Creativity vs Accuracy

Test yourself on Creativity vs Accuracy

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Creativity (vs Accuracy)

The creativity approach prioritises a child producing a piece of creative work which prioritises the use of the imagination over the production of an accurate piece of work.

Accuracy vs creativity

In your exam, the question will often be focused around the idea of accuracy or creativity.
This is a very big debate, not just amongst linguists, but amongst educators, the government and parents.
Where possible, you should show your knowledge of this debate.

Alan Maley

Alan Maley says that creative writing promotes a playful engagement with language which allows children to test out the bounds of writing in a supportive environment.
He believes that creative writing develops children lexically, grammatically and phonologically.

Craik and Lockhart

Craik and Lockhart believe that creative writing requires ‘semantic processing’ which indicates an act of ‘deep processing’, whereas accuracy is more about ‘structural’ and ‘phonemic’ processing which is indicative of ‘shallow processing’.

Dornyei

Dornyei believes that creative writing can:
- Offer respite from the other classroom monotony.
- Allow students to experience success.
- Motivate students.
- Make tasks more enjoyable.
- Increase autonomy.

Crystal

Crystal believes that writing can sometimes be seen as a prison and that playing with language in a creative way may be the key to opening success within writing.

Creativity (vs Accuracy) cont.

The creativity approach prioritises a child producing a piece of creative work which uses the imagination over the production of an accurate piece of work.

Goouch and Lambirth

Goouch and Lambirth believe that there is a negative impact on a child’s self-esteem if their writing is wrong.

Karmiloff-Smith

Karmiloff-Smith’s research places the social aspects of writing as coming first.
This could, for example, include the child writing letters, cards etc to caregivers and discussing or telling others about the work they have produced.

Heckman

Heckman believes that we live in an ‘audit culture’ in which measuring learning and accuracy is more important than creativity.
Heckman believes that this has been created by pressure placed on schools by the government.

Essays

Here are some other key points you may wish to make – and expand upon - in your essay – they do not have an attached theorist, but you can still raise them in your argument.

Other key points

Being creative allows for a child to be unique and show individuality.
Creative work allows a child to reflect on their own experiences and feelings.
There is not such a thing as being ‘wrong’ in creative writing.
Creativity cannot be measured.
Can you ‘learn’ to be creative - or is it something more natural? The profusion of Creative Writing courses at Universities would suggest that creativity can be learnt.

Accuracy (vs Creativity)

On the other end of the debate, some people argue that we should judge children on the accuracy of the work they produce.

Reminder

In your exam, the question will often be focused around the idea of accuracy or creativity.
This is a very big debate, not just amongst linguists, but amongst educators, the government and parents.
Where possible, you should show your knowledge of this debate.

The National Curriculum

The National Curriculum is a prescriptive set of measures which is designed to judge children on their ability to write in certain ways.
In essence, it measures a child’s accuracy as a way of judging their writing ability.
- For example, it may expect a child of X years old to use a semi-colon and a colon in their writing.

Rickford

Rickford argues that there is a necessity of having rules and that as such, creative writing should be done with rules in place.
He also thinks that children should be taught to write in dialectal, colloquial and accent forms.

Rickford cont.

He does, of course, suggest that the end-goal is to get children writing in Standard English.
You may be able to see this in the data when a word is misspelt due to how a child/caregiver phonologically pronounces a word.
- For example, a child named ‘Luke’ may spell ‘look’ as ‘luke’ due to the Potteries-style of pronunciation.

Torrance

Torrance believes that teachers can enhance a student’s creativity through judging their level of accuracy and that correcting them leads to better writing.

Other key points

Here are some other key points you may wish to make in your essay – they don’t have an attached theorist, but you can still raise them in your argument!
- Accuracy can be measured.
- Specific advice and feedback can be given to aid development.
- Accuracy marks out superior members of groups (gifted and talented) which enables them to maximise their success.
- Accurate work often makes a better, more enjoyable read.