narrative inquiry

  “Stories we are told, stories we tell, stories that tell us. . .”

The Narrative Inquirer’s Field Text
(NOTEBOOK)

As a narrative inquirer, you will keep a notebook (called a field text). It contains all the types of notes that you are accustomed to keeping, plus meta-notes, or notes about the notes.  This can be done a variety of ways and you’ll probably want to try different ways at different times depending on the notes.

NOT JUST THE FACTS, MA’AM
Mr. Gradgrind, the schoolmaster in Dicken’s novel wanted students to learn “just the facts.”  Yes, narrative inquirers want facts, such as you get from lectures and readings, but they want much, much more than facts–such as:

                      questions,
                      musings, 
                      feelings,
                      dreams,
                      memories, 

                      hunches,
                     opinions,
                     reflections, 
                     conversations,
                     quotations, 
                     drawings,
                     photographs,
                     magazine clippings,

                     scripts,
                     lyrics,
                     poems,
                     stories . . .

. . . just about anything so long as it is relevant to your study, your research, your inquiry of literature.

• Take notes on texts--readings, film, facts and ideas as you would normally do for class and study.
• Start tapping in to your thoughts and feelings and writing them down along side the facts and ideas.  This is going inward.
• Add questions and opinions you have about what you have jotted down so far.
• Add what you know about the context of the text.  This is moving outward and considering place, time, and action.
• Continue to expand outward and a bit forward--Look at influences of the text.  Backward: what affected the text from the past.
• Add connections (if you haven’t started to already) that relate the ideas you have so far to ideas you’ve had before.  Start going backward and forward into previous knowledge, memories and dreams, expectations.
• Now start to reflect on all that you have down and spiral back to tapping in on your jottings as text, repeat the steps.  Write down reflections.
• Get another view–read more, surf the net, dialogue with a classmate, discuss with a group and add these points in.  You can even dialogue with yourself for another (later) point-of-view.  Play devil’s advocate.
• Include ephemera–drafts, photos, scripts, scraps, other texts, artifacts.  These are illustrations and souvenirs of your narrative inquiry journey.
• Create art, poetry, music, science, etc. and add that to your notebook.  Keep digging in and spiraling out to
   compose the field text.
• Check to see if you are balancing your “voice” with others.  This is part compilation, part creation.
• Ultimately, the field test is your  unique qualitative “story of study.”
  

ORGANIZE YOUR FIELD TEXT WITH HEADINGS, SUBHEADINGS & DATES FOR YOUR ENTRIES.

It will be assessed for breadth (variety & thoroughness), depth (insight & reflection), balance (voice & source), and originality (individuality & risk).

SETTING UP YOUR NOTEBOOK–POSSIBILITIES
One of the easiest ways to start tapping into notes is to set up your class notes with DIALOGUE COLUMNS.  That is, you divide your page into two or more columns.  Then you take ordinary notes in one column and use the other column(s) for questions, insights, musings, etc.  In essence, you “talk back” to your notes by filling in details, opinions, anecdotes, memories, or stories related to the notes.

After a reading a “text”–a book, a film, a lecture--you can go on a rant.  Basically, this is free writing in reflection about the “text.”  Remember the term “text” can refer to many things: a book, a story, an article, a quote, a conversation, a comment, a photograph, a television show, a song, etc.

Here’s an example of notes using dialogue columns:

Next, using these jot notes, you could free write a reflective paragraph.   

“I was surprised and intrigued to find that Arthur’s real father conceived the hero by deceptive means and was willing to give him up just so that he could spend a night with the fair Ingraine.  Even though I understand that people’s desires and motivations have changed little over the centuries, it is still startling to find this in medieval classic.  I wonder how this was viewed when this story was written versus today?  It is interesting from a gender critical approach to consider how powerful men like Pendragon are portrayed as overpowered by a woman’s beauty.  I can see men doing this  today . Consider President Clinton and the Lewinsky. scandal. In any case, it doesn’t say much for Arthur’s father.”

Narrative Inquiry

Since we were little we’ve been hearing, reading, and telling stories. What makes a story? What do you tell stories about? How about experience! Experience can’t speak for itself–you had to be there!--so we construct representations of experience in the form of text–or a story. Texts come in different forms–speech, writing, behavior, advertisements, architecture, concert tickets, cartoons, photos--but all are embedded with meaning, all tell stories. To get to the meaning, we take the text apart.

TIME, SETTING, AND PLOT

Since stories consist of time, setting, and plot, as narrative inquirers we will consider the time, place, and action of texts.

FOUR DIRECTIONS

We will focus on four directions of inquiry: inward and outward, forward and backward.

"To experience an experience, that is to do research on an experience, is to experience it simultaneously in these four ways and to ask questions pointing each way."1

TAKING NOTES = CREATING A FIELD TEXT

IN THE FIELD

As you make your way through the field, as you experience texts, bear in mind the idea of "voice." This refers to the voice–style, point of view, tone, etc.– of others as well as your own. As you read and listen to others’ words and tap into your own, listen also for silences–what is not being said, who is not speaking up, whose voice is being stifled.

DON’T FORGET MEMORY

Finally, as you keep your field text–your record of experience on experience, your text about texts–moving in four directions over three dimensions and listen for voice, remember that memory is fragile and selective. We say it plays tricks. Some things we forget, some things we leave out. Try to not forget. And when you notice you have lost something, or you choose to leave something out, ask yourself why. Blend and balance your voice with the voices of others.

THE PLOT CLOTS

As narrative inquirers reading, researching, responding to and writing about texts, keeping and compiling field texts, you will be required to share your texts with a group of peer inquirers. Of course, this sharing will add to and become part of your field text.

Your notebook will be collected and assessed from time to time as part of the class requirements. Its purpose is to assist you in recording and understanding meaning you give to the experience of the literature you read for this class. Its focus is as much on the stories of your study as much as on your study of the stories you read. Ideally, it will be a rich record and reference for your research and study. Ultimately, it’s your story.

WERE YOU PAYING ATTENTION?

As mentioned before, memory is fragile, so let’s review some key points about narrative inquiry and what you as narrative inquirer are to do.

Bear this in mind and note it as you write in your field text notebook.

Just as good narratives are about moments of challenge, growth, and transition, and the meaning taken from them. To study them, narrative inquirers take notes and what else:

Qualitative methods provide:

___________

1 Clandinin and Connelly. Narrative Inquiry. Hoboken, NJ: Jossey-Bass, 1999.