School practitioner research is gaining momentum as an effective form of professional learning, and with it comes the challenge of how best to mobilise the knowledge and insights gained from inquiry projects. If this sharing is done only in conventional staff meeting presentations, it can belie the vibrant and dynamic nature of the investigations carried out. We need other ways to convey the heart of the enquiry, its complexity and the affective as well as cognitive nature of the issues. A particularly creative and effective way of doing this is through ‘found’ poetry. This article reports how teachers shared outcomes of their research projects in a conference event and in turn illustrates how students captured the spirit of the conference proceedings through ‘found’ poetry. ‘Found’ poetry is a type of poetry created by taking words and phrases ‘found’ in other sources, and reframing them as poetry by, for example, taking single words or phrases out of a whole conversation, by juxtaposing them with other words/phrases, or by mixing up or repeating words to create rhythms and rhymes. Composing ‘found’ poems is an economical, creative and engaging way to contribute, alongside other forms of data collection, to making a multiple record of a complex event or situation.
Going to the Heart of the Matter
You might ask, what on earth has poetry to do with educational research and inquiry? There are lots of possible answers to this question – here are three brief ones condensed from the very wide range of literature that now exists on the topic (see the reading list at the foot of this article):
- If we can take anything true and lasting from the mantra of ‘what works’, it must be the question of what works for whom; how; when; where; and with what unintended consequences. In other words, context is everything. Poetry – with its subtle and complex meanings – is a doorway into contextuality.
- Crucially, as Elliott Eisner says, ‘we have begun to realize that human feeling does not pollute understanding. In fact, understanding others and the situations they face may well require it…’ Poetry goes straight to the heart of the matter.
- The role of poetry in educational research and inquiry is therefore not to write a perfectly-formed sonnet, but instead to work with poetic method as ‘a different way of presenting and viewing the world: metaphorically, symbolically and in a condensed form’ (Melanie Burdick).
One specific poetic method, known as ‘found’ poetry, can often enhance and bring a sense of creativity into the inquiry process. ‘Found’ poetry is a type of poetry created by taking words and phrases ‘found’ or heard in other sources, and reframing them as poetry; so a ‘found’ poem must use only the original words – what someone else has said or written. A ‘found’ poem can take single words or phrases out of a whole conversation, and mix up or repeat any of the original words to create rhythms and rhymes, so that it ends up having its own imaginative shape. An example of the process in practice forms the remainder of this article.
Using ‘Found’ Poetry in a Conference Setting
Last year I was invited to act as ‘poet-in-residence’ at a one-day conference of school-based practitioner-researchers organised by the London Centre for Leadership and Learning at the Institute of Education, University College London (UCL). The aim of the conference was for teachers from participating schools to share the processes and outcomes of their inquiry projects in the wider context of evidence-informed teaching and learning. Semi-structured group discussions were interspersed with plenary inputs, and the conference organisers had designed an interactive process in which participants were able to move round the hall asking questions about each others’ inquiry projects. Colourful project posters added to the knowledge-environment.
When I discovered that a group of Year 11 students would be there to present some of the work they had done with their English teacher Jane Dicker, I asked permission to work with the students to create some ‘found’ poems which they would then (if they wished) present at the close of the conference. I wanted to test the idea that such an exercise could illuminate affective aspects of the day and thus contribute to a record of what had passed.
Because of the tight schedule of activities, which included the students giving a series of presentations and then responding to their audience’s questions, they and I had only the lunch break in which to prepare the ground for their afternoon’s work. I gave them these written instructions: