“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:
. . . just about anything so long as it is relevant to your study, your research, your inquiry of literature.
HOW TO GET STARTED Narrative inquirers work in three dimensions and four directions all at once, but you can start one-step at a time.
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:
Click to Enlarge
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.”
A Framework for Reading, Researching, Responding to
and Writing about Literature
The use of narrative–or story form–is now being used by scholars to define rigor and quality of knowing in virtually every field of study. We will use it to frame our qualitative study of literature and writing in this class. We will be narrative inquirers.
ONCE UPON A TIME
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.
But we also put it together. Inasmuch as texts are constructed and then deconstructed, they don’t exist in a vacuum. People are doing the putting together and taking apart. And we, the readers, are involved. We are taking them apart, making meaning and then putting together our own story about the text. Yes, the text becomes what we make of and we become part of the story.
As we read, we experience a story. Our previous experiences–in the form of stories–affect how we experience a story. Then, to represent our experience, we tell a new story. Our experiences structure our stories, our stories structure our experiences, and so it goes . . . narrative after narrative, or narrative inside narrative, or narrative layered atop narrative . . .
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.
Time: past, present, future (when was it written, read)
Place: situation (where was it written, read)
Action: personal and public interaction (who wrote it, why, who read it, what you think about it)
We will focus on four directions of inquiry: inward and outward, forward and backward.
Inward: feelings, hopes, tastes, moral opinions
Outward: environment, social roles, community, culture, politics
Backward and forward: past, present, future
"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."
INQUIRING MINDS WANT TO KNOW
In thinking about the messy complexity of experience, we must keep asking ourselves an initial question–Why?
WHY? Why am I reading this? Why am I writing this? Why do I think so?
To help answer the "why" you might ask: "What are my questions?"
TAKING NOTES = CREATING A FIELD TEXT
You probably never before thought of your English notebook as a story book. But notes are a large part of the story that narrative inquirers tell. Good notes are important to retell stories that challenge us and allow for growth and change–even though you might have thought they were just to help you remember stuff for the next test.
Notes are a record of your interaction with a text as a reader-researcher. As a narrative inquirer, your notes become a field text. "Field" refers to "experience of experience." You might think of this in literary study as "writing about writing."
A field text means data – that is, journal entries, notes, photographs, pictures, drawings, family stories, artifacts, interviews, autobiography, letters, quotations, excerpts, conversations, and so on, so long as they are relevant to your inquiry.
Note-Taking Stanford University's guide to evaluating your own note-taking and guides to types of efficient and effective skills. Printable pdfs.
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.
You may also find a multiple "I" – that is, the many sides of you (son/daughter, pizza delivery person, wallflower, Ms/Mr Social Butterfly, star athlete, soap opera addict, bookworm/reluctant reader . . .) You know it can get pretty crowded in you. Let as many as appropriate have a voice.
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.
HAPPILY EVER AFTER
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.
Narrative inquires consider three dimensions of experience:
Narrative inquirers move simultaneously in four directions:
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:
Narratives are experiences of _______________________. They are representations and depend to a certain degree on memory, which is faulty, _______________________ and _______________________. Make clear–as best you can–your memory’s faults and choices.
The purpose or the "_______________________" of inquiry is very important and always present. It may change from time to time, but it’s always there. Try to make it clear in your field text notebook.
The relationships between texts and you is made explicit in your field text notebook. Pay close attention to and make clear the stories you are living as you are studying.
Your presence is heard in terms of _______________________ and the varietal framings from the different perspectives of the multiple "_______________________"s are made clear. Balance your voice with the voices of others from the field of reading and research, including peers and authors. Also, pay attention and mention silences or absences or stories not told and the possible meaning to be taken from them and their void.
Your narrative inquiry field text notebook is a unique as you. It is qualitative–that is, it is as good as you make it. Make it yours, fill it with your best. It is your story and it will tell you.
Qualitative methods provide:
Rich descriptions of complex phenomena
New perspectives on things about which much is already known
In-depth information that may be difficult to convey with quantitative methods
Initial explorations to develop theories, generate hypotheses
Significant Characteristics of Qualitative Research
Conducting inquiry in a way that limits disruption of the natural context of the phenomena of interest
Acknowledged participation of the researcher in the research ("human instrument" of data collection)
Uses predominantly an inductive approach
Reports new understandings in a literary style rich with participant commentaries.
Based on a belief in multiple realities
A commitment to the participants’ viewpoint
Qualitative research has an emergent design.
Based on tendency for people to story their experiences.
Data analysis methods focus on plot or structure of stories, the use of metaphors and linguistic devices, etc. as well as the influence of the listener
Purpose – to understand meaning individuals give to experiences
recall rethink reconstruct ♦ how you know as well as what you know