Jesters Freed from their Jack-in-the-Boxes: Or Springing Creativity Loose from Traditionally Entrenched Honors Students

concepts, to practice artistic expression. Mary Jane Petrowski alludes to the significance of such practice in creativity when she writes, “Creative breakthroughs are possible only after prolonged preparation” (310). My own teaching experience, grounded as it is in my personal background, leads me to believe that the practice of some kind of artistry is the best stimulus for getting students to be more creative, whether in the service of the next great American novel, a radical philosophical treatise on humanity’s place in the universe, or a scientific discovery that leads to cost-efficient production of clean fuel free for all the world’s populations. Yes, I dream big; that’s a legacy of my origins as a poet. But only if my students learn the creative skills that empower them to dream so hugely will they be able to enact such visions for themselves. As a teacher, I struggle constantly with how much or how little to include in my syllabi in order to provide the most effective learning experience for my students. When I first timorously began using creative exercises in classes on classical studies or medieval culture, I was concerned both that my tenuous curricular balance would tumble and that my students already predisposed against working creatively would be resistant to my entire course because of such activities. Also, since I was unwilling to sacrifice analysis and research, I had to explore ways to merge creativity with my existing curriculum. After several attempts with mostly Jack-in-the-box types of exercises, I learned that combining critical skills together with artistic methods enabled me to keep my students both creatively and intellectually engaged without seriously compromising academic content or challenging students beyond their capacities. In my classes, activities calling for the use of creative skills are always linked to a discussion in which students analyze the results in light of the original works or to a formal essay evaluating the academic sources and materials used to accomplish the assignment. Juxtaposing these creative and critical efforts allows me to avoid mere Jack-in-the-box diversions that detract from my pedagogical goals. Instead, I seek opportunities for assignments that yield possibilities for novel intellectual dimensions in which the critical and creative intertwine. Although not all the creative approaches I try with my students are successful, my purpose in assigning such activities is to elicit new avenues for academic exchange in courses structured around traditional content. While the purpose of this article is not to highlight my own teaching strategies, but rather to suggest ways critical thinking may be supported and expanded by creative work in courses on traditional subjects, listing some of my most successful assignments may assist others seeking to develop their own approaches. These assignments include asking that students • Use research to construct a journal or group of letters written from the point of view of a fictional character from an actual historical time period; • Compose poems in ancient or medieval forms, such as Dantean tercets, Homeric stanzas, or Sapphic lyrics; • Copy the handwriting or illuminations from manuscript pages using modern tools; • Summarize abstract concepts from a text in the narrative form of a comic book or in a collage of images cut from magazines; JOURNAL OF THE NATIONAL COLLEGIATE HONORS COUNCIL 101 LESLIE A. DONOVAN • Illustrate in a drawing a particularly difficult passage from Aquinas, Plato, or Aristotle; • Illuminate or gloss photocopies of text pages from a medieval manuscript; • Draw Celtic interlace patterns; • Write inscriptions in Ogham or Norse runes for the monument of a fictional person. For teachers already committed to student-centered pedagogies, incorporating such creative arts activities requires little extra work, training, or equipment. In fact, most of these activities are accomplished with only one or two simple tools such as pens or pencils, paper, crayons or color markers, and maybe some cellophane tape and scissors. After much experimentation during the last several years, I now generally incorporate six to eight short in-class creative exercises and one longer assignment in a creative form into most of my classes on traditional humanities-based subjects. While this pattern works well with my pedagogical goals for classes that meet twice a week for seventy-five minutes over a sixteenweek semester, other faculty prefer to have students work creatively for ten to fifteen minutes of every class. While I have learned to balance the creative and critical components of my curriculum, persuading students that creative assignments can benefit their learning process is still not easy. The resistance so many of our students have to artistic expression signals their intense anxiety about their own creativity as well as the perceived lack of academic advantage endemic to creative efforts. Not only are courses in creative subjects usually considered ancillary features of higher education, but the majority of our students also have an acute fear of expressing their ideas in creative forms. Describing a similar discomfort, Katy Rose Resnick’s Clarke College students write, “Imagine being told, after twelve years of schooling, to throw away the thought process to which you’d become accustomed and to start thinking in a different manner. (You’d be frightened, believe me!)” (Abben, et al 3). Since only a minority of our students possesses educational experience with artistic, right-brain actions, most students fear failure in their attempts to use creative tools and methods. By rejecting artistic expression of their ideas, these students dismiss the possible benefits afforded by a combination of rightand leftbrain thinking. The rejection of such benefits is apparent when, after I have assigned a creative project, students frequently beg me to let them work on a research project instead. They respond to my creativity assignments with statements such as “I don’t have a creative bone in my body,” “I can’t do art,” “I don’t understand poetry,” or “I wouldn’t even know where to start.” Even after reassurances that anyone can construct whatever creative project I have assigned, these students most often go away looking tense and anxious. Their reactions betray the very real discomfort Honors students experience when asked to produce work outside normal analytical methods. However, I find that my students’ fear of working creatively regularly FALL/WINTER 2001 6 For those interested in general studies of the jester figure, see Enid Welsford, The Fool: His Social and Literary History (London: Faber and Faber, 1935); and William Willeford, The Fool and His Scepter (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press,