The consensual technique for assessing creativity is widely used in research, but its validation has been limited to assessing the creativity of artifactsAmabile's (1982) pioneering work developing and validating the consensual assessment technique for evaluating the creativity of diverse creative products has made possible a broad range of experimental studies of creativity. The essential features of this procedure include giving subjects some prompt or instruction for creating some kind of product, and then having experts independently assess the creativity of those artifacts. For example, in one study "students were given a line drawing of a girl and a boy … [and] asked to write an original story in which the boy and the girl played some part" (Baer, 1994a, p. 39). The experts were then asked to rate the creativity of the stories on 1.0-to-5.0 scale, based on their own expert sense of what is more or less creative. Expert judges need not explain or defend their ratings in any way. They are simply asked to use their expert sense of what is creative in the domain in question to rate the creativity of the products in relation to one another. 1

Little research has been conducted on how gifted novices compare to experts in their judgments of creative writing. If novices and experts assign similar ratings, it could be argued that gifted novices are able to offer their peers feedback of a similar quality to that provided by experts. Such a finding would support the use of collaborative feedback in gifted classrooms. We asked gifted high school creative writers and three groups of experts (cognitive psychologists, creative writers, and teachers) to rate a set of 27 short stories and 28 poems for creativity using a scale of 1 to 6. The interrater agreement among the novices was within acceptable standards, and the agreement among the experts was very strong. When the ratings of novices were compared to the ratings of experts, a strong degree of correlation was found, supporting the use of peer feedback among gifted novice creative writers.

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Hox genes encode transcription factors (TFs) that establish morphological diversity in the developing embryo. The similar DNA-binding motifs of the various HOX TFs contrast with the wide-range of HOX-dependent genetic programs. The influence of the chromatin context on HOX binding specificity remains elusive. Here, we used the developing limb as a model system to compare the binding specificity of HOXA13 and HOXD13 (HOX13 hereafter), which are required for digit formation, and HOXA11, involved in forearm/leg development. We find that upon ectopic expression in distal limb buds, HOXA11 binds sites normally HOX13specific. Importantly, these sites are loci whose chromatin accessibility relies on HOX13. Moreover, we show that chromatin accessibility specific to the distal limb requires HOX13 function. Based on these results, we propose that HOX13 TFs pioneer the distal limb-specific chromatin accessibility landscape for the proper implementation of the distal limb developmental program.