Class Notes on Creative Thinking Skills
Rule #1 for developing one’s creativity:
Keep Open
Creative Thinking Skill
This phrasal verb changes everything.
Everything. EVERYTHING.
English is an ambiguous language
More people in the world speak English as a second language than as a first and getting phrasal verbs right is the key. Get your word pictures right and you can communicate in English.
In a nutshell, phrasal verbs are a combination of a verb and one or more adverbial or prepositional particles that turn the verb into a figurative phrase.
Take the word ‘keep,’ for example. “Keep off,” “keep out,” “keep on keeping on.” There are at least 28 phrasal verbs that use the word “keep.” While these endless turns of phrase roll off the tongue among us native English speakers, they practically choke foreign language learners. Listening to radio, watching TV and immersive experiences are direct channels to framing reference for learning the endlessness of idiomatic expressive English. That’s because phrasal verbs are contextual idiomatic chunks of parlance. English is literally packed with phrasal verbs. “Packed,” get it? “Get it.” Yep, phrasal verbs literally pop up all the time.
A phrasal verb is a gateway to developing creative potential.
To “keep open” is to defer judgment and delay decision making. In doing so, you are better able to discover what might be. Keep open and you enter the world of possibility, the language of creativity. Ponder possibility and the opportunity to shape outcome emerges.
Mapping language for learning
As native English speakers, phrasal verbs are automated for us. To understand them, it helps to literally draw out phrasal verbs as mind maps to make connections and delineate nuance.
Practice keeping open regularly in order to shift toward creative thinking. And what if you practice keeping open so much that you consciously become unconscious in the language of creativity? Well then you would have a creative thinking skill that truly can change everything. For creativity is the language of possibilities.
WoC students in Gordian knot exercise stay open to problem solve
Language to practice keeping open
“Tell me more about that.”
“Let’s give it some time, stay open to possibilities, talk about what else might work etc.”
“Let’s not make a decision yet.”
WoC students make a web to conceptualize mind mapping
Mindmapping phrasal verbs
