Taking time for creativity: It's always worth it
- Cheryl Madliger
- Feb 5, 2017
- 2 min read
Last week, three of my fellow teacher candidates and I took the floor in our Multiliteracies classroom to present our thoughts on putting together the Climate Change lesson plan you can find in my teaching resources. Part of our presentation included an adapted version of our lesson plan's activity, called "Tell Me a Story About Climate Change." In the lesson, students are to come up with a narrative representation of research they've completed on climate change. In class, we used prompting questions (What are some ways humans impact climate change? How does climate change impact humans? etc.) to invite our peers to spend 10 minutes doing the same. We brought a variety of materials (pipe cleaners, construction paper, markers, tape, crayons, play-dough, scissors, etc.) for them to use and also offered that we would be happy to see or hear stories in poem, song, or other format of a group's choice. We were incredibly open-ended, and while this made the process feel vulnerable--Will this work? Do they know what they're supposed to be doing?--it resulted in one of the most rewarding teaching--and learning--opportunities I've had yet.
The photos above are the evidence of the amazing work that 10 minutes can facilitate. Our "students" in this case were highly motivated and many had background knowledge, but from the puppet show with an ozone layer of construction paper which got snipped, symbolically, to the comic strip and (unphotographed) rap to the tune of the Fresh Prince of Bel Air, our classmates came up with some very impressive work! Each group took things in a different angle, but each told us a story in their own way. The content was there, and so was the creativity--even with a limited time frame!
From this experience, I realized that incorporating multiliteracies theory into our teaching pedagogy does not have to be complicated. The more I make it part of my existing lessons and start building lessons with an appreciation for its tenets, the more I will get to witness my students in such a way as I did my classmates last week. Here's to more of these opportunities for my students!
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