The Art of English - Everyday Creativity - Essay Example

? The Art of English-Everyday Creativity No aspect of human life is free from creativity. Every person in his own way is engaged in producing something creative. It can either be in the form of an idea or a material object. Human mind is blessed with the ability to procreate and produce something unique with its own comprehension. In the same context of creativity, the texts used by people in everyday life are not free from some element of creativity involved. There have been historic debates conducted in the wake of proving whether creativity exists in literacy practices or not. Papen and Tusting (2006) are of the view that almost every activity a person engages in his daily work is instilled with the element of creativity and that it is extremely difficult to find a textual activity which could be labeled as entirely uncreative. During an ordinary day, a person engages in activities which might appear mundane and petty but if looked into with an open mind and with a thorough eye, one is bound to stumble across the element of creativity in it at one point or another. People interact with texts in their own special ways and no two people can have identical views and perception of the same text. Many aspects of a man’s environment and his self can influence his texts and the nature of his interaction with them. According to Barton and Hamilton (2002), these literacy practices hold different meaning for different people. They tend to be personal and are influenced by every aspect of his life. A person’s culture, society, personality and his environment in general determine the manner in which the meaning of any text is comprehended. For that matter, it can be expected that two persons, dealing with the same scenario would indulge in textual interplay of the situation in manners entirely or partially varying from each other. This is also a slightly unorthodox form of creativity experienced by people. The influence of culture in texts of a person cannot be denied. There is a strong link between one’s culture and the way his writings or texts are formulated. This has also been ascertained by Maybin and Swann (2007). Moving onwards, Calo (2011) suggests that human beings are social entities and that there exists a strong correlation between social environment, creativity and texts of any person. In all aspects of daily life, one comes across incidences that are associated with textual practices such as keeping a diary, making a note, writing a receipt and others which do not follow a set guideline. It is in these instances that a human mind is allowed to roam free and create something on its own. It need not be a masterpiece to be deemed creative. A single sentence or a group of words is sufficient to justify that the text is specific for the person in question and that it is to be associated specifically with him, the creator of the text. The art and science of literacy practices begins even before a child begins school and continues throughout his life. These activities take many forms from writing, coloring, all the way to singing and others. In all these activities, it is important to visualize and find the concept of ubiquitous creativity as proposed by Banaji and Burn (2007). It is the same concept elucidated by Pahl (2007) and labels creativity as an inherent characteristic of every person. In order to detect the element of creativity in any text or literacy practice, it is worth noting that the aim is to look beyond the visible text that meets the eye of the observer. One has to look in depth at the idea behind a text or the way in which a person has perceived a text. This is done by first setting a definition of creativity in one’s mind. Anything that did not exist beforehand or something that was introduced for the very first time by a person can be labeled as creative because it is the person’s own genius in action. In the same context every single act of human literacy practice is a depiction of his genius and creative abilities. This can be elaborated by taking into consideration some examples from everyday life. Writing a journal or keeping a diary is an excellent example of one such creative literacy practice. No two persons are identical and therefore the lives they lead tend to differ. Whatever experiences, practical or emotional a person goes through during a day tend to be affected by a number of aspects. For example a pupil studying in school interacts with his peers, his teachers, friends and other people in the settings. He comes across a particular environment with its own characteristic features. Some of these leave a positive imprint in his mind, others a negative while still others might not affect him at all. Another pupil present in the same settings might experience all thee surroundings in the same temporal sequence and with the same intensity, but the imprint left on his mind and body would differ from the first pupil. It might be because of different environment at home, different personalities or perhaps some other reason. The crux of the matter is that a person perceives any change in his environment or any event after collaboration of his self and the cultural and social environment. It should be noted that this collaboration and perception varies from person to person. Now when these two pupils would sit down to write a page in their diary talking about their daily experiences, they would jot it down in completely different styles. The words used, their sense, hidden meaning, nd other features would be different and characteristic of that pupil. This variation in text is an example of creativity depicted everyday by all of us, needless of whether we are artists, musicians, professors or politicians. Writing a greeting card is an activity that all of us experience at some point in our lives. Almost all individuals write down a greeting card or some text of the sort. During this process of transfer of thoughts on to a sheet of paper or through a keyboard, the writer is pouring his own creative skills. This is because every person has his own unique style and this style is mirrored into his activities and everyday practices. If two people are made to write a note on a given topic or send a greeting card to a loved one, the emotions would be depicted in two ways differing in their basic essence altogether. The complexity of emotions and cultural ties of a person also help modify and colour one’s thoughts which ultimately travel through his hand onto a sheet of paper. Continuing on with this example, one can expand the horizon and include in the activity the everyday habit of writing a to do list or simply noting down the grocery list. Even in a simple process like making a list, the element of creativity cannot be side lined. Even though in this example, this aspect of literacy practice might not be as crystal clear as in the other examples, but still one should take into consideration creative efforts as no aspect of human life is free of social and cultural context and creativity is nothing but a collaboration of one’s thoughts with the cultural surroundings. Nowadays, there is a fast growing trend of using electronic media and social media by people of all age groups and lifestyles. In these activities are also included blog keeping, Facebook, MySpace, Twitter and other such social networks. As modern and casual as they might sound, they could not be labeled as unrelated and mundane as far as the creativity of texts is concerned. Every bit of activity involves at least a meager amount of creative effort if not much. When we look at the designing of a webpage and the effort involved in keeping it up to date, the maintenance is full of incidences which are ideal examples of creative thinking. These activities are labeled under the head of literacy activities and in the modern day world form an important practical demonstration of literacy in real life applications. Owing to the immense popularity of this mode of texts and the ever increasing need to survive in the competitive world, it is mandatory for a blog keeper or a web designer to use his skills and make his creation unique. During this process of polishing one’s skills, it is impossible to work without being creative. In short, there a number of literacy activities where creativity forms the body and soul of texts. Some of them are evident at the first glance as the work of a genius while others require a deeper insight. Irrespective of the quantity of creativity involved, this feature is inherent in almost all literacy activities. A number of debates have been conducted and this issue is still under consideration but majority of people from all schools of thought have reached a consensus that creativity forms a vital part of almost all everyday literacy practices. In the contents of this essay, the element of creativity with respect to everyday literacy practices has been discussed. Beginning with defining creativity and importance of cultural aspect of human life, the essay further elucidates the link between writing practices of different people. Creativity is an essential component in the working of a human mind. It refers to the ability of a person to make something new and present some novel concept which did not exist earlier to that instant. It is deeply affected by the environment of a human and the interplay of one’s self and the environmental factors work in harmony in defining a personality. No two persons living under identical conditions of environment can have the same personalities in entirety. This is because of the variation in the collaboration of culture and intellect. It is this difference and individuality that forms the basis of creativity and which is evident in everyday literacy practices. When talking of everyday practices, we come across several activities that appear ordinary or irrelevant but despite how mundane they look there exists the element of creativity somewhere. Writing a journal is an activity that takes origin from the experiences specific to that particular person. It involves the process of thinking which is unique and varies from person to person. Through his abilities and thought process a human being is able to pour his creative flow into the written text and thus incorporate creativity in a literacy practice from everyday life. Similarly, an act as small as writing a receipt or making a grocery list involves creative thinking. The modern day activities like keeping a blog or surviving in the social networks demand that a person should be vigilant, up to date and exhibit creativity in every point in his texts. These and numerous other examples from everyday life establish the association between literacy practices and creativity. Reference List: Banaji, S. and Burn, A. (2007) Creativity Through A Rhetorical Lens: Implications For Schooling, Literacy And Media Education. Literacy, vol 41, no 2, pp 62-70. Barton, David and Hamilton, Mary (2000) ‘Literacy practices’ in Barton, Hamilton, Ivanic, ed, Situated Literacies, Routledge, London and New York, pp 7-15. Maria-calo.com (2011) All Literacy Practices Contain Creative Elements. A Debate. | Maria Calo. [online] Available at: http://maria-calo.com/all-literary-practices-contain-creative- elements/ [Accessed: 6 Jan 2013]. Maybin J, Swann J (2007) Language and Creativity in Social Context, Special issue of Applied Linguistics, vol 28, n 4 Pahl, Kate (2007) Creativity In Events And Practices: A Lens For Understanding Children’s Multimodal Texts, Literacy, vol 41, no 2, pp 86-92. Papen U, Tusting K (2006) Literacies, Collaboration and Context The Art Of English: Everyday Creativity pp. 312-359 Read More