{"id":1322,"date":"2023-09-02T14:26:48","date_gmt":"2023-09-02T14:26:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.kcl.ac.uk\/aflkings\/?p=1322"},"modified":"2023-09-03T13:32:07","modified_gmt":"2023-09-03T13:32:07","slug":"digital-creativity-in-assessment-making-videos-of-poems-on-mobile-phones","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.kcl.ac.uk\/aflkings\/2023\/09\/02\/digital-creativity-in-assessment-making-videos-of-poems-on-mobile-phones\/","title":{"rendered":"Digital creativity in assessment: making videos of poems on mobile phones"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cIn order to keep up with the world of 2050\u2026you will above all need to reinvent yourself again and again.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Yuval Harari: 21 lessons for the 21st Century<\/h6>\n

\u201cThe future belongs to those who can reconnect with play.”<\/em><\/p>\n

Rod Judkins: The Art of Creative Thinking<\/h6>\n

\u201cImagine inventing an education system that has the will to be creative as its core educational value and purpose.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Emeritus Professor Norman Jackson, University of Surrey<\/h6>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Instructor:<\/strong> Dr Kieran O\u2019Halloran<\/p>\n

Email<\/strong>: kieran.o’halloran@kcl.ac.uk<\/p>\n

Module: <\/strong>Film, Poetry, Style Level 5 https:\/\/www.kcl.ac.uk\/abroad\/module-options\/film-poetry-style-1<\/a><\/p>\n

Assessment activity: <\/strong>as part of an ethos of fostering creative thinking, students make a short film of a poem on a mobile phone.\u00a0 They use their analysis of the poem\u2019s style to motivate creative choices in filming.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Why did you introduce a film poem assignment?<\/strong><\/h2>\n

The need for creative thinking skills <\/strong><\/p>\n

Creative thinking<\/em> and the practice of creating<\/em> are fundamental to progress.\u00a0 Yet developing creative thinking has never been an explicit goal of higher education.\u00a0 More than ever, in the 21st century, this is needed.\u00a0 As environmental emergencies intensify\u2014enormous problems specific to this century\u2014as artificial intelligence rapidly penetrates the workplace performing tasks traditionally done by humans\u2014the so-called ‘Fourth Industrial Revolution’ or ‘4IR’ (Schwab, 2016)\u2014our students will need to be problem-solvers, change-makers and opportunity-generators in an unprecedentedly unpredictable and fast-paced world.<\/p>\n

‘In the foreseeable future, low-risk jobs in terms of automation will be those that require social and creative skills; in particular, decision-making under uncertainty and the development of novel ideas.’<\/em><\/p>\n

Karl Schwab (2016:40)<\/p>\n

One key reason for creative thinking skilling is conjuring opportunities from unparalleled changes emanating from A.I.<\/a>\u00a0 Moreover, for effective creative thinking in this fast-changing century, graduates should be adaptable<\/em> (Penprase, 2018: 220).\u00a0\u00a0Encouragingly, alongside critical thinking, collaboration, communication, creativity is one of the \u20184Cs\u2019 educational theorists increasingly promote for graduate flourishing in the 21st century (Davidson, 2017; Kivunja, 2014; Trilling, 2009).\u00a0 All these ‘soft skills’ are needed by employers, as well as the ‘hard skill’ of video-production\u00a0(Fig.1).<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"Fig.1 Desirable skills in the contemporary workplace (LinkedIn Learning)<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Making and creative problem-solving<\/strong><\/p>\n

In subjects such as art and design, architecture, fashion and textiles, progressive development of students’ creativity happens by making new things.\u00a0 This occurs too in STEM “makerspaces” (s<\/strong>cience, t<\/strong>echnology, e<\/strong>ngineering, m<\/strong>athematics).\u00a0 Constructing novel stuff\u2014whether digital or non-digital\u2014practises and hones inventive problem-solving, in turn extending inventive thinking capabilities.\u00a0\u00a0Assignments that involve making new things have not, however, been the norm in humanities teaching.\u00a0 A focus on (collaborative) making in the humanities, <\/em>with the byproduct of extending inventive problem-solving capabilities, helps students develop confidently creative self-images for a future they will have to continually adapt to.<\/p>\n

On Film, Poetry, Style<\/em>, videoing a poem is a new form of problem-solving for students (how to realise successfully a cinematic vision for a video of a poem, where best to shoot, how to employ actors effectively, how best to use backgrounds to communicate symbolically etc):<\/p>\n

<\/a>‘A big part of a director\u2019s job is problem-solving\u2014and doing it on the spot.\u00a0 You need to make decisions quickly and wisely, because not making a decision is a decision.’<\/em><\/p>\n

(Stoller, 2019: 244).<\/p>\n

Adapting to and solving problems within an unfamiliar digital arts practice leads to new creative resources being released.\u00a0 The module has been designed to be accessible to any student in higher education, not just in English Studies\u2014no previous experience of filmmaking or analysing poetry being required (see below ‘Humanities Creative Thinking as Generic Skilling’).<\/p>\n

Risky-ready versus risk-averse students<\/strong><\/p>\n

Understandably given the expense, many students see university education as attaining a good degree for realising job opportunities.\u00a0 This can lead, however, to a risk-averse mindset.\u00a0 Why experiment (too much) in an assignment if this leads to failure and a bad grade?\u00a0 Far better to reproduce the assignment models provided by the lecturer.\u00a0 While such risk-averseness is understandable for the short-term goal of a good degree, it can mean students leave higher education without confidently creative self-images.\u00a0 It is important, then, that pedagogies encourage ‘risk-ready’ mindsets (Watts and Blessinger, 2017).\u00a0 Film, Poetry, Style<\/em> gives credit for boldness of vision, incentivising through its marking scheme (see below) students to experiment and take chances.<\/p>\n

<\/h2>\n

What is a film poem?<\/h2>\n

A film poem<\/strong><\/a> is simply a film of a poem, often a canonical one (Blake, Dickinson etc).\u00a0 While the genre is around as old as film itself, as digital innovation makes film-making easier, there has been a surge in film poems in recent years.\u00a0 A key feature of a film poem is ‘mashup’ of unrelated visual images with the poem, activating fresh meanings in it.\u00a0 This means a film poem usually exceeds standard perceptions of what the poet intended, becoming a new artwork.\u00a0 One creative work is used as a springboard for another.\u00a0 (For many examples of film poems, see Movingpoems.com<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Integral to the imaginative process is making new and unusual connections:<\/p>\n

‘Creativity is that marvelous capacity to grasp mutually distinct realities and draw a spark from their juxtaposition.’<\/em><\/p>\n

Max Ernst<\/p>\n

Since they involve unusual connections between film and poem, making film poems is ideal for fostering creative thinking.\u00a0 Film, Poetry, Style<\/em>\u00a0expects students to make surprising and imaginative connections between their movie and the source poem.<\/p>\n

The module, however, goes beyond what is standard in the film poem genre in requiring that students make a secondary<\/em> set of connections: identifying foregrounded features of style in the poem and using these to motivate creative choices in filmin<\/em>g.\u00a0 (Analysis of a poem’s stylistic foregrounding doesn\u2019t happen in the film poem genre as a rule where, overwhelmingly, the emphasis is making the film).\u00a0 The student utilises understanding of the poet’s creativity to extend their own.<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

Illustration: a student film<\/strong><\/h3>\n

I come to a student film of a Charles Bukowski poem, \u201cthe bluebird\u201d (Bukowski, 2010).\u00a0 In this five stanza poem (46 lines; 191 words), the poem’s persona uses the bluebird as a metaphor for something they keep hidden since its escape could lead to difficulties.<\/p>\n

Here is a film of \u201cthe bluebird\u201d made by former students Jasmine Bastable and Courtnay Osborne-Walker.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n