Editor’s Word: This weblog submit was written by Amber Sutton, LICSW, ABD, a social work teacher on the College of Alabama at Birmingham, in collaboration with college students from her undergraduate social work analysis course in the course of the Spring 2022 semester. The scholars are (in alphabetical order): Iva Burdette, Jackie Chavez-Martinez, Jennifer Dussich, Courtney Kramer-Williams, Katie Kramer, Hannah Marsh, Rachel Shunnarah, Natalie Trammell, Ahmia Useless, and Ella Wolfe. On this weblog submit, Amber and the scholars share how they used poetic evaluation to reply some age-old questions – What does it imply to be a social employee, and what’s analysis? You may also learn their two poems.
When agreeing to show SW 320 Analysis Strategies to BSW college students on the College of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB), I knew I needed to spotlight other ways to conduct analysis that add a component of humanity to the info and encourage the scholars to make use of analysis to share energy.
We began the category by studying Ann Hartman’s 1990 article, The Many Ways of Knowing. This text stays simply as related right now because it did then and has performed a basic function in growing my relationship with analysis. Hartman’s editorial essay calls on social employees to acknowledge that every contribution provides to our information and deepens our understanding. She boldly states, “there are various truths, and there are various methods of figuring out” (p. 3). This text served as the inspiration of the course as a result of I needed the scholars to grasp that quantitative and qualitative strategies are an integral a part of social work analysis. Our occupation misses out once we middle on quantitative analysis as the one legitimate means of figuring out.
Throughout our very firstclass, I offered giant post-it notes and markers. Then, allotting 20 minutes, I requested the scholars to reply these two questions in a means that felt most comfy to them (phrases, drawings, and so forth.):
- What does being an expert social employee imply to you?
- How do you outline analysis?
After the train, the scholars and I processed the exercise. I requested if anybody wish to share any of their solutions. We adopted up the dialog by addressing any further ideas or hesitations that got here up for them, together with some issues they’re trying ahead to studying in the course of the semester. I saved the responses. In direction of the tip of the semester, after we accomplished the readings and discussions from the textbook, I requested the scholars to take about quarter-hour to reply these two questions once more. They weren’t required to connect their identify to their responses. After jotting down their ideas, they discovered their preliminary responses (besides for 2 college students who have been unable to hitch us for the primary class) and in contrast their two units of solutions. We opened the dialogue by evaluating and contrasting their first set of solutions to their second set. Did something shock them? Similarities? Variations? To mannequin analysis, I requested for the scholar’s permission to gather their most up-to-date responses and knowledgeable them that I might take their nameless knowledge and carry out some technique of research, the place they might full member checking and share their ideas and suggestions. All ten college students agreed.
Earlier within the semester, as a part of a reflexivity project, we used a mannequin of the I Am From self-reflexivity exercise by Ramona Beltrán (2019), which relies on Georgia Ellen Lyon’s poem “The place I’m From.” I remembered how a lot the scholars had loved that poetic train. So, I made a decision to take a danger and immerse myself in poetic evaluation. Poetic evaluation is a artistic type of qualitative analysis that constructs knowledge into expressive and suave representations, and as such, poetry challenges the dominant processes of meaning-making (McKenna-Buchanan, 2017; Beltrán, 2019). Furthermore, poems are accessible, simple to digest, and are respectable methods of figuring out and have been used as knowledge sources and activist instruments by a number of social work students (Furman et al., 2012; Sjollema & Bilotta, 2016; Beltrán, 2019; Beech, 2021). Because the poet-activist Audre Lorde (1977) states, “poetry shouldn’t be solely a dream and imaginative and prescient; it’s the skeleton structure of our lives. It lays the foundations for a way forward for change, a bridge throughout our fears of what has by no means been earlier than.”
I started the evaluation by separating the 2 questions and studying by every pupil’s responses a few occasions to make sense of the info. Following the read-through, I highlighted sure phrases and phrases and was in a position to group related findings. The phrases began to type an image of how the scholars outlined each analysis and social work, and I used these phrases to then create the poems.
The next week, I shared the poems at school with the scholars. I knowledgeable the category that the phrases introduced had not been modified or modified by me, and we started the member checking course of by permitting time for them to learn by the 2 poems and share their ideas concerning the wording, association, and general presentation. Member checking or participant validation is used as a software to discover the credibility of outcomes by offering individuals with the chance to have interaction with and add to the interpreted knowledge (Birt et al., 2016).
The poems have been shared vis Google Docs, and it was set in order that any pupil might edit the poems. I requested them to make revisions as they noticed match. The scholars didn’t present edits as they collectively agreed with the presentation of the poems. The ultimate half was guaranteeing that every pupil might acknowledge one thing they wrote since this was their work, in any case. I requested the scholars if they might acknowledge a few of their very own phrases in every of the poems and the scholars replied sure. Some college students additionally referred to as out particular examples of phrases they’d written.
The scholars reacted enthusiastically, and after discussing the potential of dissemination, the scholars have been wanting to share the poems. The undertaking symbolized all the pieces we had mentioned all through the course, together with selecting a technique that is smart to your analysis, the method of member checking and power-sharing throughout evaluation, and dissemination methods for getting our work again out into the group.
After reaching out to the BSW Program Director and getting some concepts on easy methods to publish the poems, I shared these choices with the scholars. I sought written consent, and college students got a option to have their contributions revealed and be listed as a co-author. All ten college students agreed, and it all of the sudden grew to become greater than only a class project; it grew to become tangible and significant. The poems represented their particular person contributions and their contributions as a classroom group – a notable discovering provided that COVID-19 reminded us of the significance of feeling related with and to others.
The collective poems under signify chosen responses from every of the scholars:
This class symbolized many firsts for me. Because it was my first time instructing a analysis strategies course, I had by no means utilized poetic evaluation as an in-class exercise and knew that it could require vulnerability on my half and theirs. The exercise illustrated analysis in real-time and the facility of information. In some methods, the poems additionally strengthened the sense of group within the classroom as these have been collective works.
Have you ever tried poetic evaluation or different shared meaning-making kinds to assist your college students? Please share your ideas within the remark part under. We might love to listen to from you.
References:
- Beech, H. H. (2021). Feminist Poetry: The Researcher’s Loom. Reflections: Narratives of Skilled Serving to, 27(2), 44–45. Retrieved from https://reflectionsnarrativesofprofessionalhelping.org/index.php/Reflections/article/view/1905
- Beltrán, R. (2019). “I (WE) refuse to be silenced”: Poetic self-reflexivity as a feminist software of resistance. Affilia, 34(2), 145–150. https://doi.org/10.1177/0886109919845456
- Birt, L., Scott, S., Cavers, D., Campbell, C., & Walter, F. (2016). Member checking: A software to boost trustworthiness or merely a nod to validation? Qualitative Well being Analysis, 26(13), 1802–1811. https://doi.org/10.1177/1049732316654870
- Furman, R., Enterline, M., Thompson, R., & Shukraft, A. (2012). Poetry issues: A case for poetry in Social Work Apply. Journal of Social Intervention: Concept and Apply, 21(1), 5–17. https://doi.org/10.18352/jsi.283
- Hartman, A. (1990). Some ways of figuring out. Social Work, 35(1), 3–4.
- Lorde, A. (1977). Poetry is Not a Luxurious. Chrysalis: A Journal of Feminine Tradition, (3).
- Lyon, G. E. (n.d.). The place I’m from. Retrieved from http://www.georgeellalyon.com/where.html
- McKenna-Buchanan, T. (2017). Poetic Evaluation. In M. Allen (Ed.), The SAGE encyclopedia of communication analysis strategies (pp. 1262–1264). SAGE.
- Sjollema, S. D., & Bilotta, N. (2016). The uncooked and the poignant: Utilizing group poetry in analysis. Journal of Poetry Remedy, 30(1), 17–32. https://doi.org/10.1080/08893675.2016.1256466
The way to cite:
Sutton, A., Burdette, I., Chavez-Martinez, J., Dussich, J., Kramer-Williams, C., Kramer, Ok., Marsh, H., Shunnarah, R., Trammel, N., Useless, A. & Wolfe, E. (2022, April 29). The Energy of Phrases: Utilizing Poetic Evaluation in a Social Work Analysis Course. Educating and Studying in Social Work. https://laureliversonhitchcock.org/2022/04/29/the-power-of-words-using-poetic-analysis-in-a-social-work-research-course/
