Category Archives: April A-Z Challenge
N is for… Narrative Inquiry (Book) #AtoZChallenge
N is for… Narrative Inquiry (Book)
Haven’t had time to read this book, or even scan through it really so I’m just going to add a picture of the cover. I know this is one I’ll be reading.
Instead I’m going to briefly talk to you about the workshop I attended at work today – which was aptly called The power of narrative and stories in enabling learning for professional practice.
This was an event sponsored by the Higher Education Academy. You can see the programme here.
A few of us tweeted using #heanarrative – I was hoping to make a storify (but the website is playing up at the moment).
My colleagues shared the narrative work they have been undertaking in health and social care education and research and I got to read some of the poetry I have been writing on my research journey (I thought I was just putting it up for people to read – nothing like being thrown in at the deep end).
I was moved to tears a couple of times during the day and, although you can’t hear his full poem here listen to Jagdev Singh being given a space to and finding his voice through poetry.
The creative group I was with shared our feedback via the magic story mask of insight – symbolising the fact that stories can teach us so much.
Finally here is one of my insights from the day
What is the most important thing you have learnt from a story or through listening to someone’s narrative?
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N is for… No Ordinary Family #AtoZChallenge
N is for… No Ordinary Family
I knew it was going to be harder to keep up once I was back at work so apologies for the delayed posts. How’s the challenge going for everyone else?
No Ordinary Family (2010-2011) only had one season. This is another series I’ve only watched once so I can’t pick out individual episodes. A ‘kind of’ live action The Incredibles but the family only get superpowers after a plane crash. This is about how they learn to live with their new abilities.
This show stared Julie Benz – Darla from Buffy/Angel – but this time she’s not evil, just fast.
That’s it for today (I’m tired and have my second post to write).
Did you watch this show? What did you think?
If you could pick a superpower – what would it be and how would you come by it?
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M is for… Mewburn (Dr Inger) – The Thesis Whisperer #AtoZChallenge
M is for… Mewburn (Dr Inger) – The Thesis Whisperer
Dr Inger Mewburn is the Thesis Whisperer – which according to her website tagline is ‘Just like the Horse Whisperer – but with more pages’
The Thesis Whisperer is a blog that provides helpful articles on the process of completing your thesis. Less a how to, more a how to survive.
I’d like to share with you a link to one of the most recent articles on Wormhole literature
In summary this is about:
• Freaking out when you realise how much there is to read
• The process of exploring reference by reference and getting sucked into a wormhole
• Starting to recognise names and pockets of thought
• Finding THAT PAPER – the one that gets you better than you get yourself
• Panic about what would have happened if you’d missed that paper
• And I guess the process might be cyclical
This fear about missing THAT PAPER is one of the Thesis Whisperer’s top five #phdemotions (Shared with Creative Commons “Attribution-non-commercial-sharealike licence” – [my personal additions in square brackets])
1. Elation when you realise you know more than your supervisor about your topic and you feel brave enough to argue about it. [Not there yet]
2. Fear of being ‘found out’ as fraud, not really knowing enough/being smart enough to be Phd student. [All the time – this appears to also be referred to as The Impostor Syndrome and I’ll be attending a session in June on how to combat this very thing]
3. Unexpected admiration of your own writing. [Rarely – although sometimes I look back at my older writing and wonder why I don’t remember writing that thing that seemed to make a bit of sense]
4. The “I’m a genius! Why hasn’t anybody thought to do that before?” moment before people point out the obscure paper you’ve not read. [This relates to THAT PAPER above – I’ve found a few of those which have set me on a slightly different track each time – though I don’t ever think I’m a genius more that’s an OK idea Kirsty]
5. Misplaced smugness after photocopying/downloading loads of stuff but not actually reading it. [I’ll add in books here too and I think you’ll see by the number of books I’m reviewing for this challenge that this one is very true to my experience and the first thing I need to tackle].
I have felt very much like ‘Jenny’ wormhole and in fact submitted the following photograph to the PGR (Post Graduate Researcher) Conference at my uni which will be held on 29th April.
Drowning in Words
This image represents the conflict between loving words, books and creative writing (the topic for my PhD) and being overwhelmed by the introduction of a new series of terminology and more reading than it seems possible to manage. Books are used as handholds for rescue but are also the method of drowning. The quill and blog (on the iPad screen) are the means to write my way free.
Drowning in Words (c) Kirsty Stanley 2013
How do you manage the wormhole?
What thesis whispering techniques have you used?
Do you recognise any of the top five PhD Emotions?
kirstyes 