"Creativity and Collaboration: The Relationship of Fact and Fiction in Personal Writing"

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About the Author

Rachel Casey is an undergraduate student pursuing a degree in Writing and Rhetoric at the University of Central Florida. Her academic interests include the analyses of rhetorics involved in critical thinking, civic engagement, and feminist theory.

Contents

Introduction

Review of Literature on Creativity

Method and Approach

The Story

The Magazine

The Allegory

Conclusion

Appendix A

Appendix B

Appendix C

Appendix D

Appendix E

References

Review of Literature on Creativity

In Romantic Theory

This relegation of creativity to the individual versus the collective comes as a product of early- to mid-nineteenth century Romanticism. Romanticism as a movement placed emphasis on individualism and ownership. This tradition’s influence on Romantic literary theory is often attributed to the works and ideas of authors such as Wordsworth and Emerson (Howard, 55). Further, this evolution in literary theory gave way to a new “ideology of literary authorship” in which originality proved essential (Ruthven, 40). Within the newly conceived ideology, author K. K. Ruthven suggests products of Romantic creation to have been regarded as “autonomous object[s] produced by . . . individual genius[es]” (40). The theories posited during this era birthed the ideas of creativity as non-derivative and imitation as plagiarism, ideas that continue to be held even today despite new knowledge of creativity’s habit of building from existing knowledge.

In Psychological Development

In his research regarding childhood and development, twentieth century psychologist L. S. Vygotsky refutes the Romantic theory of “divine” or isolated creativity. Vygotsky presents the argument that the creative process is part of every human being rather than a gift bestowed on the select few, fully attainable to all due to the view that humans are “creature[s] oriented toward the future,” always vying to alter their presents (9). Humans are constantly reimagining the existing and generating new possibilities, and this, he contends, is creativity. While drawing from the existing, the creative process is not reproduction, or the regurgitation of facts and experiences. Creativity is the brain’s work of “combin[ing] and creatively rework[ing] elements of . . . past experience and us[ing] them to generate new propositions and new behavior” (Vygotsky, 9). It is the method by which people synthesize the world around them. By this logic, creativity is a process rather than an event. It involves the intermingling of past experiences, present circumstances, and future predictions to produce something new. Creativity, Vygotsky contends, is derivative.

In Educational Settings

Researcher Jason Ranker supports Vygotsky’s creative argument via a discussion of the inherent yet often overlooked creative works of young students. In school, he argues, educators most commonly peruse for “originality in highly unusual and never-before-seen types of compositions,” anything fantastical or imaginative, while failing to notice what he deems “everyday creativity” (Ranker, 360). Ranker’s “everyday creativity” stems from a sociocultural theory that recognizes how “individuals draw upon elements of their material and social environments in the making of signs and meanings,” the contention being that creativity is not divine inspiration but inspiration deriving from the everyday (Ranker, 359).

Providing physical data advocating for Ranker’s hypothesis of everyday creativity, researcher Anne Haas Dyson observed the written and visual production of elementary-aged students over the course of two years, determining a positive correlation between sociocultural interactions and what she deems creative production. Dyson observed how the children “brought their imagined worlds in close,” creating fiction from fact by both implementing and altering elements of daily life; this synthesis, she argues, marks creative work (Dyson, 24). When writing, one does not just sit and produce but acknowledges both oneself and the reader; likewise, when creating anything new, whether or not it be through a specifically artistic medium, the creator considers the outside world, one’s milieu and cultural context, using the present to influence the imagined. These studies of both Ranker and Dyson provide modern support for Vygotsky’s theory of derivative creativity and evidence against the Romantic autonomous lens.

In Collaborative Pedagogy

Albeit implicit, this view of creativity as the act of consideration for elements beyond oneself can be deemed a part of collaborative pedagogy, the idea of student improvement in critical thinking and learning abilities through engagement with others. Refuting the common image of the “solitary, autonomous genius,” Rebecca Moore Howard describes the mutual benefits obtained through face-to-face peer collaboration. When working with others to develop a product, as opposed to working alone, one gains greater experience and is further exposed to new styles and techniques (55). Thus, Howard pushes the benefits of working with others for development, specifically in the field of Composition.

Unfortunately, in introducing to the classroom different forms of and exercises in collaborative pedagogy, opposition continues to arise due to the belief of an intrinsic relationship between collaboration and plagiarism. Further, in the conclusion of her study, Howard describes opponents’ continued view that collaboration brings with it a loss of unique thought. Despite the introduction of modern research, nineteenth-century Romantic ideals remain, exerting influence on public conception of creativity. However, Howard does go on to recommend the discipline of collaborative pedagogy as “a topic ripe for further research,” holding a potential to “[expand] students’ linguistic repertoires” and “[increase] the authority of their . . . voices” if acknowledged as a necessary part of classroom instruction (67). She believes changing the public’s perception of creativity and collaboration to be possible.

In the Everyday

I intend to support the proposition of collaborative pedagogy as a means to growth, focusing on its applicability in the context of writing and intimate creation. The relevance of collaborative pedagogy does not just hold in Howard’s observations of face-to-face interaction but extends to the implicit, or the unseen. In fact, the principles of collaboration stand as roots of both Vygotsky’s aforementioned argument for “combination creativity” and Ranker’s “everyday creativity.” When creating, we draw from the known, our previous experiences, our anticipated audiences, and our current circumstances, all contributing to the production of something new. This, in itself, is collaboration. By establishing creation as an “everyday” endeavor accomplished through combination and the reworking of the existing, creativity is promoted as an activity accessible to all, regardless of disciplinary interest or perceived “giftedness.” While there is currently work being done to establish creativity as universal, I see the inclusion of creativity into the broader theory of collaborative pedagogy as a means to further this goal of creativity’s multidisciplinary applicability.

Large amounts of scholarship currently exist to discuss the broad nature of collaborative pedagogy and professional partnership; however, there is little on collaboration as related to the specific context of personal, or fictional, writing, an activity in today’s society referred to as “creative writing.” Creative writing is often labeled so for it is thought to be unique and original, a product of the gifted, imaginative mind. This leads to the assumption that if one cannot write fictionally, or “creatively,” one is not creative and, further, places a barrier on the inclusion of other genres in the realm of creativity.

Having grown up an avid writer, the reading of this literature on creativity and the existing collaborative pedagogy brought this gap in research to the forefront and led me to wonder if my own personal fiction writing could be deemed collaborative. If it could be seen to involve collaboration, this would support a move away from fictional writing as individually creative and towards the view that storytelling too is a product of collaboration, just like the other genres not traditionally perceived as creative.