Cultivating Mindful Learning in EFL Poetry Class: a Way to Make Creative and Productive Writers

Cultivating mindful learning in the context of pandemic of covid-19 is a choice to stimulate creativity and productivity. In poetry class, mindful learning takes place in the creative process where creativity and productivity are focused on. This research aims at investigating how mindful learning can be cultivated to stimulate the creativity and productivity of the students who took poetry course during the pandemic of covid-19 through online learning, particularly to know how the creative process happened. In the context of poetry course in English Language Education, mindful learning is implemented to grow the creativity and productivity in students’ poetry writing skills. This research is a qualitative research using narrative inquiry design. The instruments used are observation sheet, mindful poetry journal and self-reflection. From the observation, mindful poetry journal and self-reflection it can be seen that students undergo a series of process that can cultivate their creativity and productivity. The findings show that there are many values found in students’ creative process that grows their creativity and productivity. The values found during the mindful practice are freedom to think, freedom to choose, freedom to express, freedom to decide, and freedom to reflect, that lead to creativity and productivity. It means that mindful learning has a big impact on the students’ creativity and productivity in writing poetry that they become creative and productive writers. Received: 19 January 2021 Revised: 23 January 2021 Accepted: 28 January 2021


Introduction
Meaningful learning is a learning that liberates. The freedom to learn was a breakthrough announced by the Minister of Education and Culture Nadiem Makarim. According to Nadiem Makarim, Merdeka Belajar is a freedom of learning in which the students are free to choose the subjects they prefer (Ministry of Education and Culture, 2020). The policy of Kampus Merdeka or Freedom to learn in University is aimed at stimulating students to master a set of life skills which are required in real life. The learning process in Kampus Merdeka is an implementation of students-centered learning which is expected to give a contextual experience which will raise the students' competence in real life. The goals of Merdeka Belajar are to make sure that the students make use of their talents and passion at its best by the experiential learning. But firstly, they should be free. Freedom of thinking must be pursued right at the beginning. Free and independent learning will stimulate independent learners. With independent learners, innovation, motivation, solutions and reflection on social issues in society will be born.
Carl Rogers in 1969(in Weibell, 2011 firstly introduced Freedom to learn from which one of the principles stated "Learning is facilitated when the student participates responsibly in the learning process. "When he chooses his own directions, helps to discover his own learning resources, formulates his own problems, decides his own course of action, lives with the consequences of these choices, then significant learning is maximized" (p. 162). This goes along with the principles of Kampus Merdeka to promote freedom to learn in university. According to Ministry of Education and Culture (2020), the university students are expected to be skillful, persistent, flexible and agile to compete in real life. Therefore, higher education is required to be always ready to move and follow the rapid changes in society.
In the context of English Education Study Program, in particular, independent learning must occur in every subject. One of the courses in the English Education Study Program is Poetry. Poetry is a product of literature or literary work that students find difficult to comprehend. This is because Poetry is a complex form of literary work, which has a structure of lines, stanzas, and rhymes that contain of metaphors. In poetry, there are many interpretations, imaginations, reflections and meanings. Poetry writer or poet uses the freedom to write inspiration and ideas in the form of diction, stanza, lines, rhymes, meters. Poetry is a literary work that expresses the meaning of a personal story, event, feeling, social issues, and others through figurative language.
Learning a poetry is tough and long learning processes that have full of linguistic sensitivity. A poetry does not only teach language as a symbol, but language as an expression of feelings, an expression of creativity and language innovation. There are a creative process of listening, absorbing, understanding, reflecting. The creative process in poetry is to treat language as a medium of expression for feelings, experience, and events. Poetry exists as a product of freedom of thought and imagination, freedom of language expression, as well as freedom to choose a language style. If it is a freedom to create a work of art, of language creation, how do you teach students in Poetry courses to be "free"?
Freedom of learning can be started from early. Poetry is one of the ways to create the path to freedom of learning. Poetry is a verbal work of art which aims at expressing ideas, imagination, opinion, thoughts, feelings, and criticism. According to Perrine (1982), poetry might be defined as a kind of language that says more and says it more intensely than does ordinary language. It is written in the form of stanza, which is composed from lines, rhyme, rhythm, meter and figurative languages. Perrine (1982) further stated that poetry must be an organism whose every part serves a useful purpose and cooperates with every other part to preserve and express the life that is within it. Poetry is not only a means of expression but also a bridge of freedom to express. The required strategy must let them learn the creative process behind Poetry, such as liberating, motivating, inspiring and reflecting. As a Poetry lecturer, researcher understands that Poetry learning must be liberating. One of the learning models that researchers want to apply in this Learning Poetry case is Mindful Learning. The process is focused on the process of cultivating Mindful Learning to grow students' creativity and productivity in Learning Poetry.
Mindful Learning is a learning process that emphasizes calmness, sensitivity, and openness in thinking which firstly introduced by a professor of psychiatry from Harvard University named Ellen J Langer. Mindfulness is a condition of flexible thinking with sensitivity to surroundings, paying attention to novelty and being open to context (Langer, 2000, p. 221). This can only happen if the mind is independent. Mindful learning is a means to independence, as opposed to mindless learning, because so far students have learned mindless or less sensitive, with empty thoughts, fully believed with existing concepts and no longer need to be questioned, as if the existing concepts are the absolute truth. The existence of continuous repetition and the absence of novelty in perspective makes learning progress stagnant and there is no movement. While mindful learning emphasizes the opposite, which includes peace of mind, self-awareness, sensitivity to context, flexible and open. The process that occurs is the creative process of learning to find oneself, before finding the learning process.
Unconsciously, Mindful Learning-based actually has been carried out through a creative learning process that involves students in the process of reflection, increasing awareness, sensitivity and creativity. The effectiveness of Mindful Learning in enhancing learning has proven several times by several studies. The first is a study entitled Mindful Learning conducted by Ellen J Langer (2000). According to Langer, Mindfulness is a flexible state of mind, where we absorb in the present, paying attention to new things and sensitive to context. In 2009, Yeganeh and Kolb in their research stated that Mindful Learning combined with Experiential Learning would encourage better awareness of the present and make students sensitive to context. This learning produces awareness gained from experience to gain new knowledge and new perspectives. In 2016, Wang and Liu's research concluded that mindful learning increase the effectiveness of learning English as a foreign language in China. Still in the same year as Wang and Liu, Chase Davenport and Francesco Pagnini concluded that the application of Mindful Learning is able to increase opportunities for students to practice learning skills for creativity, collaboration, communication, and critical thinking in the 21st century. Mindful learning also has an effect on increasing student productivity at work. This is seen from the research of Piscayanti (2017) which shows that 90.2% of 102 students stated that they are accustomed to being productive at work after the implementation of mindful learning. Furthermore, Davis and Hayes (2011) said that the concepts found in mindfulness are applied to help students deal with a problem or pressure, so students can be more productive, empathetic, and successful at work. This is reinforced by research conducted in 2020 by Saputra that states Mindful Learning has a significant effect on student writing achievement. This indicates that mindful learning is very useful to be applied in literature learning. This research intended to examine the process of cultivating Mindful Learning in Poetry course to stimulate students' creativity productivity in the English Education Study Program. However, previous researches don't show the specific context of learning in the time of covid-19 pandemic which force online learning instruction. The researcher wants to know how Mindful Learning can grow student's freedom of learning especially cultivating student creativity and productivity in poetry writing in the context of pandemic of covid 19. The novelty of this research is how Mindful Learning could grow creativity and productivity of students in writing poetry through the online learning due to the pandemic of covid 19.

Literature Review
In order to learn freedom, learners and teachers need to have independent ways of learning. Mindfulness is the way to achieve that independence. Mindfulness is a state of mind that is calm, flexible, contextual and open. Mindful Learning was firstly introduced by Ellen Langer in 1989 which emphasizes the importance of discovering new things and finding differences with old things. This thought construction occurs when the learner is independent and has great curiosity, or is in a conscious state of learning. Mindful learning according to Langer (1997 in Yeganeh andKolb, 2009, p.14) is as follows; when we are in a conscious state (mindful), we can see from several different points of view, see information as something new, know the context, receive information and make classifications based on that information. In the Langer (2000) article, it stated that mindfulness causes increased competence, decreased accidents, increased memory, creativity, positive impact, decreased stress, and increased health and longevity (p. 220). Cooper and Boyd (1996) in Wang and Liu (2016, p. 143) said, "Mindfulness involves renewal, thinking, formulating meaning and the benefits of learning." In an effective mindful learning, the teacher helps students construct meaning, reflect on learning and make use of the learning.
In the context of poetry, here are among some of the most prominent words from the experts about the relationship between poetry and mindful learning.
First, Gibbs, R.W (1994) in the book of The Poetics of Mind stated that "human cognition is fundamentally shaped by various poetic or figurative processes" (p.1.) and he further elaborated "figuration is not merely a matter of language but provides much of the foundation for thought, reason and imagination" (p.435). It means that poetry is not only a matter of expressing imagination, but also a construction of thoughts and beliefs. Therefore it needs wider perspectives on sharpening and deepening thoughts.
Second, Heaney, S. (1995) in the book of Crediting Poetry: Nobel Lecture stated that "I credit poetry…for making possible a fluid and restorative relationship between the mind's centre and its circumference… for its truth to life, in every sense of that phrase" (p.450.) and he further elaborated "poetry's credit is the power to remind us that we are hunters and gatherers of values" (p.467). It means that poetry is made for a vision and voice. It is also made for values and reflection to gain more insights.
Third, Connelly, D. (1999) in the book Being in the Present Moment: Developing the Capacity for Mindfulness in Medicine stated that the power of poetry is to insist on immediacy and attention to the present moment. Poetry can both illustrate the state of awareness through the response it elicits in the reader and act as a powerful means for developing the capacities for attentiveness" (p.120) and he further stated that "There is a kinship between poetry's ability 'to be in the present' and physicians need to overcome distractions, to achieve poetry's simultaneity through some form of mindfulness" (p.123).
By looking at those statements, it means that in the context of learning Poetry, Mindful Learning is very relevant. The reasons are as follows. First, Poetry requires a new perspective. Mindful Learning stimulates the new perspective. As Gibbs stated that poetry is a construction of thought, reason and imagination. It requires new perspectives.
Second, Poetry requires flexibility. Mindful Learning has that concept. Poetry takes place in a flexible atmosphere, both in finding ideas, executing and evaluating. Third, Poetry requires calm thinking and openness. This is also in accordance with the concept of Mindful Learning, which is a state of mind where the mind is left calm, open, and sensitive accordance to the context. Fourth, Poetry requires sensitivity and creativity, namely sensitivity to context and renewal in terms of creativity. The flexibility of thinking, we are conditioned to always learn, receive new knowledge and considering new perspectives. Given context sensitivity, we know what to stand on and how to behave. With renewal, we are always innovating, so we stay creative and productive.
Several studies also support Langer's theory of Mindful Learning. Various studies have found that Mindful Learning is very useful in learning. The most recent is research from Yang Wang and Chao Liu (2016) on the use of Mindful Learning in learning. They found that Mindful Learning was able to foster a sense of belonging to learning, where they built and aware of a meaningful learning process, while mindful writing was able to help them find ideas and be aware of their own thoughts. This research also shows that mindfulness can facilitate learning well, foster creativity and intelligence. While, mindful cooperative learning causes them to learn from other people, reflect on themselves and think critically. Another research conducted by Chase Davenport and Francesco Pagnini (2016) concluded that the application of Mindful Learning can increase opportunities for students to practice 21st century learning skills, namely creativity, collaboration, communication and critical thinking. The process of exploration, expression and exhibition encourages students to find several specific and multi-solution to several problems. This causes student to be always think openly and flexible to the change, think critically and creatively. They also learn to appreciate the learning process itself.
Among previous educational theories, Langer's theory has the advantage perspective. Fluellen (2010) said that from Langer's Theory, students could enter new knowledge, new knowledge, and new information. Therefore, the Mindful Learning theory from Langer used in this study includes several important aspects or dimensions, namely: 1. Openness to new things, including innovation, creativity and productivity 2. Multi perspectives, including diversity of viewpoints, pluralism, respect for differences 3. Reflective, includes awareness to do better, improve and self-evaluate 4. Flexible, includes the courage to change according to new knowledge, adapt and evolve 5. Contextual, including sensitivity to the surroundings, absorbing issues that occur in the closest environment, and based on existing realities 6. Critical, including high reasoning power, logical and systematic.
With the six principles of Mindful Learning mentioned above, learning Poetry in the context of this research will be better in terms of stimulating creativity and productivity. Those six dimensions will lead to values such as freedom to think, freedom to choose, freedom to express, freedom to decide, and freedom to reflect. Thus, this research will focus on these 6 values to be analyzed during the creative process.

Research Methods
The design of this research is narrative inquiry. According to Morawski & Rottmann (2016), the use of narrative inquiry is prominent as useful approach that plays a role in natural human-centered research of the experiences which has a great impact on the individual. In this context of poetry writing, the experience of writing a poetry is a great reflection on individual narrative. The voices that are heard behind a work of art (in this context is poetry) matter and significantly important. It is the narrative that builds the story of the experience, the feeling, the values shared. The concept of narrative can be refined in a view that research is a construction and reconstruction of personal and social stories (Jonassen, 1997 in Webster andMertova, 2007). Polkinghorne (1988( , p. 150 in Wertz (2011) wrote, "We achieve our personal identities and self-concept through the use of the narrative configuration, and make our existence into a whole by understanding it as an expression of a single unfolding and developing story". Therefore, a great story behind the poetry should be taken as the original voices heard through figurative language.
The research subjects are 15 students who took poetry course in English Language Education Ganesha University of Education in the pandemic academic year 2020/2021 with Mindful and Creative Learning intervention. They are selected through purposive sampling technique. The 15 students are selected from the population of fourth semester students through the preliminary study which indicated that they have mindful journal of poetry and sensitivity to context. The instruments used in the research include observation sheet, self-reflection and mindful poetry journal. The data gained from observation sheet, self-reflection, and mindful poetry journal covered these creative processes; 1. how mindful learning is conducted 2. how creative learning is stimulated 3. how language learning happens The data then analyzed descriptively and critically. Meanwhile the validation of the process according to Polkinghorne (1988) in Webster and Mertova (2007) is more closely associated with meaningful analysis. He also maintains that reliability is not the stability of the measurement, but rather the trustworthiness of the notes or transcripts. In this context the meaningful analysis would be based on the deep analysis and trusted interpretation of the data gained from observation sheet, mindful poetry journal and self-reflection.

Results and Discussion
The purpose of this research is to know how Mindful Learning in Poetry class is implemented in the pandemic of covid 19. This covers the process how mindful learning is carried out, how are the creativity and productivity stimulated through mindful learning, and how the students reflect on their learning. The analysis of data revealed that there are 6 values found during the observation, creative process, and reflection of Mindful learning. Those 6 values are freedom to think, freedom to choose, freedom to express, freedom to decide, and freedom to reflect. Those values were gained from 6 dimensions of mindfulness according to Langer such as openness, multi perspective, reflective, flexible, contextual and critical.

Freedom to think
Some dimensions of mindful learning that leads to Freedom to think are openness, multi perspectives and flexible. In the process of learning, it was found that the students are stimulated to open their mind, sensitive to context, feel their emotions, and share their feelings. In the creative process, the students are stimulated to formulate their thoughts through words, making a flow of thoughts and describe the thoughts. This is the stage where everything comes to mind and flow freely. Freedom to think is also stimulated and cultivated through the process of understanding and comprehending a context, from which the students will relate their feelings to appropriate context. The example of creative writing process is as follows.

You can't blame a mirror To show your error 2. The breeze leads me to the memory Surrounded by mystery 3. My past was taken by rain Feeling abstain Hard to refrain 4. The night covers your shadow
The truth that I look for tomorrow In this poetry, the writer free-write everything comes on the writer's mind. First about the mirror-error. Mirror is the symbol of honesty, while error is the action, the mistake that was done, but seen and felt. So mirror is the reflection of self, to show the error. Therefore it cannot be blamed for revealing the truth. Second, the writer writes about the breeze that leads to the memory. Which memory? In the writer's perception memory which was surrounded by mistery. Third, the writer writes about the past which was taken by rain, that leads to the feeling of abstain which was hard to refrain. For the writer the three words of rain, abstain, and refrain are rhyming perfectly and they show the same feeling of loneliness. The last, the writer writes about the night who is personified as shadow that is looked for tomorrow. Freedom to think is revealed here since the writer uses the voice within to be expressed out. Some other free writing can be seen as follows.

Poetry 2 (Student 2)
I grumbled in the dark and the silence I need a sincere hug Not laughter that seemed to mock me Who, who will care about me Nothing, nobody Friend, who is that? They are only the actors of a show Freedom to think can be seen from the writer's view about dark and silence in his state of mind. He also questioned about the definition of a friend. What is friend, and who is friend. In his mind, friend is the actor of a show. This freedom to think is stimulated through observations, reflections, and mindful journal.

Photos have a memory I always perpetuate it But that is stupid Including me who is stupid like a dumb ass A photo of a man in a crowded place Nightmare, why did that man do it
From the poetry we can see the idea of the writer about a certain memory that the writer thinks it is stupid. About a photo of a man in a crowded place, which is like a nightmare. It is also considered as a free writing because there is not yet a certain form of a poetry structure. It is also a flow of thought that just written down without editing. Freedom to think is stimulated through the long process of writing.

My life is like a kite Flying high and blown by the wind Controlled by someone Stretched, pulled, and will be cut off
This poetry expresses the idea of the writer who acts as a kite that flies high and blown by the wind, controlled by someone, not having freedom. The writer picked the metaphor "my life is like a kite" as a symbol of how "unfree" life is, because it is controlled and But somehow this is not yet a fixed poetry, because there should be other support of stanzas, lines, and rhyme to make the poetry complete.
Students feel more focused in thinking according to the conditions with what they felt. Shapiro, S.L. (2001) supported that the statement which states about Mindful Learning has a positive effect on learning openness, emotion, ways of thinking and relationships with others. Kabat-Zinn (1990) described Mindful Learning as a method that teaches the absence of assumptions or non-constructive assessments, helping students to be more aware of their learning process that acquired with full awareness and supervision. Supported by the statement that Mindful Learning can stimulate students' creative thinking (Baas et al., 2014). With the stimulation of students, Poetry learning by applying Mindful Learning can explore the experiences of students who are very open in reflecting and responding to everything that happens in life with the learning process they face.

Freedom to choose
In the context of pandemic, having multi perspectives is a part of crisis awareness. Having alternatives, having choices are part of life issues. Multi perspectives helps us a lot in understanding situations and having more wisdom to accept different responses. Having multi perspectives allows us to respect for differences including diversity of viewpoints, pluralism, respect for differences. Therefore the process of writing a poetry is a freedom to choose which perspective we want to take and why. The example can be seen from the mindful observation journal as follows.

Mindful Observation Journal 1 (Student 5)
I know we have differences. I know we have many things that are not the same. I know you hold the cross, while I hold the prayer beads. You glorify your bar, but I do not worship objects. You really like pork, but I forbid it. However, behind thousands of differences, there is one reason that keeps me going, that is your loyalty, our sense of mutual struggle, and the conscience that says you are my life's companion ... forever.
In the mindful observation above, the writer tries to observe her feeling closely, subjectively and attentively. It means that she chooses to be open-minded, free to think, as well as free to choose. The mindful observation leads to mindful feeling on many, that she is finally aware of the consequences of the choices. Poetry allows freedom to choose which requires high creativity to produce products and ideas that reflect flexible, open in the learning process. By applying the Mindful Learning method to Poetry course, students can reflect on the results of the Poetry learning process, which is effective and involves learning contextually, namely there is a new perspective, flexibility, and openness in thinking. This affects the flexible patterns of students in creative thinking to create innovative of Poetry works. Freedom to choose is the impact of how creativity is grown and productivity is stimulated.

Freedom to decide
Mindful learning allows the students to free write anything comes to their mind, and poetry somehow is a journey to the voice within. In the mindful learning, all feelings are counted, appreciated, and respected. Freedom to think, freedom to choose will lead to freedom to decide. As it can be seen from the following mindful observation. Here the writer wants to decide something about his relationship, however there are some considerations. Mindful learning allows this process to happen during the poetry class. This shows that students in learning Poetry experience a positive influence on the Mindful Learning perspective which includes several aspects in it. Previous research by Saputra (2020) also found Mindful Learning had a significant effect on student writing achievement. His research found that with Mindful Learning, students could positively explore new perspectives, prioritize reflection, and be contextual. This aspect is supported by Piscayanti (2017) regarding the results of her research on the application of Mindful Learning in literature learning. In addition, the findings obtained are renewal, innovation, new perspectives and knowledge. From the two studies, concepts related to the application of Mindful Learning in Poetry learning include openness to new things, multi-perspective, reflective, flexible, contextual, and critical. All this will be resulted in the freedom to decide the best.

Freedom to express
Mindful learning allows the students to express whatever they want to express, since there is no right nor wrong. In poetry, there is never bad and good poetry however there is truthful or honest poetry. It can be felt, imagined, and visualized. This poetry represents how creativity is grown by mindful learning. As stated by Langer (2000), mindful learning can improve competence, improve student memory and supported by creativity that has a positive effect. The positive results described are in line with the objectives and results of this study regarding the effect of the application of mindful learning on student creativity and productivity in Poetry learning. The implementation of Mindful Learning is very effective to stimulate creativity and productivity. This goes along with the research by Piscayanti et.al (2020) which says that Mindful Learning can stimulate students' creativity and productivity. It is proven that after mindful learning, the students' mean score is 82.90, while the mean score in experimental group is 89.80. It is proven that the experimental group performed better result than control group.

Freedom to reflect
It includes awareness of the context, sensitivity of the issues, and flexibility to see the reality. Reflection is the way we see ourselves in relation to the context. Example below shows how a poetry is written as the reflection of the context.

Poetry 6 (Student 8)
Mother, did you hear that? This result agrees to the most recent is research from Yang Wang and Chao Liu (2016) on the use of Mindful Learning in learning. They found that Mindful Learning was able to foster a sense of belonging to learning, where they built and aware of a meaningful learning process, while mindful writing was able to help them find ideas and be aware of their own thoughts. This research also shows that mindfulness can facilitate learning well, foster creativity and intelligence. While, mindful cooperative learning causes them to learn from other people, reflect on themselves and think critically.
From the results above, we can say that Mindful Learning has at least five values to stimulate creativity and productivity, namely; freedom to think, freedom to choose, freedom to decide, freedom to express and freedom to reflect, which were born from six dimensions of Mindful Learning. According to Chase Davenport and Francesco Pagnini (2016), it concluded that the application of Mindful Learning can increase positive opportunities in training student learning skills in the 21st century, especially creativity, productivity and critical thinking. This point is very relevant to the teaching of literature that unconsciously is in Mindful Learning that inserts character education values according to the guidelines of the educational curriculum.
Based on the results obtained, Mindful learning could increase student creativity and productivity in writing The intended productivity is the process of writing the Poetry that applies Mindful Learning, where students can produce works that match their creativity. Therefore, based on (Rob Pope, 2005) stated that creativity is aligned with Mindful Learning to produce maximum productivity. Mindful Learning is very effective in applying the world of education because it is in accordance with the context of learning that occurs. In addition, based on the results of the study emphasized the significant results that felt in Poetry learning productivity. This is supported by Jerry E . Fluellen Jr (2010) in his article about Mindfulness Learning 2020 regarding the Mindful Learning paradigm in learning which underlines learning as a process of accepting a continuous change of experience.

Conclusion
Based on the results obtained, student creativity and productivity in writing Poetry is stimulated and cultivated through series of process, namely observation, mindful poetry journal and reflection. This is the real experience from which students undergo and engage in the process of Poetry writing. The creativity and productivity are the mindful process of writing which underlines learning as a process of accepting a continuous change of experience. However this study is limited only in the context of poetry course experienced by 15 students in an EFL classroom in the department of English Language Education, Universitas Pendidikan Ganesha. Further research can be done to deepen the knowledge on how poetry can be the source of freedom of thinking, freedom of expression, and freedom of action.