Fostering creativity in children's poetry writing through a learning study

Fostering creativity in children's poetry writing through a learning study

• Lai, Meng Choo The Hong Kong Institute of Education

2009

• G Curriculum, Teaching & Learning: Specific Disciplines
  • GB English Language
    • GBE Teaching Methods of Composition & Their Outcomes

Action Research

• Hong Kong

• 1997.7 onwards

• Unknown or Unspecified

Developing student's creativity is one of the important pedagogical issues of the curriculum reform in Hong Kong. Poetry is an art that can be expressed in simple language it can lead the child into a world of active imagination, in which the child can express his emotions and satisfaction (G. W. F. Hegel). This presentation shows how the teachers worked together to construct a series of well planned lessons to enhance the students' capability to write a simple poem. A Learning Study is premised on a conceptual framework which is based on the Theory of Variation, and builds on three types of variation: variation in students' understanding of a specific topic (V1); variation in teachers' understanding and ways of handling the object of learning' (V2); and the use of patterns of variation' as a guiding principle of pedagogical design (V3). It also reports the findings from difference sources of data including student interviews, pre- and post-tests data, classroom videos and observations. This study is taking the children's narrative poetry as teaching object in Primary 4 by using the Learning Study approach. First, the teachers and researchers analyzed the students' "poetry" and found out the difficulties faced by the students in writing poetry. During the research lesson, the teachers provided the students with the opportunity to read and appreciate different kinds of child poetry. The teachers also used the Variation Theory as a pedagogical tool to help the students master the skills of changing a simple passage to a piece of poetry. Finally, the students created their own poetry. This study showed that students of different levels of academic achievement can use their own experience to create very interesting poetry.

Paper presented at the Redesigning Pedagogy International Conference: Designing New Learning Contexts for a Globalising World, National Institute of Education

• English

Conference Papers

https://bibliography.lib.eduhk.hk/bibs/385d663d

2015-10-08