Abstract

ALONSO, Leonor  and  AGUIRRE DE RAMIREZ, Rubiela. Creative writing at school: a pedagogical experience with/about linguistic games and metaphors. Rev. Ped [online]. 2004, vol.25, n.74, pp.375-400. ISSN 0798-9792.

The authors describe a pedagogical experiment with 5^th grade (10 year old) children, designed to stimulate verbal imagination by means of exercises that allowed the children to play with meanings, sounds, rhymes and metaphors. The sample consisted of 39 children from a public school and 22 from a private school in the state of Mérida, Venezuela. It was observed that the children were not inhibited by feeling that they were being evaluated on the formal aspects of writing - particularly spelling - and enjoyed the multiple possibilities of playing with language and using it poetically. This was shown by their use in texts of words that have a restricted use in school. It was also clear that giving the children written models stimulated the imagination and creative production: contrary to pedagogical theory, the pupils did not copy, but produced creative texts based on the models. This was the case with rhymes, riddles and tongue-twisters.

Keywords : Writing teaching; school-children; verbal imagination; poetic language.