<p>QUESTION:</p>
<p>Many people believe that closed doors make us creative. These people argue that obstacles and restrictions are necessary, for without them we would never be forced to come up with new solutions. But closed doors, either in the form of specific obstacles or a lack of opportunities, often prevent people from reaching their full creative potential.</p>
<p>Do closed doors make us creative? Plan and write an essay in which you develop your point of view on this issue. Support your position with reasoning and examples taken from your reading, studies, experience, or observations.</p>
<p>ESSAY:</p>
<p>Popular culture often romanticizes the rags to riches story and all its variants. People adore tales of those who rise above the fray and make something out of nothing, of those whose difficulties and obstacles can be turned into great inspiration and innovation. In reality though, creativity comes not from “closed doors” and missed chances, but from access to the variegated ideas and opinions of others. The greater the number of opportunities, the more fruitful the creativity.</p>
<p>Women’s rights activist Alice Paul is famous for the drastic tactics she employed to speed along the enfranchisement of women in America. She typically held very vocal and provocative demonstrations, picketed important government buildings such as the White House, and allowed herself to be jailed. In jail, she refused to eat and was force-fed raw eggs through a feeding tube and even relocated to the psychiatric ward. Ultimately, her treatment by prison staff and continued protests from other activists were enough to encourage the president at the time to pass the 19th Amendment, guaranteeing women the right to vote. The creative maneuvers that Paul employed however, were not thought of by her alone; rather, she had picked them up on earlier tips to England after seeing the activists there, and had embellished on them to fit her own goals. Clearly, without open doors and an access to outside ideas, she would have not been nearly as creative.</p>
<p>The Wright Brothers serve as another example of people whose creativity was fueled by access to different outside ideas. Wilbur and Orville Wright are known today for their creativity, perseverance, and success in building functional aircrafts when so many others before them had failed. However, they only decided to pursue a career in engineering and aviation after one of the brothers saw an article about a famous aviator and decided to explore the topic of flight further. Later, when they started to build their own prototypes, they worked off the ideas of others, both failed and successful, and perfected them until they succeeded. Again, if the Wright brothers had somehow been prevented access to different ideas, they would not have had the opportunity to be to creative or innovative</p>
<p>Often true innovation is spurred by an amalgam of ideas and thoughts. Open access to different opportunities is certainly necessary for people to reach their full creative potential, and closed doors hinder rather than advance this process.</p>
<p>(Any typos are the result of fast typing. This is a prompt from the SAT online course, but I dont trust their grading because its based on length alone. Ironically their example of a 6 essay was this really vague essay that didnt even pick a side, when usually people are always told to pick a side and stick with it. Oh well.)</p>