Poetry and Drama as Counter-Narrative

Abstract

The focus of this study is about what lies at the intersection of critical race theory (CRT) and arts-based educational research (ABER). Our goal is to address the emotional terrain about race in schooling, based on the stories of people of color that we transformed into poetry, drama, and performance. In doing so, we examined the usefulness of ABER in the construction of CRT counter-narratives as is called for by critical race theorists.

“I’m hiding”: Using the Stories-Around-Poems to Explore the Role of Vulnerability in Today’s University Classrooms

“…More broadly, self-study has also increasingly exhibited a combination of narrative and poetic forms (Dinkleman, 2003;Dobson, 2010;Hanley & View, 2014;Gold, 2013;Saunders, 2003;Wiebe, 2008).…”

“…Echoing Gulla (2014) we believe that poetry, like narrative, helps teachers to recognize that, "the ability to consider another point of view is crucial to the development of critical thinking skills" (p. 145). Hanley and View (2014) call "poetry as counter-narrative" (p. 571), but also because the emotional closeness offered by poems can serve as a means of inviting others into a shared experience. Both forms, then, offer teachers and students the ability to share experiences in a way that is intensely personal and evocative through an aesthetic that more conventional modes of learning and instruction cannot (Prendergast, 2007).…”

“…Consequently, troubling preconceptions about what it means to be "on the right track" in a course is a vital part of "successfully" employing narrative as a teaching tool. Stories can also help writers become aware of how they might translate their acts of witness into new ways of speaking, feeling, and thinking, in a kind of circular iterative movement (Hanley & View, 2014). This is why I feel it is so important for students to become used to being pushed to points of uncertainty, even though they may have learned to associate these feelings with being in a state of emotional distress.…”

“…By attempting to cross boundaries between creative and formal academic writing, our essay relates critical incidents in our teaching practice and "attempts to exist in the rarely seen intergeneric worlds of poetry and inquiry" (Prendergast, 2007, p. 743). In doing so we analyze not only how "poetry may be used as a profound narrative tool" (West & Bloomquist, 2015, p. 3), but also how poetry and narratives can arise-and shed new light upon-the same transformative experiences in the lives of students and teachers (Dobson, 2010;Glesne, 1997;Saunders, 2003;Ward, 2011;Witkin, 2007;Hanley & View, 2014). Following the work of other scholars, we also explore how poetry can be used to understand the implicit and tacit aspects of narratives and to create what one scholar termed a "space for stories" (Gold, 2013).…”

‘ … But we are academics!’ a reflection on using arts-based research activities with university colleagues

“…There is a strong tradition of arts-based practices in research with schoolteachers and their pupils (see, for example, Black 2002;Hanley and View 2014;Marshall and Gibbons 2015;McCormick-Davis 2005;Ryan 2005;Taylor 2002;Weber and Mitchell 1996). This may be because of their association with research participants who face linguistic and other barriers to communication such as children, people with learning difficulties or mental health issues, or those who are socially excluded.…”