Autoethnography as Method: Heewon Chang

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My summer reading continues.  I just finished Heewon Chang's book:  Autoethnography as Method (Left Coast Press, 2008).  It's a wonderful contribution to the literature on qualitative research methodology.  With all of the hoopla about autoethnography over the last decade (and I don't mean that as critical) it was about time for a text like this to be written.  Thank you Dr. Chang for doing so! 

Heewon Chang has taken on the task of translating emergent ideas into concrete methods for the next generation of researchers (or for those in the field who haven't yet investigated these methods).  Her writing is clear, well structured, and easy to follow.  The contents of the book are informative and provide good grounding in the background that has been developing in this area.  Examples and exercises are included that help to make the methods concrete for new learners. 

I was particularly appreciative of her Part I:  Conceptual Framework which provides solid definitions of the topics she will be discussing, and a discussion of the context in which her work is situated vis-a-vis various literatures.  Her list of all the possibilities for terms for this kind of work was astounding.  No wonder it can seem a daunting area to enter!

It gave me good things to think about in regard to my Journal Project, which I am still trying to locate within this literature.  Interestingly, like any book that lays down the law (so to speak), it provides you with a backdrop for thinking about pushing the new boundary.  Personally, I am wondering about the boundary between me and them/self and other.  This will be my challenge, how to position something that is personal but professional within a discipline that is professional, with some hints of personal. 

Visual Memos in Qualitative Research: Part II

On January 4, 2010 I blogged about Visual Memos.  I shared a visual memo that had evolved as I was thinking about the distinction between academic prose and the journal prose (see earlier blogs on "The Journal Project"--a study of my journals from 2006-2008).  That was what I would call an "emergent interpretation" memo.  In Part II, I'd like to think about the use of visual memos in a different way--for a memo that is not a reminder about one point in time, but looks over a series of events to make sense of them.

This visual memo is titled "Evolution of an Image".  It's genesis was rereading a journal entry from December 2007 about the cancer of a dear friend... and then linking this entry to art experiences and finally back to the art and the life/death of the individual I am writing about.  The individual I am writing about has now passed away.  I am saddened by his death, but glad to be able to share with you about his impact on my thinking...and (and this would give him a chuckle)...his impact on my methodological thinking!  In sharing the visual memo with you in digital form it gives me a chance to annotate it electronically.

 

  

[This may be hard to read--we learn about the cancer and hold a laying on of hands ceremony at the church.]

 

These two events--cancer and Maggie Ayers are, initially, unrelated.  Maggie Ayers is a fantastic mixed-media artist from Northern England.  She has made a series of YouTube videos describing various art activities.  There is actually one on green/blues and her method of creating fiber cocoons.  You can learn more about her at:  http://www.maggieayres.co.uk/ 

 

Felter's Fling--August 2009--is when I begin the pieces began to fall together. As I was looking for a link to Felter's Fling--I found this blog item by one of the instructor's--and my photo was on it!!  I am wearing the felt hat that won me an award.  http://weaversew.com/wordblog/2009/08/24/felters-fling/comment-page-1/

However, if you want the real low-down on Felter's Fling...try this link:  http://www.blacksheepdesigns.com/index.html 

 

At this point, the original experience of the laying on of hands ceremony, the interaction with Maggie Ayers and Felter's Fling...has led to a new understanding of the life/death of my friend and has created a new form that symbolizes this life/death to me.  

 

Visual memos serve many different purposes (as do purely written memos).  Visual memos can range from all visual and no text...to a load of text and limited visuals.  

I intend to think more here about their uses and the forms they take.  

Wikis and Electronic Portfolios

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The snow is falling gently in Northwestern Massachusetts as voters head to the polls to choose the successor to Ted Kennedy--the liberal lion.  The semester is almost upon me, so what better way to spend the day than working on my online classes, and, in particular, on my plan for Electronic Portfolios.

I have to thank Buddy (Alan) Peshkin for this idea. As a doctoral student in his course on qualitative research interviewing, he had us create a notebook of all of our work that was set-up like a textbook with a Table of Contents and Introduction.  I still have that final notebook--it is a very precious document.  I was so intrigued with the idea that every time I take a class, I am writing my own textbook.  I found much value in having to think back over the whole as I did when I wrote the introduction to my textbook of the class. 

Over the years, I have tried to implement Peshkin's innovative idea in a variety of ways.   In the core course for doctoral students, a kind of educational foundations course, that I taught for several years, in some of the classes I had them create a similar hard-copy notebook. Students regarded those notebooks with great pride. 

As I moved into on-line teaching, I discovered a way to create a similar electronic portfolio in Intralearn (the first Learning Management System with which I worked).  While I would like to say my goal was good pedagogy, a large part of the impetus was simply trying to find better ways to manage the online texts.  My class assignments usually possess multiple components and unfold over time with peer review, and revision.  I like to be able to see where students started and the process by which they got to the end product.  This means that each assignment is really equivalent to a folder of work.  Another feature that has evolved in my classes is that most assignments build on each other and at certain times in the semester, you need to return to earlier assignments and work with that material to create a later assignment.  Thus, having access to the full corpus of the work you develop over the semester is important.  Intralearn was not designed to do this, so I had to figure out a work around, which I did by creating individual teams (I know that sounds contradictory, but that was the work around).  It worked, but barely. 

It must have looked good to someone because the description of what I was doing with electronic portfolios won a mention from the Sloan Foundation as a notable practice.  As luck would have it, however, shortly thereafter our online program switched to Web CT, which then morphed into Blackboard.  Try as I might, I couldn't find a way to create anything like an electronic portfolio in this new system, so I gave up for a few semesters.

But then wiki's came on the scene, and they are a lovely, flexible tool that can make electronic portfolios with ease.  Moreover, there are no problems allowing students access to each others' work because they are built around principles of access and collaboration, unlike Learning Management Systems which seem to be built on the model of some old prison system.  I am in heaven! 

This semester each of my three classes will have a wiki connected to our Blackboard workspace.  The wiki will be the site for the development of the electronic portfolios.  I'm still trying to figure out the in's and out's of this particular wiki system (see my earlier blog on wikis),  the right kind of shell/template for each class, and how to provide support for individual use. 

Having each individual's electronic portfolio visible to the whole class does several things, in my opinion.  First, it is a great teaching tool.  If you have a question about what is required, or what it might look like, you can look into a range of electronic portfolios and see what is going up and how others approach the same issues.  Secondly, you've got access to everything you've done in the course, which is valuable because I've found that many students do not know how to organize their work to get the full benefit of review and reflection.   Third, I think it sparks creativity as the electronic portfolios develop and become more individualized.  Fourth, your progress is visible to all--including you.  The old fashioned assignment submission system leaves everyone in the dark about who is completing what, but this system makes it visible.  If you are missing a whole section of assignments that everyone else has posted, it's not just the instructor who is aware, but the whole class.    In my classes, students need access to each others' assignments because we review drafts, etc., so the wiki makes access easy, but it also makes it clear who is falling behind.  I would call this technique:  Useful Shame.  It's a kind of silent accountability. 

So, on to the wikis.  Long live electronic portfolios in some form or another! 


For more information on Alan Peshkin, you may want to look at Vol 6, Issue 2 of Qualitative Research Journal for a special memorial section of discussion of his work. 
Special Memorial Section on Alan Peshkin

The Journal Project: Containers for Thinking

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Douglas Harrison has an interesting piece in the Fall 2008 NEA Journal--Thought and Action.  "Scholarly Voice and Professional Identity in the Internet Age"  He blogs at  http://averyfineline.com/  and this piece is about the issues related to being a blogging academic.  It certainly spoke to the excitement and fear that I have with this endeavor--how dare I do anything without anonymous peer review!!  How dare I communicate in new containers?

Actually, blogging exacerbates the problem of containers for thinking...but for me, it didn't start there.  It's been a long slow process.  You can think of me as a Crockpot on low.  The Blog was the moment when you lift off the top of a dish that has been simmering for 8 hours.  Before you could just smell it, but now you can taste it. 

The issue of what kind of container I will use for my thinking has emerged for me on several fronts.  It has been a crucial part of my exploration of Qualitative Data Analysis Software (QDAS or CAQDAS, which ever you prefer) and the notion of the E-Project, that little womblike electronic container that these software create for one to stow research materials in and to grow interpretation.  It is also an issue with my investigation into Arts-Based Research, which forces me to ask myself--what are other ways (containers) that I could use to express my thinking?  How are these different from ye old academic/social sicence genre?  What happens when I start using a different kind of container?

The Journal Project

These two ideas merge in the Journal Project.  Post-tenure I came down with a familiar academic malaise characterized by a sense of surprise at the positive outcome of the tenuredecision and a feeling of survivor guilt--why me?  As I cast around for answers, I wrote--I am a perpetual journal writer.  I write every morning and have done so for years. The writing has always been totally for me, a way to center myself, understand the world in which I move.  It is a place to explore the past and try to discern the future.  It's addictive.  I feel strange when I don't do it --like starting the day without a cup of tea, I can't seem to wake up properly without it.

I'm not sure now how it happened, but the use of QDAS and the interest in Arts-based research came together in the Journal Project.  I decided to enter two years of my journals--from the receiving of tenure in August 2006 to two years from that point--into my QDAS of choice--NVIVO.  I would analyze it there and see what I learned from studying myself from a distance with a tool devoted to the interpretation of qualitative research texts.  It was a mixture of autoethnography, self-study, document analysis, middle age angst, and several other approaches.  It goes slowly--like the proverbial Crock Pot--I devote about two hours a week specifically to this project.

In undertaking this study of self through documents one thing I have asked of myself is that I stretch the ways I interpret and represent what I am learning --within and beyond the confines of the alphabetic text.  As I type and code the entries (yes, I write my journals in longhand in composition books--what could be more retro), I seek out naturally occurring poems and stories that I separate out to review and work on at another time. 

No surprise to me, this being a  journal, the codes are highly emotional in nature.  It was a painful time during which I wrestled with hard personal issues.  I imagine, at some point, extracting the coding tree and working it into a piece of art.  Perhaps I should do some code weaving a la Johnny Saldana.  (Johnny Saldana in Methodspace)

But what has been most intriguing is trying to use methods of visual art to better understand the issues that are arising for me.  As a person who works with fiber and paper...in collage, mixed media, spun fiber, and felt, I have challenged myself to use the visual as I would use a memo in qualitative research....and to see what this does for me, and how it helps me to see the material.  I also ask myself to incorporate the ideas that are emerging from the journal project into different art pieces.  This has created pieces that are different from visual memos, but equally memorable in their own way. 

While I am enforcing this new method on myself, I have also been using it with students.  Each semester I try to find new ways to expand the possibilities available for data collection, interpretation, and representation using a range of arts-based methods.  

As time goes by I want to share my work in this area with the blogosphere...maybe tomorrow.