A general definition of divergent thinking is:
"A thought process or method used to generate creative ideas by exploring many possible solutions." Wikipedia
What's interesting about this concept is how little we use it in education. So often as teachers we are looking for one "right" answer and penalize any other "wrong" answers. I think that this concept is a great tool for the English classroom and should be utilized more. As readers, we can only guess at what the author meant when writing a piece of work, so why not use divergent thinking to think of more creative possible answers. Creativity is a wonderful gift and we should celebrate this gift, not stifle it for the sake of testing. Below is a great video of a lecture Ken Robinson gave which tackles this very subject, along with other topics regarding our education system.
Hey I was just talking about this in another class about how we are not letting the students think more freely and off the beaten path. I think a huge problem in education that effects this is standardize testing. So many teachers are just focused on teaching to the test in hopes that their students will test well (and the school will potentially get more funding). But this is WRONG. We should be encouraging students to open their minds and interpret literature for themselves. Interesting.
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