Writing with the hands, thinking with the body

Craft and Making Practice as a foundation for a pedagogy of creativity in writing

Abstract

This paper proposes an unprecedented dialogue between two pedagogical traditions developed in parallel without systematic encounter: the Italian tradition of creativity — from Munari to Rodari to Malaguzzi — and the Nordic tradition of Craft and Making Practice (CMaP). Through an inter- and trans-disciplinary approach integrating pedagogy of creativity, cognitive neuropsychology, and educational sciences, the paper shows how CMaP — with Pöllänen's holistic craft, the materiality of gesture theorized by Ingold, Sennett, and Malafouris, and the narrative meanings documented by Kouhia — provides the epistemological foundations and pedagogical models that the Italian tradition had intuited without systematizing. Handwriting is reread in its dual graphic-expressive and narrative dimensions as a craft practice generative of identity and eudaimonic well-being, relevant across the lifespan and particularly at different evolutionary phases of schooling. Neuropsychological research (Longcamp et al., 2008; Van der Meer & Van der Weel, 2017; Mueller & Oppenheimer, 2014) confirms the irreducibility of handwriting as embodied cognition. Implications concern didactic design, assessment of creative processes, and the formation of teachers capable of inhabiting their writing practice as reflective practitioners.