Becoming creative practitioners: elementary teachers tackle artful approaches to writing instruction

Abstract

The “creativity gap” is a distressing discrepancy between the ostensible value educators place on creativity and its absence in schools. How do teachers take on the attributes and skills of a creative practitioner? What struggles do they face in doing so? This case study examines the practices of six early elementary teachers who embarked on a professional development experience through which they learned arts-based strategies for prewriting activities. They purposefully practiced cultivating an environment in which student imagination would feed the generation of ideas and details in prewriting exercises. Findings indicate some teachers embraced this departure from the norm, recognizing how loosening their reigns emboldened “voice and choice” in student writing. Others experienced difficulty taking risks and developing spontaneity for accepting and responding to student ideas. Finally, teachers grappled with converging creative practice with everyday practices in the classroom.