Introduction
These examples were submitted by Ellen Pilsworth (University of Reading) and Katerina Karcher (University of Birmingham). The following information was extracted from their forthcoming article ‘Germany’s ‘1968’: New Questions and Directions’ in The Routledge Handbook of Teaching German: Contexts, Methods and Skills, edited by Ruth Whittle (Routledge)
The examples submitted come from a course taught at the University of Bristol in 2018, which approached German ‘1968’. In their own words:
Blending literary and historical approaches, our course at the University of Bristol ran over a period of 12 weeks, with each session lasting two hours. We wanted the students to encounter a range of authentic materials from the period, to leave them with a greater understanding of the ideological forces and events that shaped this period of German history, and to provide an opportunity to contribute to the debates on 1968 through a creative project of their own. The protest actions of the 1960s were often creative themselves, and we wanted the students to explore a creative approach to political participation and engagement in the module. You might say that we regarded creativity itself as a learning outcome for the course. In view of this, we made sure to give students frequent opportunities to take risks and develop their creativity before the creative assessment task.
(Pilsworth and Karcher, forthcoming)
Assessment
This creative practice was formative, and it was weighted at 30% of the overall mark. It consisted of a ‘creative contribution to a collaborative student blog’. Creative contributions could be creative and crafty. It could be a sculpture, a song, a collage, a painting, a poem, a short story, a journalistic piece, or something else entirely.
The submission was to be accompanied by a 200 word (max) write-up, explaining the thought process behind the creative piece, and how it relates to the ideas covered in the unit. The write-up could but did not have to contain a bibliography (not included in the word count).
Rationale
By creating something new in response to an idea or a topic, students were engaging with it critically. Their write-up was where they could explain the thought process behind the work in more detail.
Further examples
The results of the project can be accessed via a collaborative student blog:
Creative modern languages 