fails to address its intended audience in an engaging, informative, and consistent way.
Consistency rating: 2
In some cases, this textbook refers students to other open-source locations to read the literature selections being discussed, but in other cases, it includes the entire text. This inconsistency makes sense (perhaps) with short texts like poetry, but not so much with the entirety of "The Tempest" and "Trifles". As a result the quality of chapters is uneven. This seems like an unfinished attempt.
Modularity rating: 1
As currently organized, this is not a course-friendly text. Also, more links to more literature selections would be helpful.
Chapters were clearly organized, though content was uneven. For a composition textbook, I would expect more discussion of writing earlier in the book.
No interface issues
I found no glaring grammatical errors except a reliance on the male generic pronoun.
The text assumes a male generic pronoun throughout; the literature chosen for analysis is Western canonical. At times, the author's voice seemed patronizing, as when she suggested students "probably enjoy reading certain kinds of texts, such as internet articles on your pet interests.... You may even have literary favorites."
I'm surprised that the ratings of this textbook have been so high despite the critical comments made by other reviewers. Is that because of getting high marks on "modularity" and "interface"? If this text were not available through the Open Textbook Library, it would not be worth purchasing. A big disappointment and I will not use it for my classes!
Reviewed by Thom Addington, Visiting Assistant Professor, Richard Bland College on 4/12/19
The "About the Book" section suggests an engagement in reconfiguring literature-centered composition practice in the age of social media and digital humanities. Ultimately, the textbook does not follow this through. While it references pop culture... read more
The "About the Book" section suggests an engagement in reconfiguring literature-centered composition practice in the age of social media and digital humanities. Ultimately, the textbook does not follow this through. While it references pop culture touchstones in video games and other media, these references are scattered across the text and not deployed in a way that generates critical discussion on expanding definitions of literature, literacy, and/or critical engagement through composition. As a result, the textbook repackages a very traditional understanding of literature and literary analysis in a way that makes it feel disconnected from the contemporary student. The recognition of one's passions, however, as important context(s) that impact reading and writing is well-taken and could perhaps be expanded and developed as a central contribution of a revised edition.
While the textbook is forthcoming about its literary bias, its treatment of texts and its assumptions about the reader lean towards universalizing. Moreover, its handling of new media and literary nonfiction is beginning to feel outdated.
The textbook's present content is relevant insofar as the canon (both categorically and by composition) remains so. It would be beneficial and impactful to look ahead to how the various literary genres, schools of criticism, and works are developing.
The textbook presents and unpacks literary and critical concepts in accessible prose.
The textbook is consistent in its structuring and unpacking of concepts and practices, but framing commentary is at times excluded in sections.
Modularity rating: 4
In certain chapters, the division among framing material, literary text, and student application could be demarcated more clearly. While the genre chapters could function as standalone units, the first three chapters build on one another in such a way that they must be assigned in order.
Individual chapters are introduced clearly and thoroughly, and each of the genre chapters could function as a standalone piece; however, some closer attention could be payed to the linkages between chapters after the first three.
Aside from the alignment of some tables, the textbook's interface is crisp and clean. There may be some benefit in reevaluating the use of font, color, and page arrangement, but these would be improvements rather than corrections. The centering of the literary text on the page in the short prose and drama sections does not inhibit reading, but it does make these sections border on the overly long and visually monotonous.
I found no grammatical errors.
As noted in previous reviews, the textbook draws its content almost exclusively from the Western literary canon; the majority of the works considered are written by white men. The textbook does engage the work of six writers of color: Charles Chesnutt, Langston Hughes, Robert Hayden, Paul Laurence Dunbar, Maya Angelou, and Gloria Anzaldua. Their respective works, however, are given marginal status. Angelou and Anzaldua, the only two women writers of color, are only listed in the “Also for Consideration” portions of their respective sections. While texts such as Lincoln’s “Gettysburg Address,” and Shakespeare’s The Tempest invite inquiry into issues such as race, nationalism, and empire, the textbook does not enter this terrain.
Reviewed by Nicole Drewitz-Crockett, Associate Professor of English, Emory and Henry College on 4/11/19
Since this book is taking a particular approach to teaching college writing, it is not attempting to be comprehensive in subject matter. Instead, it focuses on ways composition can be taught through literature. In that vein, the text does a good... read more
Since this book is taking a particular approach to teaching college writing, it is not attempting to be comprehensive in subject matter. Instead, it focuses on ways composition can be taught through literature. In that vein, the text does a good job of moving instructors and students through a comprehensive process of reading closely and arguing effectively in a variety of literary genres. Although the text does not provide an index, it does offer a helpful glossary and several resources for instructors including possible themes and primary works and assignment ideas.
The content is accurate and easily digestible for students. It provides a good foregrounding in effective reading and argument before venturing into literary genres and analysis. The text does a good job of revealing its bias from the beginning; as a good example of argumentation, it indicates why a professor might choose to teach composition using literature rather than non-fiction.
Primarily because this text does not include a section of primary readings, it will have good longevity. Although the suggested thematic list of texts is helpful and there are some primary text examples weaved throughout the text, a given instructor can easily use any pieces of literature with this book.
This text is very clear and highly accessible. It is easy to read. While one could see it as "too easy" for a college audience, it invites the students to read difficult material outside of the text. In other words, it instructs them on how to read and how to argue in student-friendly prose so that they can clearly grasp the framework for reading more difficult materials outside of the text. This strategy is quite helpful when instructing a class of students whose abilities can vary widely.
It is consistent in terminology and framework throughout.
It would be difficult to take this text apart into modules that don't follow the prescribed organizational pattern. While an instructor could certainly teach the genres included in any order desired, the first three chapters build on one another to build the framework necessary for analyzing those genres.
The text is well-organized. It progresses clearly from foundational ideas and terms to genres in which one might practice using those ideas and terms.
This text is extremely straight forward. There are no issues in navigation; it is a basic chapter by chapter book in black and white. In fact, I would offer that as a slight criticism. Although there a couple of charts, some images would be helpful for student interest.
The book does not contain errors that disrupted my reading.
Of the primary text examples this book included and suggested for thematic courses, almost all of them are well-known, canonical texts. Although some women's voices and voices of color are included, the literary selections are primarily written by white men. This surprises me somewhat since I am familiar with Dr. Bennet's work on Appalachian author Lee Smith. Even though the primary texts in the book are limited, I will again state that the instructor would be able to easily add primary texts. Perhaps that is why "classic" texts were chosen.
Reviewed by James Gapinski, Instructional Specialist, Chemeketa Community College on 3/8/19
The description of this book seems to suggest that WRITING AND LITERATURE will explore how literary texts remain relevant and vital amid a modern era of hashtags and image-rich media. The book approaches this goal, but it never fully achieves it.... read more
The description of this book seems to suggest that WRITING AND LITERATURE will explore how literary texts remain relevant and vital amid a modern era of hashtags and image-rich media. The book approaches this goal, but it never fully achieves it. The introduction specifically situates this book as a beginning college-level reader, but the topics discussed feel at times esoteric, and at other times the book comes off as reductive. There are some moments when modern examples are peppered into this book—for example, there’s a sample that discusses the popular Call of Duty videogame franchise. However, the majority of this book does not directly deal with a deep discussion of how literature fits into a landscape dominated by new media. Moreover, the texts discussed often draw from a classic American and European texts, and there is not much time spent on new modes of thinking or diverse voices. Students reading this book are being told that literature is vital to their lives and that rhetorical analysis of literature builds crucial college-level skills, but this message falls flat when the text often resorts to the same Western canon that has already been drilled into their heads throughout high school. There is not enough expansion of knowledge here. Ultimately, the book feels like a stodgy literary text that has been dressed up with some approximations of a modern student’s perspective.
This book is relatively accurate, but it makes some assumptions about its audience and about new media that come off as reductive.
Relevance/Longevity rating: 2
WRITING AND LITERATURE will need substantial updating to remain relevant. The few examples of new media that are discussed will likely be obsolete in a couple years, and some other material already feels dated. The book’s central goal seems to be convincing students that classic modes of writing are still relevant, but it does not fully achieve this goal.
The book uses accessible language in most chapters, and new terms are quickly defined for readers. Transitions between chapters could be strengthened; the book’s main ideas are not always linked, and there are missed opportunities for callbacks or review of previous information. However, the book is clear and readable overall. Adept students will be able to identify the core themes and of each isolated chapter.
This book is consistent in its formatting. Chapter breaks are clear, bulleted lists help set key information apart, and sections are clearly marked. Students reading this book will discover a consistent layout and feel to each chapter.
WRITING AND LITERATURE has some clear modules, but many of them may be longer than they need to be. Breaking each section into smaller subsections could improve navigation, especially for students who have trouble synthesizing large swaths of text.
Individual chapters flow well; there is a logical internal progression. Overall, each chapter works well as a standalone piece. These pieces, however, do not always add up to a cohesive whole. The book is occasionally disjointed and transitions from one chapter to the next could be smoother.
There are some tables, samples, and lists to guide students. The use of color could be more thoughtful, and the chapters themselves could be enhanced with more explicit concluding ideas and next steps for students who want to apply their newfound knowledge. The interface is usable, but it could be improved with some additional special formatting.
I did not notice any glaring grammatical problems.
Cultural Relevance rating: 1
As mentioned by previous reviewers, this text relies heavily on a whitewashed Western canon. Obviously, an OER textbook author is often limited by licensing. However, there are many public domain works from diverse authors; there is no justifiable need to rely so heavily on a predominantly white male canon even in an OER textbook. A quick search of Project Gutenberg yields numerous diverse pieces of literature from the American civil rights era. Additionally, there are places in this book where the WRITING AND LITERATURE does not directly address or embed texts into the work, opting to simply recommend that students follow a URL to read a freely available website. This workaround could be used more thoughtfully in order to share contemporary work that is more universal, culturally relevant, and better aligns with the book’s rhetorical goals.
WRITING AND LITERATURE has a grand vision that is not fully executed. The idea is impressive, and I fully support texts that seek to venerate and celebrate literature in the composition classroom. I’d love to see an updated version that is more culturally competent, comprehensive, and strengthens its links to the lives of everyday students.
Reviewed by Cassandra Sachar, Assistant Professor, Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania on 1/27/19
The book attempts to cover many different aspects related to writing and literature; however, due to the ambitious breadth, it often only skims the surface of many of the topics. For example, while I appreciate the background on different types of... read more
The book attempts to cover many different aspects related to writing and literature; however, due to the ambitious breadth, it often only skims the surface of many of the topics. For example, while I appreciate the background on different types of literary criticism in Ch. 2, there are no actual examples of the different critical approaches and no follow-up student exercises. Additionally, literary terms are defined throughout the book but are often not explained. The glossary, list of links for additional works of literature, and assignment ideas at the back of the book are well-organized and helpful.
I did not find any inaccuracies or biases, but many of the descriptions were not detailed enough, which I believe will lead to poor comprehension of several concepts for readers. For example, in order for a reader to understand blank verse, the book could easily show lines of poetry, but there is merely a short definition.
The writer incorporates examples from modern life that are sure to help college readers relate, but none of these should make this book seem outdated in the next decade or so, as I cannot imagine that social media (which she references) will become obsolete. From the book's description, which mentions "Buzzfeeds, hashtags, and Tweets," I expected more references to modern technology, but the author may be making a concerted effort to avoid discussing trends so as not to have the world outgrow her work too quickly. While I appreciate the inclusion of (mostly British) classic texts, I would have liked to see more modern writings, as well.
The writer maintains a pleasant, very readable style and strives to make her ideas accessible with many easy-to-relate analogies. However, there are times when the introduction to a concept goes on for far too long, causing the reader to lose focus, and then the concept itself is often not described in adequate detail. For example, there is a whole section about a student playing video games. The purpose of this is to explain the importance of forming a perspective, but it's very long-winded. Then, the student's full research paper is included, but there is no explanation on what was done well or poorly. Why not just share a snippet of the paper to illustrate a point?
The text uses consistent headings and organization; however, there are places where sample texts are given without much context. Some texts are introduced with focal areas and/or follow-up questions, yet others, such as the poems at the end of Ch. 4, are simply provided without direction. Also, I cannot understand why the book includes the entire play of _The Tempest_; why not just provide a piece and a link?
Every chapter is short (except the one that includes an entire play) and thus does not present an overwhelming reading assignment to a student. I do not believe the text needs to be presented in a linear fashion; there is such breadth to this book that the chapters could easily be mixed, matched, and/or left out.
Chapter titles and headings are informative. I believe some of the content presented in narrative form would be more easily accessible to the reader if formatted into bulleted lists. This would cut much of the wordiness.
The book is presented clearly with no distortions. The font is easy to read, and the writer uses color to her advantage, such as showcasing different methods of annotation. There are a few calendar pages which are printed sideways, but this is not really an issue.
I did not locate a single grammatical error. This text looks very professional.
Nothing in this book is culturally insensitive, and the author includes pieces from some writers of color. The literature is mostly American or British in origin and could include other parts of the world, but I do understand that the author is limited by copyright laws.
Reviewed by Joy Sanchez-Taylor, Associate Professor, LaGuardia Community College (CUNY) on 12/5/18
This text is well-organized and clearly addresses ways to write about different genres of literature. I like that the text begins by explaining how the study of literature can be relevant to students who are not English majors. The chapter follow... read more
This text is well-organized and clearly addresses ways to write about different genres of literature. I like that the text begins by explaining how the study of literature can be relevant to students who are not English majors. The chapter follow a logical progression and cover all of the major topic for literary analysis. I find Dr. Long Bennet to be very knowledgeable about her subject. My major critiques of the text are the separation of “fun reading” like science fiction and fantasy and “literary” readings. This view is an outdated classification. These days, literature professors are assigning a variety of literary works in their courses to try to fully engage students. Which leads me to my second criticism of the text: the choice of readings. I understand that with an open-access textbook, Dr. Long Bennet was limited in her choices of literary examples. But for future versions, it would be great if she could try to get permission to include more contemporary texts.
I find the text to be accurate overall. The descriptions of the critical perspectives could have been more detailed. Some of the citations will need to be updated to MLA 8 format. I particularly like the research essay checklist and glossary sections.
The overall advice for writing about literature will be relevant for many years. The MLA citation examples, however, will need to be updated whenever MLA changes their guidelines, which happened again recently.
Overall, I find the wording to be clear. I think some of the writing, such as the justifications for why non-English majors should write about literature, are a little wordy. Students don’t need every reason why they should write about literature; a few concise examples of how literary analysis can help them in other courses would be more effective.
The chapters are very consistently organized.
A professor could easily teach the genre chapters in whatever order they preferred.
The textbook has strong organization and flow.
Overall, the text was clear and the visuals were easy to read. Some of the visuals, such as the sample essay planning calendar, will need to be printed out for students to read because they are sideways in the text.
I would like to see examples of authors from a diverse range of backgrounds and time periods. Again, this is difficult to achieve when dealing with author permissions, but it is not impossible.
I plan to use some of the writing descriptions and materials in my course, but I will change the literary samples to include a more diverse range of authors.
In the age of Buzzfeeds, hashtags, and Tweets, students are increasingly favoring conversational writing and regarding academic writing as less pertinent in their personal lives, education, and future careers. Writing and Literature: Composition as Inquiry, Learning, Thinking and Communication connects students with works and exercises and promotes student learning that is kairotic and constructive. Dr. Tanya Long Bennett, professor of English at the University of North Georgia, poses questions that encourage active rather than passive learning. Furthering ideas presented in Contribute a Verse: A Guide to First-Year Composition as a complimentary companion, Writing and Literature builds a new conversation covering various genres of literature and writing. Students learn the various writing styles appropriate for analyzing, addressing, and critiquing these genres including poetry, novels, dramas, and research writing. The text and its pairing of helpful visual aids throughout emphasizes the importance of critical reading and analysis in producing a successful composition. Writing and Literature is a refreshing textbook that links learning, literature, and life.
Dr. Tanya Long Bennet, University of North Georgia
🏆 best critical thinking topic ideas & essay examples, 👍 good essay topics on critical thinking, 🥇 most interesting critical thinking topics to write about, ✅ simple & easy critical thinking essay titles, ❓ critical thinking essay questions.
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Published on July 24, 2020 by Jack Caulfield . Revised on July 23, 2023.
A narrative essay tells a story. In most cases, this is a story about a personal experience you had. This type of essay , along with the descriptive essay , allows you to get personal and creative, unlike most academic writing .
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What is a narrative essay for, choosing a topic, interactive example of a narrative essay, other interesting articles, frequently asked questions about narrative essays.
When assigned a narrative essay, you might find yourself wondering: Why does my teacher want to hear this story? Topics for narrative essays can range from the important to the trivial. Usually the point is not so much the story itself, but the way you tell it.
A narrative essay is a way of testing your ability to tell a story in a clear and interesting way. You’re expected to think about where your story begins and ends, and how to convey it with eye-catching language and a satisfying pace.
These skills are quite different from those needed for formal academic writing. For instance, in a narrative essay the use of the first person (“I”) is encouraged, as is the use of figurative language, dialogue, and suspense.
Narrative essay assignments vary widely in the amount of direction you’re given about your topic. You may be assigned quite a specific topic or choice of topics to work with.
You may also be given prompts that leave you a much wider choice of topic.
In these cases, you might have to think harder to decide what story you want to tell. The best kind of story for a narrative essay is one you can use to talk about a particular theme or lesson, or that takes a surprising turn somewhere along the way.
For example, a trip where everything went according to plan makes for a less interesting story than one where something unexpected happened that you then had to respond to. Choose an experience that might surprise the reader or teach them something.
When applying for college , you might be asked to write a narrative essay that expresses something about your personal qualities.
For example, this application prompt from Common App requires you to respond with a narrative essay.
In this context, choose a story that is not only interesting but also expresses the qualities the prompt is looking for—here, resilience and the ability to learn from failure—and frame the story in a way that emphasizes these qualities.
An example of a short narrative essay, responding to the prompt “Write about an experience where you learned something about yourself,” is shown below.
Hover over different parts of the text to see how the structure works.
Since elementary school, I have always favored subjects like science and math over the humanities. My instinct was always to think of these subjects as more solid and serious than classes like English. If there was no right answer, I thought, why bother? But recently I had an experience that taught me my academic interests are more flexible than I had thought: I took my first philosophy class.
Before I entered the classroom, I was skeptical. I waited outside with the other students and wondered what exactly philosophy would involve—I really had no idea. I imagined something pretty abstract: long, stilted conversations pondering the meaning of life. But what I got was something quite different.
A young man in jeans, Mr. Jones—“but you can call me Rob”—was far from the white-haired, buttoned-up old man I had half-expected. And rather than pulling us into pedantic arguments about obscure philosophical points, Rob engaged us on our level. To talk free will, we looked at our own choices. To talk ethics, we looked at dilemmas we had faced ourselves. By the end of class, I’d discovered that questions with no right answer can turn out to be the most interesting ones.
The experience has taught me to look at things a little more “philosophically”—and not just because it was a philosophy class! I learned that if I let go of my preconceptions, I can actually get a lot out of subjects I was previously dismissive of. The class taught me—in more ways than one—to look at things with an open mind.
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If you’re not given much guidance on what your narrative essay should be about, consider the context and scope of the assignment. What kind of story is relevant, interesting, and possible to tell within the word count?
The best kind of story for a narrative essay is one you can use to reflect on a particular theme or lesson, or that takes a surprising turn somewhere along the way.
Don’t worry too much if your topic seems unoriginal. The point of a narrative essay is how you tell the story and the point you make with it, not the subject of the story itself.
Narrative essays are usually assigned as writing exercises at high school or in university composition classes. They may also form part of a university application.
When you are prompted to tell a story about your own life or experiences, a narrative essay is usually the right response.
The key difference is that a narrative essay is designed to tell a complete story, while a descriptive essay is meant to convey an intense description of a particular place, object, or concept.
Narrative and descriptive essays both allow you to write more personally and creatively than other kinds of essays , and similar writing skills can apply to both.
If you want to cite this source, you can copy and paste the citation or click the “Cite this Scribbr article” button to automatically add the citation to our free Citation Generator.
Caulfield, J. (2023, July 23). How to Write a Narrative Essay | Example & Tips. Scribbr. Retrieved September 3, 2024, from https://www.scribbr.com/academic-essay/narrative-essay/
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It encourages brainstorming, creative thinking, and the development of new solutions to complex problems. Its impact is profound, shaping the way we interact, learn, and evolve, making it an indispensable tool for human connection and progress. Essay on Communication in 200 Words
Tina Seelig: So sparking communication starts with asking why or what or how. So having a mindset of curiosity opens the door to great communication. And the most questions you ask, the more you learn, the more engaged you will be with others. Matt Abrahams: Yeah. I think a lot of us go into these things saying I have to say all this, or this ...
Similarly focused on the need to promote a phase change towards future-oriented education, Lucas and colleagues have suggested conflating creative thinking and critical thinking in order to propose "3Cs" (creative thinking, communication, and collaboration) as new "foundational literacies" to symmetrically add to the 3Rs (Reading ...
Alter your workspace or take breaks in different settings. A new environment can provide fresh stimuli and break routine thinking patterns. 10. Read widely. Read books, articles, and papers from various genres and fields. Reading widely exposes you to new ideas and ways of thinking. 11. Practice creative exercises.
Creative thinking is the process of nurturing your imagination allowing you to "think out of the box". Being able to train your mind to think creatively helps you invent, problem-solve, create and communicate in fresh, new ways. Moreover, studying art and design, along with diverse disciplines, provides a rich tapestry of perspectives and ...
A definition of creativeness is defined as a way to seem at and solve problems from a. singular perspective, avoiding orthodox solutions and thinking outside the box. This creative. process allows ...
This article addresses educational challenges posed by the future of work, examining "21st century skills", their conception, assessment, and valorization. It focuses in particular on key soft skill competencies known as the "4Cs": creativity, critical thinking, collaboration, and communication. In a section on each C, we provide an overview of assessment at the level of individual ...
This chapter of Communicating Creativity: The Discursive Facilitation of Creative Activity in Arts examines recent studies on Picasso to show how contemporary creativity research often overlooks the crucial role of written, spoken, and multimodal communication in the facilitation of creative practice. After providing a critical overview of the different ways that the concept of creativity is ...
AFNOR International, 93210 Saint-Denis, France. Centre Hospitalier Guillaume Regnier, Universitde Rennes 1, 35200 Rennes, France. * Correspondence: [email protected]. Abstract ...
Effective communication is a fundamental aspect of human interaction, serving as the foundation for building strong relationships, resolving conflicts, and achieving shared goals. It encompasses a wide range of skills and practices that enable individuals to convey their thoughts, feelings, and ideas clearly and empathetically while actively listening to others.
CREATIVE WRITING IN COMMUNICATION SKILLS. Sometimes we make disastrous blunders "English") into a night of scintillating in our teaching, and in our evaluation, adventure or romance. because we do not understand our stu- In T.A.T. we provide the student with dents. That vacant stare of the ducktail a picture which he then interprets.
5 Essay Examples 1. Way To Foster Creativity In Young Children by Anonymous on IvyPanda.Com "There are different ways to foster creativity in young children. They include different approaches to the problem of making children more self-reliant, more creative, and more interested in the process of receiving education, obtaining experience, achieving certain results in the sphere of self-study."
Creative writing is writing meant to evoke emotion in a reader by communicating a theme. In storytelling (including literature, movies, graphic novels, creative nonfiction, and many video games), the theme is the central meaning the work communicates. Take the movie (and the novel upon which it's based) Jaws, for instance.
4. Go outside: Spending time in nature and wide-open spaces can expand your attention, enhance beneficial mind-wandering, and boost creativity. 5. Revisit your creative ideas: Aha moments can give you a high—but that rush might make you overestimate the merit of a creative idea.
Key Takeaways. Critical thinking and effective communication are essential skills for personal and professional success. These abilities play a vital role in various aspects of life, including problem-solving, decision-making, and relationship-building. Developing and honing critical thinking and communication skills can lead to increased ...
DOI: 10.59324/ejtas.2023.1(5).34 Corpus ID: 263640093; Critical Thinking, Collaboration, Creativity and Communication Skills among School Students: A Review Paper @article{Stanikzai2023CriticalTC, title={Critical Thinking, Collaboration, Creativity and Communication Skills among School Students: A Review Paper}, author={Mohammad Ismail Stanikzai}, journal={European Journal of Theoretical and ...
Creative development (Fig. 2.1) is seen as the growth from the natural human disposition of intuitive/adaptive creativity to the development of capacities to engage in increasingly more complex, sustained creative practice characterised by original research and production that has greater sociocultural relevance and importance.Sustained original research and production is characterised by ...
Globalization, quick technological advancement, and the necessity of individuals who can think critically, communicate clearly, collaborate effectively with others, and be creative (the 4Cs) define the demands of the twenty-first century. Our schools must adapt to these requirements.
So, creativity in kindergarten is closely connected with knowledge, motivation, and creative thinking (Adams, 2006). On top of that, creative thinking is easily associated with problem-solving strategies too because it supports discovering solutions that others cannot identify easily (Nussbaum et al., 2021). 2.4. The 4Cs in kindergarten via ER
1. Put Yourself in a Box. Creative thinking is about "thinking outside the box," but putting limitations on your problem-solving can help you think more freely and innovatively. For example, if someone tells you to make dinner, you may struggle to come up with a meal you don't always cook.
In the age of Buzzfeeds, hashtags, and Tweets, students are increasingly favoring conversational writing and regarding academic writing as less pertinent in their personal lives, education, and future careers. Writing and Literature: Composition as Inquiry, Learning, Thinking and Communication connects students with works and exercises and promotes student learning that is kairotic and ...
Critical thinking refers to the ability to analyze, synthesize, and evaluate information or a situation. It entails the practice of engaging in independent and reflective thinking to identify and evaluate ideas to make informed decisions. Critical Thinking and Development of the Writer's Reflection Techniques.
Interactive example of a narrative essay. An example of a short narrative essay, responding to the prompt "Write about an experience where you learned something about yourself," is shown below. Hover over different parts of the text to see how the structure works. Narrative essay example.