"Thinking is the intentional act of making connections" (100).
"No one would argue that connecting the dots is creative" (99). This line is bluntly stated by the authors and is honestly very true. The simple idea of dots being connected is very boring and lacks any kind of creativity whatsoever. However, the text goes on to say that while this idea is boring, when we as writers begin to connect ideas together in our writing, it takes on a whole new form and suddenly becomes an entirely new paper.
In my own personal writing, connecting the dots is something that I can say I do pretty well. In each paragraph, I use one idea from my thesis, and break it down sentence by sentence until I feel that my argument is strong and persuasive enough. I do this with the rest of my ideas included in the thesis and in the conclusion, paragraph, I wrap all of my ideas together by restating my thesis in a creative way to bring my audience full circle.
Another great idea discussed in the text are the "three most important words in the English language." These words are the conjunctions, "and, or, and but." They connect sentences and phrases, but most importantly IDEAS together. These connections allow the writer to expand on idea and keep the reader entertained throughout the entire piece of writing. Although I stated above that connecting was one of my strong suits, I believe that I can still implement more of these words into my writing. Sometimes I have great ideas come out, but the lack of using these conjunctions kills the idea and makes my writing less interesting.
The fun video below goes into detail of how connections are made between words and why they make such a big difference in the entertainment value of one's writing.
This reading for this blog discusses the importance of diverging and how it affects our levels of creativity. The authors chose to use the Robert Frost poem, "The Road Not Taken" to open up and it reads,
Though starting off with this poem that even uses the word "diverging" seems unoriginal, the authors address this fact and state that people miss seeing what it really is about. They state that, "Frost diverges from the expected because his poem about divergence is actually about the failure to diverge" (Miller and Jurecic, 253). This divergence from the normal is what brings out the true creativity of a writer and allows one to avoid falling into the same old boring style of writing. In my work specifically, I seem to follow a strict pattern of introduction, a few paragraphs, and then wrap it up with a conclusion. However, these papers lack creativity and it makes my work less interesting to the reader because they know what they are getting before they have even started. This year, I have been doing my best to "diverge" as the book would say and be a little more free in my writing. So far, this has actually paid off tremendously as my grades have boosted from past essays. Departing from the norm and my lack of creative writing has allowed to to travel down the so called "road less taken" and unlock a creative portion of my mind that I never knew existed.
In order to diverge for this blog post, I did some outside research that really helped me understand the importance of divergence even better. I stumbled upon a video that I have attached down below that speaks to the importance of implementing divergence in the school system and how students need to be taught to be innovators. A classroom becomes boring when the activities become redundant. This eliminates the creative minds of the students and hinders their ability to truly diverge.
