How to Stay Creative

Submitted by: Amy Ropple, Parker Middle School in Reading, Massachusetts
Lesson Plan: How to Stay Creative?
Grade Level: Middle School (could use for high school)

Introduction: Amy heard an artist speak about creativity the night before she she did this assignment who included a list of her own ideas that was quite similar to similar to what Amy's students came up with. The speaker's presentation sparked the idea for this lesson with her 8th grade art elective classes. See Twyla Tharp's The Creative Habit: Learn It and Use It for Life

The Problem: List rules that artists should remember in order to stay creative with their work, and to keep challenging themselves.

Students came up with the list below without input from Amy or paraphrasing on her part.

13 Rules for Artists:
How to Challenge Yourself and Stay Creative

Made by Grade 8 Art Elective, Spring 2003

Do something new each time you make a piece of art.
Try new materials and processes. Don't limit yourself!
Keep an open mind.
LOOK around you.
Don't get upset about the artwork you make. If you aren't happy with a project, don't throw it out. When you are done with it, someone else might like it and then you will too.
After mastering one way of working with an idea, try doing it a different way and you might get a better result.
Try never to do the exact same thing twice.
Learn background information and do research about the idea you are interested in working on.
Keep the fun of art alive!
Get opinions from others.
Do something original. Copying is for learning only. Use your own ideas in your art.
Practice = growth.
Stay focused. If you don't, you will lose track of your idea and your project won't come out as well as it could.

Some Links for Creativity:
Link to Creativity Web sites - Marvin Bartel , Goshen College
Teaching Creativity - Marvin Bartel, Goshen College
Creativity Killers - Marvin Bartel, Goshen College

The Creative Habit: Learn It and Use It for Life

From Publishers Weekly
Perhaps the leading choreographer of her generation, Tharp offers a thesis on creativity that is more complex than its self-help title suggests. To be sure, an array of prescriptions and exercises should do much to help those who feel some pent-up inventiveness to find a system for turning idea into product, whether that be a story, a painting or a song. This free-wheeling interest across various creative forms is one of the main points that sets this book apart and leads to its success. The approach may have been born of the need to reach an audience greater than choreographer hopefuls, and the diversity of examples (from Maurice Sendak to Beethoven on one page) frees the student to develop his or her own patterns and habits, rather than imposing some regimen that works for Tharp. The greatest number of illustrations, however, come from her experiences. As a result, this deeply personal book, while not a memoir, reveals much about her own struggles, goals and achievements. Finally, the book is also a rumination on the nature of creativity itself, exploring themes of process versus product, the influences of inspiration and rigorous study, and much more. It deserves a wide audience among general readers and should not be relegated to the self-help section of bookstores.