Promoting Methodological Creativity and Innovations: Editorial Learning from a Poetic Self-Study Journal Special Issue

ABSTRACT

We are teacher educators and methodological innovators who have been practicing and facilitating co-creativity (collaborative creativity) for ourselves and for others through poetic self-study. This article examines our professional learning as editors of a journal special issue on poetic self-study scholarship. Our study was built on the conceptual foundation of polyvocal poetic play using the self-study virtual bricolage method and the layering of co-creative data and data analysis. The multidimensional data set and analysis comprised solicited feedback poems from the special issue contributors, our individual found poems developed from the contributors’ poems, a tapestry poem, and our dialogue from a recorded, transcribed online video meeting. In considering the professional impetus and impact of our work as editors, we asked, ‘What difference did editing a special issue make to our understanding of promoting methodological creativity and innovations through poetic self-study? How did poetic feedback from the contributors inform our understanding?’ We discovered four central features of our learning through several data generation and analysis phases: plurality, methodological and epistemological inventiveness, academic – personal intersections, and relational scaffolding. This set of features contributes to the body of knowledge on supporting methodological creativity and innovations in self-study and qualitative research. Editors, reviewers, and authors may find our study’s explanations, examples, and findings useful in their efforts to promote transformative and innovative research.

KEYWORDS:

• Self-study research
• collaborative creativity
• poetical thinking
• virtual bricolage
• polyvocality
• editing

Journal editors help generate and push the boundaries of knowledge in a given field. They lead the layers involved in the review process while mentoring and working with novice and experienced researchers to ensure a steady output and distribution of high-quality articles moving the field forward. Nonetheless, what have they learned in their role as editors? In what ways are they working to extend and embrace multiple ways in which research can be conducted and presented? What are their experiences in promoting methodological creativity and innovation? As self-study methodologists and innovators, we were curious about what we could learn from researching our professional practice as editors of a journal special issue on poetic self-study scholarship in dialogue with contributor feedback.

Self-study of professional practice was identified as a research methodology and scholarly field in the early 1990s (Loughran, 2004). Even though it has grown out of earlier forms of practitioner inquiry, such as action research (e.g. McNiff, 1988) and teacher research (e.g. Goswami & Stillman, 1987), self-study is a methodology with distinguishing characteristics that focus on one’s self (Feldman et al., 2004; LaBoskey, 2004; Pithouse-Morgan, 2022; Samaras, 2011). Teacher educators have led the way in self-study through personal situated inquiry to better their professional practice and contribute to public debates about improving teacher education (Samaras & Freese, 2006). The Self-Study of Teacher Education Practices (S-STEP) Special Interest Group (SIG) of the American Educational Research Association (AERA) was established in 1993 to formalize this new educational research movement. The S-STEP SIG quickly expanded into a dynamic global community of hundreds of scholars engaged in furthering the fields of teacher education theory and practice and self-study research design, with ever-evolving methods (https://www.aera.net/SIG109/Self-Study-of-Teacher-Education-Practices).

Over the past three decades, self-study research has become popular for researchers in various fields and professions to better understand and address complex practice-related issues in their immediate and broader contexts (Kitchen, 2020; Samaras & Pithouse-Morgan, 2020; Taylor & Diamond, 2020). These professionals have embraced self-study to increase their professional efficacy, agency, and impact by becoming more aware of themselves, their practice, and their connections with others.

A wide range of conventional and novel (mainly qualitative) methods are used in self-studies (LaBoskey, 2004). Because no prescribed set of methods constrains self-study researchers, they are free to select and design those they deem most helpful in furthering their investigations (Loughran, 2004). Self-study methodology’s flexibility and multiplicity make it fertile ground for cutting-edge approaches (Pithouse-Morgan & Samaras, 2020b; Tidwell & Jónsdóttir, 2020).

Methodological innovations are frequently visible in the multidimensional fashion in which self-study researchers collect, analyze, and represent data in various ways (Tidwell & Jónsdóttir, 2020), including the use of poetry as data and for data analysis (Pithouse-Morgan & Samaras, 2023). Furthermore, because self-study is often driven by a desire for transformation and social justice disrupting the status quo, it pushes further into the unfamiliar, generating new and creative approaches to the study of professional practice (Mitchell et al., 2020; Taylor & Diamond, 2020; Tidwell & Jónsdóttir, 2020).

Original methods and conceptualizations are often considered hallmarks of self-study scholarship (Craig & Curtis, 2020; Pithouse-Morgan & Samaras, 2020b; Whitehead, 2004). Self-study scholars who develop new methods and concepts devote significant time and effort to producing theoretical foundations and methodological architecture for these within their research (LaBoskey, 2004). Consequently, the innovations of the self-study community over the past three decades have pushed the boundaries of professional practice, theory, and research in and beyond the global field of teacher education. Those innovations have included arts-inspired approaches and perspectives for improving professional knowledge and practice (e.g. Pithouse-Morgan & Samaras, 2020a; Weber, 2014; Weber & Mitchell, 2004).

The Impetus for Co-Editing a Journal Special Issue on Poetic Self-Study

We are two teacher educators and self-study methodological innovators who have been practicing and nourishing co-creativity (collaborative creativity) in qualitative research for ourselves and for others. Although we have never lived in the same time zone and come from different countries, our primarily virtual interactions have allowed us to collaborate to advance self-study techniques and research by producing expressive, imaginative self-studies employing arts-inspired modes, particularly poetic modes.

Poems and poetic devices have been used for decades by qualitative researchers to generate and analyze data and communicate questions and discoveries (Prendergast, 2009; Richardson, 1993). Poetic expressions and forms allow for eliciting and portraying nuanced aspects of experiences, emotions, and perceptions that might be difficult to grasp or describe using more conventional research and writing methods (Leggo, 2008). Poetic rhythm and imagery can draw researchers, participants, and readers in and encourage them to connect bodily, expressively, and imaginatively to what is being explored (Leggo, 2008).

Approaching research from a poetic perspective, according to Leggo (2008), reminds us that the use of language in qualitative research is epistemological; our knowledge and ways of knowing are greatly influenced by how we use language. A research proposal or report is usually written formally and dispassionately to convey precise information and draw unambiguous conclusions (Badley, 2019; Caulley, 2008). On an intellectual level, this commonly used academic propositional language is a valuable way of knowing. Yet, poeticizing research language with poetic expression, forms, rhythm, and imagery can potentially enhance discoveries and responses on multiple fronts, including intellectual, emotional, physical, and aesthetic (Freeman, 2017; Leggo, 2008). Thus, poetic epistemologies, also known as ‘poetic knowing’ (Leggo, 2008, p. 167) and ‘poetical thinking’ (Freeman, 2017, p. 72), can be understood as pluralistic and experiential. Poetic language’s rhythmic, lyrical, and symbolic dimensions can reveal and convey what more conventional academic genres might not. As a result, poetry can help researchers, participants, and audiences see, feel, and know things they might not have otherwise seen, felt, or known.

It has undoubtedly been the case for us that bringing poetry into self-study research has opened up opportunities for expansive learning by providing various epistemic options for new understandings of practice and transforming professional ways of knowing and being (Pithouse-Morgan & Samaras, 2023). Our 8-year portfolio of poetic self-study research includes compositions written independently, alongside others, and as a pair. Our poetic adventures have created opportunities for us and others to advance and grow professionally. Recognizing the potential of poetic self-study, we have been inspired to explore it further.

We see our co-creative collaboration as ‘complementarity’, as defined by John-Steiner (2000, p. 7), in which we support and trust each other’s ‘willingness to take risks in creative endeavors, a process considered critical by many researchers in creativity’ (John-Steiner, 2000, p. 79). As complementary colleagues from different contexts who share a common purpose, we have embraced the joy and uncertainty of playing together with poetry and other art forms. Complementarity has contributed significantly to the discoveries and impact of our work. To illustrate, in one of our earlier studies, we collaboratively created poetry to explore the value of co-creative, playful learning spaces for faculty professional learning and development across our diverse university contexts (Samaras & Pithouse-Morgan, 2021).

Co-creativity with colleagues and students has informed our conceptualization of polyvocal poetic play (Pithouse-Morgan & Samaras, 2021, 2023; Samaras & Pithouse-Morgan, 2021). Bakhtin’s (1984) study of polyvocality is part of the theoretical foundation for polyvocal poetic play. Bakhtin investigated polyvocality as a narrative method in Dostoevsky’s fiction, which interplayed diverse voices and perspectives, encouraging multiple readings. Poetic enactments of Bakhtin’s interpretation of polyvocality as exemplified by ‘plurality, interaction and interdependence, and creative activity’ (Pithouse-Morgan & Samaras, 2019, p. 7), in our experience, extend ways of performing, communicating, and reading educational scholarship.

A second theoretical pillar of polyvocal poetic play concerns how children choose to play and are motivated to learn about the world through play (Vygotsky, 1978). We believe that playful experimenting can also help adults comprehend and communicate. For example, we have witnessed how people who do not consider themselves poets can come together and experiment with poetical thinking in playful ways for serious purposes (Badley, 2022). Collaborating on poetic techniques and forms can enhance research learning and professional development for faculty and graduate students in higher education (Pithouse-Morgan & Samaras, 2021; Samaras & Pithouse-Morgan, 2021).

In reviewing poetic self-study scholarship (Pithouse-Morgan & Samaras, 2023), we noted that over the past 20 years, researchers have often used poetry’s aesthetic, symbolic, and rhythmic qualities to enhance their self-study inquiries and research communication. Self-study researchers’ sense of self, emotions, and bonds with others are all intertwined with their work; consequently, self-studies of professional practice must account for these subjective dimensions (Feldman, 2009). Self-study scholars have turned to artistic modes of discovery and communication, including poetry, to reveal, express, and facilitate the experience and understanding of what cannot be measured or stated in purely factual terms (Weber, 2014). Poetic artistic collaborations in self-study have evolved into new forms of professional learning and knowledge with broad educational and social ramifications (Pithouse-Morgan & Samaras, 2020b, 2021, 2022, 2023; Samaras, 2023).

We were inspired by Mitchell et al.'s (2020) argument that by offering opportunities and support for methodologically creative self-study research, a critical mass of professionals committed to engaging in complex dialogues to effect educational and societal change may be developed. Recognizing that poetry has been one of the art forms foundational to the co-creativity movement in self-study research, we saw the need for a platform to support and promote a portfolio of innovative, experimental poetic research. So, in alignment with the AERA president’s 2023 annual meeting call (Milner, n.d..), we embraced our responsibilities as transformational and creative communicators of research (Samaras & Pithouse-Morgan, 2023).

Intrinsically, we were drawn to this work as leaders and long-time mentors of self-study researchers in and outside the S-STEP SIG. We aimed to open a space for others to experiment with ways of communicating in research, embracing the vulnerability and uncertainty inherent in self-study yet with boldness and self-confidence. We imagined that a diverse group of authors contributing their unique ways of knowing and being from their personal histories and cultures would enhance a broader understanding of intercultural explorations of method. We sought to support the efforts of those venturing into creative, experimental approaches with readily available materials (bricolage; Merriam-Webster, n.d.) and a choice of methods, given that there are no prescriptive self-study methods for self-study researchers (Loughran, 2004). We anticipated that developing and presenting their poetic artistic endeavors would be accessible to the authors and others, virtually. Building on the conceptual and methodological foundations of polyvocality, we wanted to invite others to engage in co-creative experimental approaches in poetic data and data analysis (Pithouse-Morgan & Samaras, 2023). This motivated us to become co-editors of a special issue of a leading journal in our field of self-study research.

The resulting special issue offered a variety of methodological and epistemological innovations using poetry (Pithouse-Morgan & Samaras, 2022). Due to the allowed word count and length of the journal, the issue could only accommodate seven articles. In our efforts to support another scholar in their impressive submission, we asked the journal editors if an eighth manuscript might be accepted after our review process into the following issue, and they agreed. Both novice and seasoned self-study scholars were represented among those authors from Australia, Brazil, Iceland, Japan, Mauritius, South Africa, and the United States.

The contributors’ methodological creativity and inventiveness generated new questions and topics for self-study research (Mitchell et al., 2020). These authors used poetry and self-study in novel ways to explore timely issues. The articles were methodologically diverse, with contributors designing inventive data and techniques, including Haiku poetry and metaphors (Nishida, 2022); reciprocal found poetry (Meskin & van der Walt, 2022); anthropoetics or the use of an existing poem coupled with the contributors’ diaries (da Silva Vieira et al., 2022); found poetry from note-taking (McDonough, 2022); poetic object inquiry (Müller & Kruger, 2022); revisiting doctoral theses with poetic lenses and reflective letters (Van Laren & Masinga, 2022); combining blackout poetry, a reflection on a critical incident, and an autobiographical resume (Jawaheer, 2023). A unifying theme across the different articles was how poetic self-study enables educators to negotiate their professional and societal responsibilities. Their work addressed critical tensions and challenges confronting them as professionals and members of local and global communities, exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. The articles show how poetic self-study can help professionals increase their self-awareness, sensitivity to others, and social consciousness while providing insights into their lived experiences. Their contributions offered imaginative, practitioner-led responses to pressing educational and societal questions and concerns.

The study presented in this article examines our professional learning as editors in creating openings for alternative modalities and welcoming a diverse range of scholarly products (LaMarre & Chamberlain, 2022; Milner, n.d.). We think about impetus and impact – both for and beyond the self-study field – as we ask, ‘What difference did editing a special issue make to our understanding of promoting methodological creativity and innovations through poetic self-study? How did poetic feedback from the contributors inform our understanding?’

Editors from various academic domains have provided advice on editing a special issue (Lang et al., 2022) and shared their lived experiences as editors (Giberson et al., 2022; Kitchen, 2023). In the self-study field, Hayler and Williams (2018) studied how their personal experiences in co-editing shaped their professional development. Another self-study, conducted by Naicker et al. (2023), entailed a team of editors exploring their academic motivations over seven years of co-editing. Our motivations as editors resonate with those of Naicker et al. (2023) and with earlier research on editing with purpose (Mullen, 2011). However, while our lived experience editing the special issue provided context and data for our self-study, we did not set out to investigate editing as a phenomenon. As self-study scholars seeking to encourage methodological creativity and innovations in the interest of educational and social transformation, we aimed to use poetical thinking to make our professional learning visible and analyze it.

In what follows, we give a detailed, step-by-step account of our self-study experimenting with our virtual bricolage method and a layering of data and data analysis we designed and collected, including our dialogue and poetry and excerpts from contributors’ poems. Then, we share what we discovered through reexamining our learning from the co-editing and the poetical thinking that informed our new understanding. We close with a discussion of this study’s scholarly significance and implications for others. Our intended audience includes self-study researchers and the wider qualitative research community interested in fostering creative and innovative scholarship for educational and social transformation.

The Virtual Bricolage Self-Study Method

To walk our talk as editors of a poetic self-study special issue, we used poetry to elicit and generate data for analysis. Dialogue complemented the poetry. In collaborative self-study research, dialogue is frequently used for data generation and analysis (East et al., 2009). Creating and combining poetry and dialogue contributes to our virtual bricolage self-study method, which has evolved over the last decade through our continuing, primarily online collaboration (Pithouse-Morgan & Samaras, 2017, 2019, 2020b).

Bricolage can be defined as working on something improvisationally with available materials (Merriam-Webster, n.d.). Kincheloe (2001) described methodological bricolage as using ‘any methods necessary to gain new perspectives on objects of inquiry’ (p. 687). Kincheloe argued that researchers could gain a deeper, more nuanced understanding of a topic or phenomenon by employing multiple approaches. According to Rogers (2012), the hallmarks of methodological bricolage include ‘eclecticism, emergent design, flexibility, and plurality’ (p. 1). Bricoleurs are creative risk-takers who blend and invent methods and techniques (Rogers, 2012). As bricoleurs, we let our questions guide our research, combining processes and devising new approaches by letting things unfold (Pithouse-Morgan & Samaras, 2020b; Samaras & Pithouse-Morgan, 2021).

The Co-Creative Data and Analysis

We have worked to reimagine qualitative data and data analysis in our co-creative experimentation, extending the conceptual and methodological foundations of polyvocality and bricolage (Pithouse-Morgan & Samaras, 2024). In order to deepen and expand our learning from the special issue editing, we reached out to the contributors for their elective feedback. Our email invitation to authors for a poem about their experience working with us as editors was sent after the special issue was published, and their articles were copyrighted.

The study was reviewed by an institutional review board (IRB) board. To begin, we asked contributors for their poetic feedback about working with us in submitting and polishing their now-published work. After they chose to send us their response as a poem, we gained their written permission to include excerpts of their poetry in composing our own poems. Later, after conducting a self-study of our learning as co-editors, we shared our draft manuscript with the contributors for their review, feedback, final approval, and written permission to submit it for publication.

The data sources for our poetic self-study included a sequential set of multiple and diverse sources and analyses that built upon each other, resulting in the interpretations presented in this article. Data comprised solicited feedback poems by the special issue contributors; our individual found poems developed from the contributors’ poems; a tapestry poem (Meallem & Wadia, 2018) created from our individual poems; and a 1-hour recorded, transcribed online video meeting where we dialogued about ‘what the tapestry poem says, and why that matters to us and others’.

More specifically, we started by asking the authors of the eight published articles to write and share short poems (in any format) inspired by their experience contributing to the special issue. We explained that the poems would help us to learn more about our role as editors and what the experience was like for them. We asked for poetic feedback from the contributors because we expected them to enjoy responding poetically and because we were interested in learning from their poetical thinking and knowing.

We received seven feedback poems from the contributors, including the author of the article that appeared in the next issue. Only one article’s authors declined to write a poem for us, citing time constraints. The poems’ emphasis, length, style, and language varied considerably. The formats included free-form poetry, a Haiku poem, a Renga poem, a metaphor poem, and a double-voice poem¹. Five poems were in English, one in Japanese with an English translation, and one in Portuguese with an English translation. All poems presented in this article, in part or in full, are copyright of the stated authors and have been used with permission.

The feedback poems highlighted the contributors’ diverse personal, professional, and academic growth through their poetic self-study research, the challenges and tensions they encountered, and our editorial assistance with peer review and finalizing the papers. Of course, because we were the primary intended audience, the contributors may have written what they thought we would like to read. Nevertheless, we found the poems heartfelt and complex, not shying away from mixed feelings about our extensive and tireless editorial feedback (see, for example, excerpts of Jawaheer’s poem in Figure 1, and Meskin & van der Walt’s poem in Figure 2).

Figure 1. Excerpt from “My Journey” by Mangala Jawaheer.

Figure 2. Excerpt from “Writing is Re-Writing” by Tamar Meskin and Tanya van der Walt.

On reading the contributors’ poems, we quickly recognized their struggles and aspirations. We could identify with them as academics enmeshed in daily personal and professional interactions (see an excerpt of McDonough’s poem in Figure 3 and Müller’s poem in Figure 4).

Figure 3. Excerpt from “Major Revisions and Minor Edits” by Sharon McDonough.

Figure 4. Excerpt from “Pick Up a Stone” by Marguerite Müller.

The contributors had wrestled over the lengthy and layered writing and revisions process, slowly leading to their unique creations (see, as examples, Nishida’s poem and explanation in Figure 5, and excerpts from Van Laren & Masinga’s poem in Figure 6 and da Silva Vieira et al’.s poem in Figure 7).

Figure 5. “Meg’s Learning Experience Through Haiku Self-Study Publication” by Megumi Nishida.

Figure 6. Excerpt from “Scaffolding Poetic Creation” by Linda Van Laren and Lungile Masinga.

Figure 7. Excerpt from “Together We Bloom” by Ewerton Leonardo da Silva Vieira, Samara Moura Barreto de Abreu, and Luiz Sanches Neto.

After reading and discussing the contributors’ poems, we decided to compose our own found poems as the next data source and first layer of co-creative analysis. We wanted to elicit and communicate our poetical thinking as qualitative analysis (Freeman, 2017) by creating found poems from the contributors’ poems. Found poetry is a means of arranging extracts from data sources – in this case, words and phrases from the contributors’ poems – into poetic form (Butler-Kisber, 2005). Creating our found poems involved observing visual patterns and listening for rhythms while selecting and combining words and phrases, building lines and stanzas by rearranging words and phrases, and inserting breaks and spaces (Leggo, 2008). We had to pay focused, continuous attention to the form and substance of the contributors’ feedback poems and the found poems we were constructing from them. Our found poems were inspired by our research questions and our emotional, physical, and intellectual reactions to the feedback poetry.

We constructed the found poems using the tapestry poetry design, developed initially by Avril Meallem in Israel and Shernaz Wadia in India as a specific form of collaborative, transnational poetry (Meallem & Wadia, 2018). We followed Meallam and Wadia’s guidance to produce our tapestry poetry. Their instructions are summarized as follows: Two poets connect through email and interweave the multicoloured threads of two independently created nine-line poems – one from each of them on a title chosen by one of them – into a composite 18-line poem. We decided to use the tapestry poetic form, which we had previously used and found to function well in self-study research (Pithouse-Morgan & Samaras, 2022), to condense research data (excerpts from the feedback poems) and provide an individual and combined depiction of our subjective responses to the data as complementary colleagues.

Anastasia started the process by writing a 9-line found poem, using material from the seven contributor poems. She emailed Kathleen her poem title, ‘Scaffolding creative ruptures in work lives’. Then Kathleen, inspired by Anastasia’s title, created her own 9-line found poem from the seven contributor poems. Kathleen titled her poem ‘Turning together, growing high’. Then we exchanged poems. Reading each other’s poems, we noticed our perspectives differed: Anastasia’s poem took an editor stance, whereas Kathleen’s took a contributor stance. Adopting these various points of view had happened spontaneously and was significant in light of our research questions.

Kathleen then wove the 18 lines of the two poems to create a composite tapestry poem as a conversation between contributors (italics) and editors (roman). This was free-form poetry except for having to contain 18 lines as per Meallam and Wadia’s guidelines. After each reading and commenting on it, we agreed on a title for the composite poem. ‘Creative Ruptures’ (Figure 8) made visible and accessible our fluid, dialogic ‘understanding in flow’ of the special issue contributor and editor experience (Freeman, 2017, p. 86).

Figure 8. “Creative Ruptures” by Anastasia P. Samaras and Kathleen Pithouse-Morgan.

We scheduled an online meeting after emailing about the tapestry poem. Creative Ruptures was a springboard for discussing what the poem says and why this matters. We talked animatedly about our learning from the editing, and the collection of poems inspired by the special issue experience. In considering what difference editing the special issue made to us and others, we also took a step back, bearing in mind the AERA 2023 call’s argument for editors to create opportunities and support alternative modes and diversity of scholarly products (Milner, n.d..). This 1-hour meeting was videotaped and auto-transcribed.

The online exchange provided additional data and served as a means for the second layer of analysis. First, Anastasia read the meeting transcript, using initial or open coding (Saldaña, 2016), by bolding and highlighting comments that stood out, particularly those related to the research questions we were exploring. In vivo coding, or our own language in the transcript, served to identify our ‘in-the-moment insights as they [arose] spontaneously in the actual dialogue process’ (East et al., 2009, p. 58). Anastasia sent Kathleen her provisional codes and highlighted transcript notes, sparking further collective pattern coding towards our thematic analysis.

Our Poetic Discoveries

To consider impetus and impact – both for and beyond the self-study field – we circled back to our guiding questions, ‘What difference did editing a special issue make to our understanding of promoting methodological creativity and innovations through poetic self-study? How did poetic feedback from the contributors inform our understanding?’ Four central features of our learning about promoting methodological creativity and innovations were evident in our multiple passes of the data: (a) plurality, (b) methodological and epistemological inventiveness, (c) academic – personal intersections, and (d) relational scaffolding. We illustrate each feature with lightly edited excerpts from the dialogue transcript and examples from the contributors’ feedback poems.

Regarding plurality, we noted that our special issue had involved diverse contributors bringing different cultural and national contexts, disciplines, perspectives, concerns, and languages (Japanese in Figure 5, and Portuguese in Figure 7).

Anastasia:

We tried to always honor authors’ voices, and when they chose to submit this feedback poem to us with their own language, I thought that was beautiful.

Kathleen:

Placing trust in us to listen, and helping us hear in multiple ways, contributors gave us feedback poems in their home languages and translated them for us. These poems remind us that language is a resource we can bring into research in different ways. There are so many ways to think and express ourselves in a variety of languages that we do not have in English.

Anastasia:

There was also such diversity of methodology!

Kathleen:

And when readers see unique examples from different parts of the world using various languages and topics, and from people at different career stages, it can give them the confidence to try something new.

Anastasia:

Wonderful contributions, brave, fearless, compelling.

Furthermore, the contributors’ research studies were not only methodologically but also epistemologically inventive. They combined the poetic with other modes of knowing to study their inquiries in greater depth. They submerged themselves in new territories of thinking with poetic data and analysis, adding other methods in a bricolage fashion. There was seemingly no end to what and how they could discover and express.

Kathleen:

That’s what we wanted for the special issue – methodological and epistemological inventiveness. And we certainly got it!

Anastasia:

There were unbelievable inventions and exploration. I don’t even know how we kept track of it all because there wasn’t anything that was similar!

Kathleen:

Using metaphors, images, rhythm, and all those poetic aspects combined with other modes allows people to express their truths about lives and experiences in ways that regular prose writing doesn’t.

In their articles and the feedback poems, the authors boldly shared the intersections of their academic and personal lives, humanizing the researcher and their work selves (see, for example, a second excerpt from McDonough’s feedback poem in Figure 9, below).

Figure 9. Excerpt from “Major Revisions and Minor Edits” by Sharon McDonough.

Anastasia:

They have personal lives going on simultaneously that complicate all their effort and work; we should never forget there’s a person behind each submission.

Kathleen:

The work was so obviously personally meaningful for the authors that we felt we needed to take extra care in giving feedback and respecting their authorial voices.

Anastasia:

They let us into their lives as a part of what they were writing about.

The role we played in the recursive process as relational scaffolders to the contributors and each other was woven throughout the data. We recognized our goal of being supportive and caring while ensuring high quality per the journal’s specifications and our judgment as self-study scholars (see further excerpts from Meskin & van der Walt’s feedback poem in Figure 10 and McDonough’s feedback poem in Figure 11).

Figure 10. Excerpt from “Writing is Re-Writing” by Tamar Meskin and Tanya van der Walt.

Figure 11. Excerpt from “Major Revisions and Minor Edits” by Sharon McDonough.

Kathleen:

We were straddling that interface between respecting the authors’ creativity and keeping the articles readable and suitable for the journal.

Anastasia:

The feedback poems on their special issue experience expressed caring, quality, and mentoring. We were gentle, but we were pushing . . .

 

Kathleen:

Much emerged in that back-and-forth editing and revising process; if we had been too prescriptive, we mightn’t have witnessed the same creativity.

We had promised the contributors that we would share our self-study manuscript as a member check and ensure we had included their feedback poetry authentically. As promised, after completing our manuscript, we invited each contributor to read it and offer feedback and suggestions for improvement. This was an essential step in the research process as it extended our understanding of what the experience meant to the authors. Furthermore, the contributors noted that they appreciated being asked to reflect on their writing process at some distance after their articles were published.

The contributors shared that they enjoyed reading the extracts from each other’s feedback poems and the intersections between their experiences as a collective of poetic inquiry self-study scholars. This layer of data supported our interpretations that a non-judgmental, supportive, yet ambitious approach was central to their experimentations in poetry. They expressed that the special issue recognized and advanced poetry as valuable self-study data, methods, and epistemology.

The contributors’ responses to our self-study manuscript helped us polish it and validated the necessity of critical, engaged, compassionate editors and reviewers in building a scholarly and innovative self-study community. The contributors noted that they felt encouraged to continue their poetic explorations with methodologically and culturally diverse self-study methods.

Scholarly Significance for the Self-Study Field and Beyond

Poetical thinking and self-study are two ways of examining professional practice and learning. The special issue contributors investigated that intersection in their authentic contexts, bravely deviating from conventional methods as they went about their daily lives. The experience of collaboratively creating the special issue pushed the contributors, and us, to learn about breaking new ground for non-traditional and diverse self-study research exploration in method, data, data analysis, and ways of knowing. We worked as co-editors to create a compassionate, academically rigorous environment in which authors could speak openly about personal and professional experiences and the impact of their work for dissemination.

Instead of seeking to offer advice about editing, in this self-study, we considered how gaining poetic insights into the contributors’ special issue experiences informed our understanding of promoting methodological creativity and innovations. Stepping back to assess the impact of this work for ourselves as self-study researchers and editors, we saw what can happen when editors call for, and encourage, methodological innovations and creative responses.

The authors’ intimacy with their work and willingness to make their thinking and struggles public in both their published work and the feedback poetry they sent us were both raw and risky. We invited their poetical thinking, not knowing what might emerge. Working with the contributors required more intensive feedback work for us and the reviewers because of the unique formats for data and analysis, but the results were transformative. The contributors’ poetic responses about their experience validated that. And for us, although we have a variety of prior editing experience, there was something uniquely intimate in serving as editors of the poetic self-study manuscripts because of the personal nature of the content and imaginative presentations of the work. Perhaps the topic of poetic self-study promoted a deeper opening and exchange in the feedback process because the researchers allowed us into their personal and professional lives. Artistic endeavours often have that intimate quality.

Weaving together threads from the contributors’ feedback poetry reminded us of the essence of the work of complementary colleagues and playful experimenting in expanding individual creativity – the co-creativity that emerged – we were witness to its unfolding and knew it well from our collaborative experiences. This process’s plurality, interaction, interdependence, and creative activity were evident. We see personal and professional growth for ourselves and the contributors, as evident in the solicited poems and our subsequent dialogue. We learned more about what we value and what motivates us as editors and researchers by inviting the contributors to share their poetical thinking, and analyzing this poetically and dialogically.

We appreciated more than ever the need for high-quality, compassionate, and thoughtful reviewers who worked to support the authors and our work as co-editors. The special issue manuscripts were complex and nuanced, pushing new ways of thinking about data and analysis, and requiring multiple reads. They demanded more in-depth feedback that, while honoring the innovation, encouraged authors to make their processes and thoughts transparent to the readers. Reviewers and the journal editors were invaluable from submission to the final published articles.

Innovation requires a research community committed to not settling for the status quo of form, method, and purpose. In our dialogue, Kathleen noted, ‘We had so many good reviewers that it wasn’t only our decision about what was suitable for publication’. Anastasia reflected, ‘I like not feeling like “Check, it’s done, and here’s another special issue”, but what are the implications for S-STEP as an organization?’ And that prompts us to ask how one invites and supports newcomers to enter a special interest group, to have a space as developing scholars with supportive mentors? It was a community effort for all of us – ourselves as special issue co-editors, the reviewers, and Julian Kitchen and Amanda Berry, the journal editors – to make the contributors’ innovative work public so that others, both seasoned and novice, might be encouraged to step outside their comfort zones.

This study furthers our continued exploration of poetic self-study as an arts-based method, and with exemplars of creative experimentation. This new study also builds on our previous research by extending the conceptual and methodological foundations of polyvocality and bricolage to examine our professional learning in the context of special issue editing. In this study, we have expanded on our earlier work by poetically and dialogically exploring our learning as editors and the learning expressed by the contributors’ feedback poems. We described this new knowledge in terms of four features that may be useful for others working to understand and stimulate methodological creativity and ingenuity in the self-study research community and the larger field of qualitative study: plurality, methodological and epistemological inventiveness, academic-personal intersections, and relational scaffolding. These four features also contribute to the knowledge base of supporting self-study methods and their innovative nature and self-liberation.

The individual studies in the special issue substantiate the need for, and the value of, editors and research leaders providing catalysts and support for innovation in research that can enable personal and professional introspection and serve as transformation platforms. We recommend further calls and spaces for others to explore boldly so as to move away from the sameness of what research is supposed to be or look like. Moreover, a commitment by journal boards and professional organizations to promote methodological innovations and creativity would spark innovation. Encouraging more intensive and supportive review and self-studies by editors and reviewers of their professional learning would prompt more creative submissions. Our discoveries and experimental discovery process can be a springboard for others to consider such work. It will also be useful as a resource for editors, reviewers, and scaffolders of arts-inspired inquiry who are eager to take on more transformative and imaginative roles in designing, communicating, and supporting research.

Acknowledgments

We are grateful to the special issue contributors, journal reviewers, and editors who enthusiastically accepted our proposal for a themed issue.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. Free-form poetry has no set rhyme scheme or pattern. Line length, rhythm, and structure are adaptable, and originality and expression are valued. Traditional Japanese Haiku comprises three lines, each with a fixed number of syllables. It typically displays nature and the seasons to capture a moment or elicit a strong emotional response. Two or more poets write Japanese Renga poetry, alternating stanzas. Haikus begin the poem, and subsequent stanzas connect to form a dialogic chain of verses. Metaphor poetry employs metaphors to describe complex ideas and feelings. Metaphors add complexity by contrasting seemingly unconnected things. In double-voice poetry, two voices or points of view are used in dialogue. Double-voice poems typically explore competing views or multiple perspectives.