Creativity and elementary students’ multimodal narrative representations

Creativity has been identified by many scholars as a fundamental capability to cultivate in individuals in school and in society at large. Internationally, educators are exploring how to foster creativity in classrooms. A brief review of relevant literature on defining creativity, nurturing creativity in classrooms, and assessing creative products is followed by a description of a study that featured nine-year-old students designing and producing creative products. Two of the main purposes of the classroom-based research were to develop students’ visual meaning-making skills and competencies by focusing specifically on elements of visual art and design in picturebooks, and to extend their narrative competence through a focus on metafictive literature. A retrospective analysis of specific activities that occurred during the research with respect to their potential for nurturing habits of mind associated with creativity is followed by the analysis of one student’s creative product, her multimodal narrative representation. The discussion includes consideration of the importance of educators deepening their theoretical and practical knowledge of the construct of creativity as they endeavour to teach about, for and about creativity, and to) assess creative learning by students.) © 2019, Australian Literacy Educator's Association.