Research Is... and Social Work Is... Poetic Analysis as a Reflective Activity

by Amber Sutton, LICSW

     While teaching a social work research methods course to BSW students at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, I used poetic analysis as part of a reflective activity where students provided responses to the following questions:

• What does being a professional social worker mean to you?
• How do you define research?

     Students answered these questions at both the beginning and the end of the semester. As a class, we discussed their responses and processed the activity. As this was a research class, I decided to use this activity as an exercise on how to “conduct” research, with the students as active participants. I obtained permission from all 10 students to collect their most recent responses from the final activity.

     Given that poetry had been a common thread weaved throughout the course, I understood the meaning and power of seeing and using poetry as knowledge, hence poetic analysis. I then used the data to transform their responses into two poems. I provided the students with the opportunity to participate in member checking or participant validation (Birt et al., 2016). As a collective, they were able to view the poems and decide if any additions or revisions were necessary. All 10 students agreed with the presentation.

     The students were excited about the results, and this encouraged me to seek out publishing opportunities. I then reached out to the BSW Program Director and received some ideas about how to disseminate the poems. When presented to the students, they provided written consent and agreed to be listed as co-authors, to give credit to their role in the research.

     The poems represent selected responses from each of the students, and more information can be found on our most recent blog post (Sutton et al., 2022), The Power of Words: Using Poetic Analysis in a Social Work Research Course.

    The following two poems were written by Amber Sutton, LICSW, and students Iva Burdette, Jackie Chavez-Martinez, Jennifer Dussich, Courtney Kramer-Williams, Katie Kramer, Hannah Marsh, Rachel Shunnarah, Natalie Trammell, Ahmia Vain, and Ella Wolfe.

Research is…

What is your question? 

Quantitative and Qualitative hand-in-hand.

Both methods are equally important.

Investigating social issues and evaluating programs.

Gathering and collecting

interpreting and analyzing

data.

Drawing from different resources and reaching conclusions

to better the community.

Numbers and words.

Learning and discovering.

Telling and warning.

It. Is. Truth. 

Research is getting to know the whole story 

including what we didn’t know mattered. 

It is being able to read jargon.

Picking out what to share and using that to make a change where I am.

It shows real-life experiences.

It seeks to ask questions about everyday problems.

What is working?

What needs to be improved?

What are the gaps?

Research is many different things in many different ways.

Social Work is…

Assisting and not dictating. 

Active helping. 

Professionalism.

    Ethical. 

Showing up as the whole version of myself

choosing to check my biases. 

Looking at the whole person. 

    Culturally humble. 

Giving tools at each point of one’s journey. 

Improving one’s quality of life. 

Maximizing potential. 

    Empowering. 

Valuing my time. 

Valuing the client’s time. 

Building rapport. 

    Respectful. 

Doing self-care. 

Taking care of myself. 

Giving help and also asking for help. 

    Boundaried. 

Life-long learning. 

Doing with a purpose. 

Knowledgeable collaboration. 

    Advocacy.

References

Birt, L., Scott, S., Cavers, D., Campbell, C., & Walter, F. (2016).  Member checking: A tool to enhance trustworthiness or merely a nod to validation? Qualitative Health Research, 26(13), 1802–1811.  https://doi.org/10.1177/1049732316654870

Sutton, A., Burdette, I., Chavez-Martinez, J., Dussich, J., Kramer-Williams, C., Kramer, K., Marsh, H., Shunnarah, R., Trammel, N., Vain, A. & Wolfe, E. (2022, April 29). The power of words: Using poetic analysis in a social work research course. Teaching and Learning in Social Work. https://laureliversonhitchcock.org/2022/04/29/the-power-of-words-using-poetic-analysis-in-a-social-work-research-course/ 

Amber Sutton, LICSW is a social work researcher and educator focusing on intimate partner violence. She is a doctoral candidate at the University of Alabama School of Social Work.