Developing Creative Thinkers through Music and Writing
By Deborah Jeter

One of the best reasons that Fine Arts should be offered to students is to provide them with the opportunity to learn how to think "outside the box". Often, especially in the elementary school level, students are confused by lessons that allow them this type of freedom in thinking. In fact, the concept of un-graded, self expression is quite challenging for many in all grade levels and in some cases, the task may seem impossible, partially because many of our students look for, even require, specific guidelines to take them from point A to point B.

Of course, we all have students that are creative, seemingly by nature. They are like wild horses, unbridled, and ready for the long run. However, students that are timid, or less self-assured, seem to stand back to see what is acceptable before they try to develop anything of a "creative" nature, thus missing the point. Borrowing ideas of the self-assured students is fine in the beginning but it is not independent thinking. Are there any tried and true applications that can indicate to us, as educators, what type of person responds best to a certain approach? Of course, but that will need to be another article, at a later time! What I hope to inspire via this article are ways to tap into and develop the creativity we all possess.

In the Spring of 2001, I completed a ten week implementation of these type of lessons in my music classes. I was required to write about this experience for my Masters of Science. I chose to include writing lessons, in addition to music theory, listening lessons, and composition. This implementation period took place during the last ten weeks of school, so I knew I had a great challenge before me! Most of the students were willing to work up to the last day of classes, but there were some that thought school was out after spring break, in March. Knowing that I had to regain the students of the latter group, I decided to try some experimental lessons that were not necessarily music-oriented.
Now for the meat and potatoes:

Do fine arts really teach a child to become more creative? Many would say, "Absolutely, yes!" If that is so, then why is it that as students make their way through our (hopefully) well-planned lessons, that they don't all leave our classes as independent, creative thinkers?

It's quite obvious that just because a child sits in a fine arts class, does not mean that child is going to become creative. What we can hope for though, is that while in our classes, they will experience a freeing of the mind, stimulated imaginations, new paradigms, and see the value in all thought processes, and acquire, at least a nugget of, self-discovery. Some, if not all, of these elements should transpire, IF the right lessons are presented with appropriate, developmental sequencing that makes "sense" to the student.

How do we know when a student is really "getting" what we are showing them? One idea shared by many teachers is that the student begins to use a concept in a personal way, and creates an improvisation of what was originally presented in the base lesson. This is called ownership and is a key indicator of the level of absorption that has taken place.

These lessons are a combination of ideas obtained from personal experience and the following books. Lessons for integrating movement, and singing for stimulating motivation in learning will come from, The Child's Way of Learning: A Handbook for building Creative Teaching Experiences, If the Shoe Fits: How to Develop Multiple Intelligences in the Classroom, and The Yippee Book: Creative Ideas for Writing and Drama and focuses on creative writing. These lessons are mixed with creativity lessons that I designed.

The Maze Game involves moving to sound. "If listeners are to listen to music imaginatively, they must remember previously heard material and construct ideas about how the music might unfold in the future" (Webster, 1994). I chose to have students focus on hearing single, percussion instruments initially. This oriented the students' ears with basic, simplistic sounds in preparation for more complicated pieces heard later in the implementation period.

For the Maze Game, I used these instruments for the following directions:
1. Guiro – forward
2. Maracas – backward
3. Hand drum – to the left
4. Wood block – to the right
5. Triangle – stop

The students divided into two teams. The object of the game was for the player of the instruments to direct a blindfolded teammate to a specific place in the room. Each instrument represented a different direction. The blindfolded participant would need to recognize the sound of the instrument played in order to know which direction to go.

The Sound Machine included bodily movements for supporting the kinesthetic learners, verbal use for supporting the linguistic learners, and interpersonal development skills. The social skills practiced were cooperation and shared responsibilities. The object of the Sound Machine was for the students to work as a team in creating an object, such as a coke machine, a car, or something similar. No words were allowable for the demonstration, only percussive, vocal sounds.

I used this game as a way to review aspects of cooperative collaboration between the students. Most students worked well together. One group in one class had a disagreement about what type of sound machine they should construct. I suggested that the majority should rule. I divided the students into three groups of 4 to 6 members. Each group chose a leader, who assigned parts for each student and checked to make sure that all members understood timing, motions, and sounds. Groups from the three classes were different from each other:

1. First Class: Group One demonstrated a locomotive. Group Two created a human coke machine, and Group Three was a car (or slug-bug).
2. Second Class: Group One presented their version of a bubble gum machine. Group Two created a toaster, and Group Three created a "cop" car.
3. Third Class: Group One borrowed an idea from the movie, "Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory," by displaying their version of the process involved in becoming a chocolate bunny. Group Two chose to be a fire-truck, and Group Three demonstrated the operation of a can opener.

I asked, "What did these games teach you?" Answers included: "Detail had to be the focus," "There are many things taken for granted," and "Some things are more difficult to explain than to do." I asked the students how these exercises were applicable for their lessons in other classes. Answers included: "More attention would be given to detail," and "It would help us to use our memory more."

Analogies were discussed and the word "creativity" was defined. When asked what the word meant, some students' responses were: "giving attention to detail;" "when we use our minds," and "when we do something different from other people." At this point, I introduced the word "inventiveness." I explained that the purpose of participating in this lesson was to develop creative thinking skills so that they could apply creative solutions and use inventive ideas in everything they do. Developing elaboration, similes, imagination, fantasy, and invention were integral elements practiced in these activities.

Additionally, I explained to the students why lessons on using symbols to communicate was important. Webster (1994) commented, "Composers and arrangers think in sound as they work with musical gestures in the short term, and as they craft more extensive sound structures that occupy longer periods of time". Improvisation requires some of these same elements, thus I used the following assignment as a developmental process for the pending songwriting project:

I told a story of a time when the Cro-magnums, Neanderthals, and Homo Sapiens inhabited the Earth. The survivors of these three groups of humanoids were the Homo Sapiens due to their ability to communicate through written symbols. Being able to communicate through symbols improved their ability to create new tools, among other things, to aid in their survival.

I divided the class into five groups per class with three people in each group. I referred to each of these groups as tribes. The point of the lesson was to determine which tribe could communicate effectively to the other tribes about elements such as where to find food, shelter, and where their enemies were located. The student observers were to interpret the story represented by the Indian symbols into the English language. The tribes that used the symbols well enough to convey their intended message received stickers, or "artifacts." The tribes with the most artifacts at the conclusion of each tribal demonstration were the surviving races.

"When students compose music using their own musical ideas and not teacher gimmicks, they remember their compositions for months, even years later" (Wiggins, 1999).

The students participated in the sound-story, "Bubbles." Each student received a set of melody bells. I read the story about bubbles and the students demonstrated their interpretation of the story by playing the bells at the appropriate time and in an expressive fashion. This lesson was purely improvisational. After the class experienced the objective of the lesson, they divided into groups. Each group had a writer, a reader, and three instrumentalists. The classes had two days to prepare a story of their own.

The groups in each class selected subjects for their stories as follows:
1. In Class One, the first group chose to write about washing a dog and used maracas for when the dog shook the water off his back. Group Two wrote a story about scrambling eggs and chose a guiro as their instrument to represent the stirring of the eggs in the skillet. Group Three wrote a story about butterflies and used a triangle to represent the flapping of their wings.

2. In Class Two, Group One presented a story about making a birthday cake. The instrument they chose was a melody bell. Group Two chose to write a story about washing the car and used a vibra-slap for the pouring of the water from the bucket. Group Three wrote a story about cleaning windows, and used sand-blocks for the movement of the rag on the windowpane.

3. In Class Three, Group One wrote a story about playing in the rain. They used a rain stick for the tinkling of the raindrops. Group Two wrote a story about the wind and asked special permission to use some scarves to represent the movement of the wind instead of choosing an instrument. Group Three wrote a story about giving a baby a bath and used melody bells to represent the water as it was poured on the baby.

Creative poetry can be used for developing the students' writing skills. Students can be given specific words on a tennis ball and allowed to use only the words on the ball to create a sentence.

Solution strategies included providing opportunities to reflect on information received in music class, helping students develop the ability to think in sound, allowing selected students to compose a song using music software, and using improvisation activities to stimulate creativity and strengthen spontaneity, as well as integrating playful learning into the various creative writing projects and listening evaluations.

The greatest improvement was shown in the area of listening skills. I attributed this growth to the multiple exposures to listening lessons, where the students were asked to identify individual instrument sounds. A possible reason for this increase was that provided multiple opportunities for melodic dictation activities. The students began to isolate pitches, as well as instruments.

Many of the activities involved teamwork because of the amount of students having difficulty with creative thinking. All work submitted by the group required separate signatures from each for the area in which they contributed. Two of the areas involving teamwork were the Maze game and the Sound Machine.

The Sound Machine dealt with musical and rhythmic attributes. Decision-making and synthesis were needed for completing the assignment.

I hope these lessons will be stimulating for you and your students. If you should use any of these lessons, have fun and send in your own inspired, "off-springs", if you are inclined.

Additional Reading:
Creative Encounters with Creative People
A book review on Creative Encounter can be found here:
Creative Encounters, Part One of Two

© Musicstaff.com, 2002