Torrance Journal for Applied Creativity

Creative Student Catalogs
Expect final products that are
remarkably novel. One of the author's
third-grade students created a catalog
entitled Robots Galore that featured a
wide range of automatons designed to
cook meals, wash windows, make music,
answer telephones, pick up children's
bedrooms, and even do homework! A
fifth-grade creative student's catalog,
Dream Homes, was modeled on free
real estate catalogs often found at the
entranceway and exits of grocery stores.
The amazing contents of Michelle's
Dream Homes catalog featured detailed
drawings of unique homes that might
be found around the world. Highlights
included a Chinese houseboat, cliff
dwellings at Mesa Verde National Park,
an Alaskan igloo, and a Bavarian castle.
Michelle's imaginary real estate catalog
even contained the ubiquitous perforated
coupon catalog readers could use to
receive future editions of Dream Homes.
Students' topics and themes can
range far and wide. Young bibliophiles
created catalogs that showcased their
favorite authors and illustrators. One
of Jan Brett's biggest fans designed and
executed a tribute to the literary heroine.
The Jan Brett's Best catalog featured
much Scandinavian scenery and multiple
examples of the author-illustrator's
signature and colorful page borders.
Hedge profiled Brett's career and noted
many of her most famous picture book
stories. The Mitten: A Ukrainian Folktale
received special treatment as the story's
human characters, Baba and Nicki,
recalled the mole, snowshoe rabbit,
hedgehog, owl, badger, fox, great bear,
and meadow mouse who all sought
warmth in the hilariously over-crowded
winter hand garment.
Older students can note and
highlight literary elements—characters,
plot, theme, and setting—found in
fiction in their catalog treatments of recent
Newbery Medal and Honor books
such as Kwame Alexander's Crossover
(Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2014)
and Kate DiCamillo's Flora and Ulysses:
The Illuminated Adventures (Candlewick
Press, 2013). One of the most highly
120
decorated juvenile books of the recent
publishing season is The Right Word: Roget
and His Thesaurus (Eerdmans Books,
2014). Challenge gifted readers to write
and illustrate seven to ten incidents
from Roget's life that can serve as The
Right Word Companion Catalog.
Theme catalogs may also be
extensions of class readings, topics, and
projects. Students reading Shakespeare's
Romeo and Juliet can create classroom
catalogs that might have helped either
Elizabethans or Verona citizens
complete their shopping. Students in
social studies classrooms can fashion
frontier-oriented catalogs featuring the
essentials that travelers on the Oregon
Trail would have needed to survive and
thrive. Science students learning about
weather can design catalogs that highlight
tools needed by meteorologists.
There is virtually no subject or
topic that cannot enable students of all
ages to create original and stimulating
catalogs. Two examples are noted here.
What's Your Favorite Animal? (Henry
Holt, 2014) is an animal anthology
fashioned by Eric Carle and 13 colleagues,
who contribute word and visual
images of their most favorite animals. In
this vibrantly colorful and imaginative
catalog, children's literature greats such
as Susan Jeffers, Peter Sis, Mo Willems,
and Rosemary Wells combine catalog
entries that celebrate with remarkable
visual and verbal creativity the animals
they prefer. Lane Smith extols the virtues
of elephants, Eric Carle salutes cats,
and Jon Klassen explains why he enjoys
watching ducks.
In a mature, adult work of
nonfiction, A History of the World in 100
Objects (Viking Penguin, 2011), Neil
MacGregor, the director of the British
Museum, catalogs 100 objects from an
ancient hand axe to a contemporary
credit card that tell the story of human
history across thousands of years.
Each entry in MacGregor's 100-object
“catalog” features a photograph plus an
erudite essay that includes the author's
rationale for highlighting these particular
objects given the museum's ownership
of eight million individual items.
Neil MacGregor's 100 oral commentaries
or BBC live broadcasts may be found
on the Internet via Google-type
searches.
Students in a world history or
humanities course can develop a similar
“catalog” that doubles as a history of
civilization. Students with an interest in
architecture can study the seven wonders
of the ancient world such as The
Great Pyramid and then work together
to produce a book that catalogs their
choices for the buildings and structures
that students in the distant future might
feature as wonders of the world today
such as the Sydney Opera House in
Australia. Other phenomena that can
be “catalogued” in similar fashion may
include the following: the 10 greatest
ideas of all time (e.g., non-violent peace
demonstrations); the 20 most valuable
inventions of all time (e.g., the airplane);
the 15 greatest historical events
in American history (e.g., the Boston
Tea Party); 25 of the world's natural
wonders to see in a lifetime (e.g., the Taj
Mahal). The list of topics is limited only
by the imagination of students and their
mentors.
Putting It Altogether: An E. Paul Torrance-Inspired
Creative Catalog
Charron was in the third grade
when she created her particularly unique
creative catalog. Charron is twice-exceptional.
Her creative catalog described
here highlights her gifts and talents in
the diverse fields of music, sports, the
arts, and mathematics. However, Charron
struggled with reading, writing,
and especially with timed tests. Her
exceptional creative catalog nevertheless
demonstrates the wide-spread gifts
Charron possessed even in a third-grade
classroom.
Charron's TAG teacher realized
that brainstorming often works
best when the number of participants is
kept to a range of four to five students.
In smaller groups, all participants have
more opportunities to contribute and
shy students are more forthcoming.
Thus, Charron was in one of five or six
separate groups of four students. The
first two tasks for all members of each
individual brainstorming group was to