Small Creative Projects as a Respite from Pandemic Pressures

Marie Drews

Moving Online

While faculty and instructors from a range of institutions were struck by the need to move courses online mid semester, the move provided a distinctive challenge for students enrolled in residential liberal arts colleges like mine. At Luther College, online courses are taught sparingly, and while many courses make use of Google Drive and our learning management system (Moodle), no classes are taught wholly online during the school year and only a handful during the summer. Faculty and students thrive on interacting in person, often in small courses. This face-to-face learning environment is amplified by the fact that the majority of students live on campus all four years. The communities we develop in our classes are at the heart of our pedagogical practices. How to maintain those communities while adapting on the fly to new technology weighed heavily on both instructors and students.

Additionally, the move to online learning required relocation off campus. Students returned to their homes or to transitional housing with relatives or host families. Accustomed to the freedoms of campus life, they experienced added pressure to their academic transition as they navigated their pandemic living arrangements. Through “How You Doin’?” check in forms that I had students fill out each week, I was aware of the complexity of their transition.

At the beginning of our move online, I told students that I hoped our class, which I started calling “Digi-Course 6000” with a smile, could be a respite for them --- that through remaining connected in our online work analyzing graphic texts that they might be able to feel the pleasure of learning and encountering new ideas. In the context of uncertainty and isolation, one assignment that resonated for students gave them the opportunity to pursue small creative projects as a way of demonstrating their learning.

Let’s Get Creative

The goal of the small creative projects assignment was to give students an alternate forum to show how they were engaging with the core concepts of graphic storytelling (we had been using Scott McCloud’s Understanding Comics as a key text) in a forum other than the kind of written analyses they might pursue in a journal entry or formal essay. The assignment required students to create two small projects which they could choose to submit for two of three possible deadlines. The kind of formative learning I was interested in having them pursue was more likely to happen as they experimented with different creative approaches. And, for those reluctant to step outside the comfort zone of writing a paper, two projects that were smaller in scope might also feel less intimidating.

I prepared a series of prompts within the assignment that might spark students’ interest but also encouraged them to suggest possibilities or to adapt my prompts to accomplish something they were interested in. I added options to the list whenever a new idea would emerge in class discussion. As we began Digi-Course 6000, I encouraged students to consider using a small creative project to illustrate their social distancing experience. Several students documented with poignancy the challenges of loneliness and of navigating disrupted living and learning environments. Others used the assignment to illustrate the conflicting messages of the United States’ pandemic response or the travails of technology replacing human contact. One student remarked that the creative project they pursued felt therapeutic because it gave them an opportunity to funnel their energy into creating something. It was an added benefit that they also recognized how the concepts we had been discussing in class enhanced their decision making. The creative projects were especially valuable after we went online because they offered a release from the typical assignments students had to sit at their computers to produce. Most broke out art supplies they had in their homes, flirted with written genres that stimulated their curiosity, or started listening to their music with heightened attention to the connection between image and sound. In many cases, their projects got them off their computers or at least outside of Google Docs and Moodle.

I consider this assignment as one that is reflective of “resilient pedagogy,” an approach encouraged at my institution as we plan for the fall semester. Such an assignment allows students to shine where they are able and encourages experimentation with different mediums. Inclusive and adaptable, it offers students the flexibility of choosing the due dates they want to meet and the agency to experiment with creative forms that interest them. While this assignment is rooted in an English course, encouraging creative expression across the disciplines can be beneficial and may give students unconventional ways to apply concepts that could be especially welcome as we move into another pandemic semester where online learning takes center stage.

Assessing Creative Projects

There is some trepidation in assigning creative projects. Students may wonder whether such an assignment poses a risk: will they be penalized if they are not creative in the “right” way? Instructors, too, may wonder how they should assess creative projects (see Zemits).

Because the courses in which I have used this assignment are not methods courses (i.e. the classes are about analyzing texts rather than producing them), it becomes necessary to have a rubric that prioritizes experimentation over an arbitrary determination of “quality.” Rather than create a context in which the whole of my assessment might feel punitive, I prepared a rubric that awards a significant number of points for doing the thing! Such a section of the rubric communicates that there is value in risk-taking, no matter the result. A smaller number of points was allocated to students’ approach and insight, points aimed to encourage students to be deliberate and thoughtful rather than haphazard.

So what is assessed with more rigidity? Central to the assignment is students’ preparation of a cover letter that explains how their decisions were shaped by our in class work. Not only was this section of the project where students were able to implement concepts, cite primary readings, and consider their creative decision-making in the context of our content, but it was also the facet of the assignment where they could more clearly give evidence that they were meeting or exceeding the criteria. Even if students’ creative experimentation didn’t turn out as well as they hoped it might, the cover letter was the place where they could demonstrate their critical thinking.

Returning to Community

As the course came to a close, I asked students in their weekly check-in to identify the projects that they wanted to include as part of our course exhibit. Using Padlet, the forum in which we’d held several online activities, I posted the students’ selected pieces. All who were able to attend our final Zoom call had a chance to discuss their projects and their process. Even as we ended the term in a much different way than we had imagined, students had used the content of our course to find ways to digest their social distancing experience or simply power through it. With their pieces hung together, our online exhibit became a celebration of the students’ resilience and an exciting way for them to reconnect from a distance.

Works Cited

Hart-Davidson, Bill. “Imagining a Resilient Pedagogy.” Michigan State University, 6 Apr. 2020, http://www.cal.msu.edu/about/longview/imagining-resilient-pedagogy.

Zemits, Birut Irena. “Representing Knowledge: Assessment of Creativity in Humanities.” Arts and Humanities in Higher Education, vol. 16, no. 2, Apr. 2017, pp. 173–187, doi:10.1177/1474022215601862.