Thinking About Creativity - Book Reflection on The Greatest Song by Kevin Griffin

 

Thinking About Creativity:

The Greatest Song: Spark Creativity,  Ignite Your Career, and Transform Your Life
By Kevin Griffin

This summer I decided to learn more about a few topics, with creativity being a primary one. My work using Adobe Express (#AdobeEDUCreative) over the past year has inspired me to investigate the topic and learn how I might be more creative--and how I can support "Creative Confidence" with my student and colleagues.

I learned about the book, The Greatest Song, by Kevin Griffin while listening to The Highway on SeriusXM's Country Music channel and heard an interview with Kevin Griffin a successful country music songwriter who lives in Franklin, TN near Nashville. He also wrote this book which addresses the question of how to increase creativity personally, as well as in your career and life. The book is written in a narrative style, following the life of protagonis, Jake Stark, a fictional Nashville-based, Country music. The book is a quick and fun read, but has some juicy steps on how to be more creative. The following video provides a glimpse, but if you are interested I recommend getting your own copy of Griffin's book!

Here are his basic steps of "The Method" which are addressed in the book as well as video above:

1.  Practice One: Creative Collaboration: The key with this step is listening more than talking and not rushing to make your point, but being open to others creative ideas and input. In his rules for creative collaboration, the fourth one is: "Check your ego at the door. Remember in a collaboration, 'My ego is not my amigo'" (Griffin 61).

2.  Practice Two: Filling the Well: This practice calls for doing things that refill rather than deplete you so that when creative expression is needed, you have something to offer. In the rules for filling the well, the fifth one states: " The more you learn, the bigger the return" (Griffin 77).

3.  Practice Three: Leaving Your Comfort Zone: Griffin's first rule for leaving your comfort zone is, "When life is in flux, when we are off balance, that;s often when we are the most creative. In fact, we flourish when exposed to randomness, disorder, and stressons: (99).

4.  Practice Four: Change your Attitude: Griffin's fourth rule for changing your attitude recommends, "Reverse engineering  is a great creative tool to see how a son, an idea or a successsful bubsiness started originally. Break it down to its essential elements, and it will often kicktart a new idea" (117).

5. Practice Five: Dare to Be Stupid: Griffin encourages risk-taking to develop new ideas in his Rules for Daring to Be Stupide: "Create an environment where big, out-of-the-box thinking is encouraged, and failure is not stigmatized" (149). 

These practices, steps in "The Method" provide an process for building creativity. Further, I really like the following Venn Diagram, which shows Creativity at the center of the four C's, where Critical Thinking, Collaboration, and Collaboration converge.

Four C's: 

Source Photo: https://explorationsinliteracyblog.wordpress.com/2016/11/07/the-4-cs-in-seesaw/

Overlapping the Venn Diagram with the five elements of Griffin's "The Method" inspires me to make Creativity a central focus and avail students to the process of Griffin's Method. This will be a very exciting school year!

Rethinking Student Learning - English and Beyond.

What's Different?

My summer work as a teacher marks a making, dreaming, and reworking of my learning plans for students in the upcoming school year. Last year was by far my most challenging--and in ways most successful--as far as student growth is concerned. Still, as a teacher in a Title 1 middle school,  I left the year pondering how it could have been better...and most importantly how I can reach the reluctant students who did not grow. While the topic of "student learning loss" and the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic have been very real to me--as I lived through this over the past three years with my students, I know something has to change in the way I teach, so that all students benefit.

The difference this summer it thinking about inspiring students to write about identity through personal narratives and essays, as recommended in Penny Kittle and Kelly Gallagher's book, 4 Essential Studies. My ELA7 team was already working with Book Clubs and Digital Compositions. Next year we want to expand our work to include more Poetry and Personal Essays.

I am also being inspired by Ghouldy Mohammad's work which Kittle and Gallagher reference. I am reading her book, Cultivating Genius and working to develop lessons and learning activities for my students that allow them to explore their identities and share with each other via digital publishing, audio recordings and more.

This exploration and path has been prompted by many things, including my participation in the #Merit22 program through the Krause Center for Innovation last year in the #KCISTEAM Leadership program this year. I want to help create and sustain a learning program where all students succeed and thrive beyond their and my greatest dreams. That has always been the case for me as a teacher. I am hoping this year will continue to build on this goal for my students