At What Point Does It Become Creative?

"I'm making a book report on tigers?" "Oh, for school?" "No, fur fun," he says, laughing at his own pun. "So, it's not a story?" I ask. He shakes his head. "It's a report. I'm reporting about the most interesting things I'm learning about tigers." "Cool." I want to suggest to him that he could do something more creative. Make a physical model. Create a baseball card for types of tigers. Choose a mythical creature. It is the type of assignment that I bristle against as a teacher. I'm quick to say that it's not very creative. But as I watch him synthesize multiple texts and tell it in his own voice and sketch his own pictures, I am struck by the creativity involved in the thinking process. My students are making their own arcade games right now. I stole the idea from Jeremy Macdonald and Gregory Hill. It seems creative. However, they often look at other prototypes of real arcades as they create their work. Is that inspiration? Is that research? Is that copping and being a collage artist? Some might say that this, the "maker space" is more creative than when they blog. However, constructing something (a story, an insight, an argument) out of nothing (which is never really nothing) seems to be creative. I'd like to think that Keeper of the Creatures has been a creative project. So, here's where it breaks down for me: there are some things that seem inherently uncreative. Filling out fill-in-the blank worksheets comes to mind. However, it seems to me that the dichotomy of creator/consumer is fuzzy at best. At what point is an endeavor a creative endeavor?