Page 2 Creativity

This is Your Dog!  I Have Secrets to Tell You.  Are You Listening?

The creative process may begin with a flash of inspiration or a doodle. Often, trial and error is the way an inventor solves a problem — and considerable perseverance! Creativity is a process, not a single event.

Creative thinking uses a set of skills: flexibility, originality, and evaluation.



Three Components of Creativity


Click each collapsible row to view the three components of creativity.

Flexibility means thinking of as many ideas, items, or various uses for things as possible


View "Marcel the Snail"

Marcel describes some unusual uses for objects.  What are they?


Originality means thinking of new, unique ideas.

Think of the most unusual use possible for a paper bag.

One possible answer is this:

Fill it one-quarter full of dried beans, tie it closed at the top, and use it to make sound effects for a radio play.

Here is another:

Place strips of bacon on the bottom of the bag. Crack an egg over the bacon. Hang the bag over the embers of a campfire to cook "bacon and eggs in a bag"!

Evaluation is an essential element of every creative process.

Creativity is more than producing new ideas; some ideas might be completely crazy and impractical.

To evaluate your new idea, ask questions such as these:

  • Does it work?
  • Does it make sense?

You might list the pros and cons in a chart such as the one that follows


Figure 1
Pros and Cons of shopping at Tom's Shell Station (Fig. 1)
PROS CONS
  • purchase fuel to travel to work successfully
  • painful prices
  • body parts are irreplaceable
  • not very attractive



Logic will get you from A to Z; imagination will get you everywhere.

~ Albert Einstein


  Please contact your teacher if you have questions.