Writing as a Way to Form Students’ Creativity

Abstract

The aim of research is: to distinguish four approaches of defining the essence of creativity depending on which one of the four aspects of this problem is dominant in some a case: the environment in which creative activity is carried out; a creative product; a creative process; a creative person, his/her characteristics.

The following theoretical methods of the research were used to solve the tasks formulated in the article: a categorical method, structural and functional methods, the methods of the analysis, systematization, modeling, generalization.

The results of the research. After analyzing different approaches, we provide the following classification of definitions of creativity:

1) definitions that take into account novelty as the main criterion of creativity. In such a way, we point out that the characteristic «production of something new» is actually included these definitions. However, we’ll differently propose the approaches with the description of the novelty. Thus, we believe that it does not matter whether a society recognizes a certain idea as a new one, but it is important that it has to be new to the creator. On the contrary, we believe that novelty should be fixed in terms of culture, be recognized by contemporaries;

2) definitions in which creativity is opposed to conformity. It includes the definitions, which, contrasting the creativity to conformity, emphasize the importance of bringing originality, a new look at the problem. Such definitions include the understanding of creativity in such a way, when we believe that a creative person is free from both sides – we mean conformism and nonconformism;

3) definitions that focus our attention on the creative process. Thus, we emphasize the importance of creative thinking, and we consider creative thinking as a process of seeing or creating relationships between objects, phenomena, objects on both conscious and unconscious levels. In such a way, we distinguish four stages of the creative process: preparation, incubation, comprehension, review (or analysis). This understanding of creativity is based on any existing method of systematic training of subjects in the process of creative thinking;

4) the definitions that emphasize the importance of developing mental abilities of the person. We define creativity in a view of the development of mental abilities of the individual, which in such a way provides creative achievements in the process of the person’s activity. According to this, creative thinking includes divergent products in its structure, which, in turn, contribute to the generation of new, original, unusual and perhaps unique informational levels based on this standard, well-known paradigm of information. However, creative thinking is not reduced to divergent one, because it also implies a person’s sensitivity to problems, the ability to reorient.

Conclusions. We proposed the approach based on determining the levels of creativity which are developed by writing. We offered the following levels of creativity: a) expressive creativity – for example, spontaneous drawing by children; b) productive creativity – scientific and artistic products; c) inventive creativity, when ingenuity is manifested in materials, methods and techniques; d) innovative creativity – improvement through modification; e) generating creativity – the formulation of a completely new principle or assumption around which new ideas, concepts, theories and schools may arise.