Helping Children be Creative Writers

chillibreeze writer — SRIJAYA CHAR

The Indian school system does not influence creativity in writing. After having taught English for the past 30 years in Indian schools, I feel sorry to see the pathetic writing styles of Indian students. The main reason for this is the way they are pushed into learning to write solely for examinations.

I have been given the opportunity to teach ‘Creative Writing’ in schools and it has been a struggle.

I have noticed that children with creative urges get silenced at sometime, which stunts their mental development. Deprivation of creativity halts the correct development of the right brain to an extent that thwarts creative thinking.

When creative thinking is plugged, creativity in writing or any other stream gets negatively impacted. “This is the way it has to be written. You will not get marks if you write it this way!’ is an often quoted statement by parents, teachers and examiners. The question of style takes a back seat. Lateral thinking is a thinking process, which needs to be cultivated from childhood. This needs guidance. When a child says, ‘I can’t write poetry.’ It does not mean the child cannot do it. It only means that she or he has never tried her hand at it and has never been guided to write. A child who is proficient enough in reading can surely write some kind of poetry. It may not be the best, but it can be done with some guidance. Do all schools give this guidance?

Give a child a few rhyming words and an idea and some pictures. Then tell them that they can write at least a ‘four lined’ poem in the next 40 minutes. They will do it. To develop this kind of skill, a child has to be trained to use all five senses at all times whenever they read or write. If schools do not encourage children to sharpen their senses, their distinct writing styles will never develop.

Listening: It is important to listen to everything that happens around us. The ear must always be alert. Ask children to listen to the birds twittering, the bees buzzing, the trees swaying in the breeze, the patter of raindrops on the roofs, on the windowpanes or on the ground. Listen to the subtle noises of nature and the harsh ones like thunder and stormy wind. When sitting in the classroom ask them to listen to the voice of the teacher. “What is she saying? How is she saying it? Is she giving instructions? Is she putting forth questions? When she has stopped talking, listen to your own mind. ‘Did you comprehend what the teacher said?” When a subject for composition is given, make then think of all the words that can be used which will make the written piece an echo their own thoughts.

Honing listening skills: You can help increase your students’ awareness by making them sit in a room with closed eyes. Tell them to listen to sounds that are coming from far away. Next, concentrate on sounds that are a little closer. Further, ask them to change their listening pattern. Listen to sounds that are coming from 3 feet or nearer, gradually decreasing the distance to the sounds next to them.

This was the piece produced by a 6th grader, when an experiment like the above was conducted in a class of 36.

A PIECE OF WRITING BY A 12 YEAR OLD (after instructions were given)

“I can hear the honks of trucks on the highway; the noise of buses and trucks moving. Next, I can hear some hawker shouting out his wares. A vegetable vendor’s call of the kinds of vegetables in his cart. Now, I come closer to my school gate. I can hear our watchman talking loudly to a visitor in a language, which I do not understand. Further, I can hear the voice of our PT Master giving instructions to the students gathered inside our compound. I can hear the voices of students trying to shout but also trying to muffle their voices. Next goes the PT master’s whistle. There, the students are running away to their respective games. My listening nears the school building. The math teacher is giving some instructions to a class next door. There is some hustle and bustle in the corridors. Some students are climbing the stairs to go to the Laboratories. In my own classroom, our teacher is silent. We are all asked to listen to sounds. So, she does not speak. I can hear only the rustling of pages of books the students are handling in my classroom. There, I come closer and closer to myself. I can now hear my own pen scribbling on my notebook. I can now even hear my own heartbeat. I now open my eyes.”

So it is with speaking. Speaking comes next to listening. Presenting our thoughts to someone hones our speaking skills. Chatting is different from speaking. We speak about a specific subject. It has boundaries and limitations and a certain style. It has to have direction and it should not be irrelevant. Chatting has no subject. We chitchat about various things with no real aim. The child who wrote the piece on listening can be asked to narrate what he wrote without looking at his paper. The others can ask questions within the framework of the topic on which the first child had written. Children can be grouped into pairs. All of them listen and write and, later, as partners they talk about their written piece to their neighbors.

The teacher can then crosscheck with the students asking them, ‘What did your partner talk to you about?’ The children should be told that each one has to narrate what their partner told them, well before the activity starts so that they will listen attentively and not chitchat irrelevantly. They should be bound by time frames and be ready for question time. This way each child will be responsible for him or herself.

The next skill to be developed is reading: What do children like to read? Many times, children like to read out their own work, if they feel good about what they have written. Sometimes, they feel a bit awkward. The teacher can give them the choice. One of the partners can read out the written piece of the other, if they choose to do so, or they can read their own. It may not be very wise to force a child to read their own work or even the partner’s if they do not wish to do so. In such circumstances a choice will be good. There may be some children who do not want anyone to read what he or she has written. The teacher can collect such pieces after telling them that she would read it herself and not in class.

Other methods to improve reading skills: The teacher can read and collect pieces of passages from various books available for that particular grade from the school library collection.. These passages, not more than 300 words, can be typed in bold letters, printed and stuck on to pieces of colored soft boards and circulated in the classroom. Care should be taken to choose passages that show creative skills in writing: A few descriptive ones and a few narrative ones that inspire imagination. The teacher could read out two or three of them. The children can be told the title of the book, the name of the author and the page number from which the passage has been extracted. Each child will read out the passage. Homework assignment following this could be finding more passages like those that were read out.

During one of my 10th grade sessions I read the following piece written by Marion Wink in ‘American Way’ about bedtime reading pleasures: “As the world of books becomes more real than that shadow world outside the lamplight, beyond the ticking clock, you find an escape more complete than almost any other one that readies you for the plunge into sleep, where that most mysterious and accomplished story teller, the subconscious, narrates the darkling world of dreams.” This was well received by the students and one of the students wanted to copy it down into his Creative Journal, a diary which they were asked to maintain.

Talking about or reading different authors at different times to the children makes them curious to read, especially when we are talking to them about a very popular author. When you ask them: “Do you know why this author is liked so much? It is because of the way in which she writes. Let me read a few lines from this book and you will want to read her work.”

During my ‘Descriptive Writing’ sessions with the 7th grade students, I was introducing the skill of ‘Describing People’. I put forth a question which they felt was troubling them all for a long time: ‘Why do parents and teachers dissuade you from reading comics and watching cartoons while there is no objection when you read books?’

There was silence for a few minutes and a variety of responses came in. Some were quite irrelevant, but a few were interesting. Ranging from: ‘TV viewing makes us morons, encourages violence, makes us passive and comics have no proper language, the colors on the pages are bad for the eyes, they are too simple and the language is not good—etc to very serious issues like, ‘TV distracts our minds and comics rob away our precious time.’

I gave them the reason that I had gathered during my survey. Imagination plays a major part while we read books. It needs good descriptive language. The place, setting, the time, and the season – everything gets described. This sharpens the readers’ imaginative skills. The ‘right brain’ gets activated to such an extent that ‘silent-mental-listening’ becomes acute and ‘almost real’. Students can visualize the characters in the mind’s eye. This enhances creative skills. On the other hand TV, movie and comics just present everything before our eyes and imagination and creativity take a back seat.

During one such session with the 7th graders, I asked them to find out the starting line of the book ‘Gone With The Wind’ and to let me know about it in the next class. Surprisingly, a majority of them made an effort to visit the library to find out the first line of the book. In my next class nearly 25 of them were ready with the answer, ‘Scarlet O’Hara was not beautiful’.’ One boy in particular continued. He said, ‘Ma’am, it also says. ‘She was charming!’ I appreciated him for what he had found out. The fact that I asked them to read a bulky book like ‘Gone with the Wind’ had aroused their curiosity. It describes the heroine of the novel, and it also made them aware of the fact that ‘heroines need not be beautiful’. This is the kind of fuel that we require to kindle these young minds. Another aspect is ‘curiosity’, and one more is that they had been asked to read a book as bulky as ‘Gone with the Wind’. One girl told me that she had never imagined that big books could also be simple to read.

I had a neighbor, a professor from Stanford, who came to India once every few years. He had a ten-year old son who came to my library religiously every day. He would borrow a number of books at a time since he was an avid reader. Sometimes, his father would accompany him. He would stand next to the boy and most often never approved of what his son was choosing. After the boy chose about 5 to 6 books, the father would promptly put them back in the shelves and choose what he thought would be good for the boy to read. He would pile about 10 books on my table and say, ‘Ryan, take these.’ and would go away. Ryan would give me one look, smile, put away all the books his father had chosen and take the same books that he had chosen. ‘Won’t your father be angry, Ryan?’ I had asked. ‘He never gets to see what I read, Ma’am. He hardly has the time.’ he would say confidently. I would smile to myself.

Having been a teacher all my life and being observant of my own children and other children in all age-groups in my library for nearly 20 odd years, I can say a few things very confidently:

Children can become avid readers of books only when the parents themselves evince keen interest in reading.
Books of all types must be made available to children at home, at all times. Reading patterns and choices should not be restricted. Expecting children to read only their study-books is naïve and the biggest damper on reading habits.
Parents should make it a habit to read to children from childhood. Reading literature of all countries and cultures makes them curious to read more and more.
Get the children to read books that they can easily understand. Expecting children to read beyond their level of comprehension dampens their reading curiosity.
The more books a child reads, the more his/her creative urges increase.
Imagination is the key to honing creativity. Allow the child’s imagination to run riot.
Children may narrate stories that they have read, but may change the premise a little. It is not necessary to correct the version of the child’s story. A remark like, ‘Your story seems more interesting than what is given in the book.’ will help in encouraging the creative urge.
Parents who are over anxious about their children’s reading habits will have poor readers on their hands.

A child who considers his parent a guide and a friend will voluntarily show the books he or she is reading to their parents, '‘See what I am reading, mom!' The reaction should be ‘Oh, that’s good, can I also read it after you finish reading it?’ and not ‘Oh, this is a
baby book, take something suitable for your age.’ If your reaction is in the negative, that acts as a damper.

Parents need to choose the right books for their children, but the choice should be made while buying a whole lot of books. Any book the child picks up at home should be suitable for the child to read. It is not necessary to make a choice within the choice that has already been made. ‘Read this today, read that tomorrow’ never works.

‘This is not reading time. This is playtime. This is study time. This is sleeping time.’ etc are other dampers. The time, place and choice should be left to the children. Reading is a spontaneous activity. It cannot be timed and controlled.

‘Read anything, everything, anytime!’ is a good slogan to remember. Reading should become a source of entertainment and not torture. That’s how avid readers get born. Like what Merl Reagle, a crossword constructor, says, ‘There is a fine line between entertainment and torture.’ There is truth in the words of Anna Quindlen, a true reader, who says, “I lived within the covers of books vicariously through words.”

My grandson, who is now 8 years old, is a voracious reader. He has this compulsive attachment to books. He will not go to bed without being read to. He does not ask for narration of stories. He just wants to be read to. It amazes me to see him devour the pictures and the words while he reads. This was the way his mother was when she was a child and so was my son. May be that’s how I collected so many books at home which became a library for the children of the neighborhood after my own kids grew up.

Reading enhances creativity through imagination and flights of fancy. When you read, you are there with the characters of the book, amidst the settings the author describes. You can go to Victorian England reading ‘Middlemarch’ or be transported with ‘Gone With the Wind’ to Tara and Manderley. You can imagine yourself living in great big houses with high ceilings surrounded by high drams with Scarlet O’Hara.

These pleasures can be a part of your life only if you are introduced to reading at an early age. The onus is on the parents. It would be sad indeed when as an adult you go to a library and feel like a stranger. If authors are not your friends, if books are not your passion, if reading is not a pleasure, your mind gets dull and warped. You cannot kindle creativity within yourself after growing up into an adult. Writing comes naturally when you are comfortable with reading. It overflows in the form of writing. Many times, when a thought gets formed in my mind and I don’t put it down on paper it keeps prodding me uncomfortably like a pebble stuck in your shoes. It has to come out.

Children are born curious. The curiosity within then can be channeled into positive thoughts by making them good readers. Start them of early. If a child of six wants to read four different books of the same title, ‘Alice in Wonderland’, let her read them. Each book may have a different style or variation of the story. ‘The Ginger Bread Man’ is such a simple story, which can be told to a child in one line. However, the pleasure of reading three to four different books of the same title by different authors and different illustrations has its own pleasure. No, it’s not a silly story for three-year olds. It is replete with adventure. “From the oven to the farm, all along into the river until he is no more.” The child’s mind is racing to get to the end, no matter how many times they have heard or read it, ‘…you can’t catch me, I am the Ginger Bread Man.’

Yes. You cannot catch the imagination, running riot, of a child. Make them good readers and you will help them be creative writers and thinkers.

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Srijaya writes for chillibreeze

Helping Children be Creative Writers

A PIECE OF WRITING BY A 12 YEAR OLD (after instructions were given)

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