Idea generation, Modification and Development: The ISTA Journal By Dr. Derek Pigrum (Article from Scene 2006/7)
While the ISTA journal does not
by students today. In the
a master of this process, which
exist in one format, the generic
‘commonplace book’ students
often involved rapidly absorbing
term is a useful one, in that it
studying analysis, genesis and
and metamorphosing ideas by
refers to all work carried out by
literary composition would
other people. But he was not
teachers, in relation to students
enter products of individual
alone in keeping a notebook.
reflecting on their work. Whether
reading and notes on style for
Galluzzi (1996) states that there
this be a notebook, an IB Theatre
future use, on the grounds that
are in existence one hundred and
Arts Portfolio or an MYP Journal
they would, as Bacon stated,
fifty notebooks by other artist-
or another form that you use.
‘ensure copies (copiousness) of
engineers of the Renaissance
As such it lends clarity to that
invention’ (in Dixon, 1971, p.48).
that have never been published.
area of our work that is focused
In the renaissance artist’s note/
The practice of copying down
on students generating ideas in
sketch book, with its drawings
ideas by other people was not in
written/visual form.
and writing, it became the focal
the least at odds with ideas about
point of discussion of ideas and
creativity or originality based
their modification. The notebook,
on the interplay in rhetoric and
Introduction
like the ISTA journal today,
poetical composition between
This article is an attempt to
became an instrument both of
invention and imitation.
locate the complexity of idea
guidance, interaction and control
generation and development in
because it provided the means
Perhaps one of the most
the ISTA journal and its role in
to discuss and illustrate ideas
important tasks facing post-
sustaining the unending effort of
and changes, as well as a means
Romantic, expressionist and
construction that is characteristic
to check changes and mistakes
modernist theories of education
of creative work.
and to introduce corrections.
in the arts is to help our students
The sketchbooks of the Medieval
overcome what Bloom (1988) has
There is a correlation between
craftsmen were pattern books,
termed ‘the anxiety of influence’.
the origins of the creative use of
while the sketchbooks of the
All art involves artifice. The way
journals, the emergence of the
Renaissance artist-engineer,
we approach the effort and
sketchbook in the Renaissance
like the ISTA journal, effectively
artifice of creative construction
and the role of the ‘commonplace
constituted an experimental
and the quality of completed
book’ that is present in the
field (Pigrum, 2001). As we might
work will to a great extent be
way the ISTA journal is used
expect, Leonardo da Vinci was
determined by the way students
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