Assessing Creativity

Work Cited:
Young, Linda Payne. “Imagine Creating Rubrics That Develop Creativity.” English Journal 99.2 (2009): 74-9. Print.

Young begins her article by emphasizing the importance of creativity and higher-level thought processes. She explains that measuring creativity in student work has been problematic, as teachers list the category “Creativity” on their rubrics without clearly identifying the levels or elements of creativity are, leading to an unfair, subjective assessment on creativity. Young asserts, “Yes, there can be a problem hen teachers assess imagination and creativity as a product without clarifying the criteria that will be used” (75). Simply telling students to be more creative will allow students exercise creativity without the fear of being punished by a lower grade. However, Young suggests that teachers need to reconstruct their rubrics to enable creativity as well as communicate criteria.

Young refers to a list of six areas indicative of creative thinking that should be addressed on a rubric (derived from Robert Sternberg): intellectual skills, knowledge, thinking styles, personality attributes for creative functioning, motivation, and environment.

While Young insists that the “purpose of using a rubric and criteria is not to put imagination and creativity in a box but to create a framework so that students and teachers can discuss, explore, and discover the limitless possibilities inherent in creatively imagining” (76), I am not convinced that her idea of a rubric allows for limitless creativity. By telling the student how the creativity should look, isn’t the teacher or professor telling the student what creativity should look like and thus not giving the student the opportunity to create? I definitely like the point that the teacher should mention the importance of creativity (so the students know that they will be rewarded and not punished for their creative endeavors), but I’m not so sure I like the idea of outlining the students’ creativity for them. I still believe that rubrics can be useful in some situations, but not in the case of promoting creativity. I believe that a guideline sheet could be must more effective in encouraging imaginative thinking.