Poetic Transcription in the Sociology Classroom: Developing Empathy,Analytical Skills,Creativity,and Engagement

Arts-Based Research

Pioneered by feminism, Women of Color writers, and postmodern scholarship (Diamond and Mullen 1999; Heaton 2002), arts-based research (ABR) is a transdisciplinary approach to social inquiry that promotes multivocal frameworks (Sinner et al. 2006). Drawing from traditional qualitative techniques, ABR employs artistic methods in the research process, which results in the fusion of art and scientific empiricism (Barone and Eisner 1997, 2012). ABR methodology comprises literary, performative, visual, and audiovisual genres. Examples include but are not limited to: poetic inquiry (Faulkner 2006, 2009, 2018; L. Richardson 1994; M. Richardson 1998), fiction-based research (Banks and Banks 1998), autoethnography (Denzin and Lincoln 2011), creative nonfiction (Sinner, Hasebe-Ludt, and Leggo 2018), ehtnodrama/ethnotheather (Saldaña 2011), collage (Butler-Kisber 2007; Vaughan 2005), and photography (Harper 2012; Mitchell 2011; G. Sullivan 2005).

A critical cornerstone of arts-based research involves abandoning dichotomies and the subject/object divide (Barone and Eisner 2012; Eisner 1997). This key feature includes problematizing the roles between the researcher and researched, between the knower and the known, and between fact and fiction (Leavy 2015, 2018). In the process, ABR emphasizes the presence of affect-eliciting material, which can give way to consciousness-raising ideas. Unlike quantitative/positivist research, ABR celebrates authenticity and truthfulness over reliability and validity (Leavy 2015, 2018). ABR goes beyond offering a persuasive interpretation of phenomena (Sava and Nuutinen 2003) to evoking social action (Longenbach 2004).

The goal of arts-based research is to engage elements of the human experience that may be limited by discursive communication (Barone and Eisner 2012) and/or not be accessible through other methods of research (Leavy 2015, 2018). By promoting alternative ways to knowing, ABR creates a third methodological space for the (re)presentation of findings, which, like art, aim to stimulate empathetic participation and add a level of disruptiveness (Barone and Eisner 2012). To sum up, arts-based research requires us to think with feelings.

Poetic Inquiry

Poetic inquiry is the process of integrating poetry in and through research (Prendergast 2009; Prendergast, Leggo, and Sameshina 2009), which includes employing poetry as means of data collection, the development of analysis, and representation of findings (Faulkner 2018). The task requires a sweeping reduction of data, from field notes and in-depth interviews to the poems on the page. As a result, research-based poems represent a heightened narrative about an experience (Leavy 2015), or what M. Richardson (1998) called the vividness of a “moment.”

The brilliance of poetic inquiry ties to poetry’s ability to show rather than tell about the human experience. Poetry is purposefully ambiguous and metaphorical and attempts to capture what ordinary vernaculars cannot (A. Sullivan 2000). Consequently, poetry asks that we interact with our intellectual, emotional, and spiritual selves (Faulker 2017; Leggo 2005; Prendergast et al. 2009). Poetry understands pauses and silence (Mazzei 2003) and demands interpretation and criticality (Faulkner 2017). As noted by Leavy (2015:260), “poetry can interrupt traditional ways of knowing and steer us in a new direction.” Thus, poetry can inspire students to think critically and compassionately about social change and/or encourage students to question assumptions about society. In the classroom, these ideas embody what Braa and Callero (2006) discussed as the “counter hegemony” and “praxis” of critical pedagogy.

Furthermore, the use of poetry in research gives researchers, their participants, and the audience an opportunity for self-reflection and healing (Eisner 1997; Faulkner et al. 2016; Galvin and Prendergast 2016; Kusserow 2008). Poetry has the potential to reach wider audiences (L. Richardson 2002), mediate dialogue (Calafell 2004; Chan 2003; Faulkner 2006; Langer and Furman 2004; Poindexter 2002), and act as a pedagogical tool (Barone and Eisner 1997). As Moran (1999:122) pointed out, “there are many ways to include poetry in a sociology course.”

Poetic Transcription

Poetic transcription or “found poetry” is a method of using poetry in the analysis and representation of research (Faulkner 2018). The process relies on rigorous thematic coding and data reduction, where a single word or an expression may come to represent an entire section of an interview transcript or a theme across a set of transcripts. Leavy (2015) described poetic transcription in relation to grounded theory by noting that researchers must first analyze the interview transcripts or data set to spot themes and reoccurring language. Then, using the extracted words and expressions verbatim from the text, the researcher develops the poem. The intent is to (re)present the data as poetry in a way that the participants’ speaking styles and worldviews remain preserved (Faulkner 2009, 2018; Madison 2005).

Poetic transcription requires careful consideration of shared authority and reflexivity given that the researcher and/or student also may choose to incorporate in the poems their own language and insights from the literature. As explained by Glesne (1997:215), poetic transcription generates a “third voice that is neither the interviewee’s nor the researcher’s but is a combination of both.” That is, a “third voice” arises from the mutual collaboration between the researcher and the data/participant during the interpretation process (Leavy 2015). Moreover, practitioners using poetic transcription must continuously broaden awareness to avoid speaking for others (Alcoff 1991). For students, this may translate into learning how to take more/less symbolic space, developing a greater understanding of cultural appropriation, considering social identity, and reflecting on issues of power.

Scholars employing poetic transcription pay meticulous attention to rhythm, spaces and breaks in the narrative, mood, tone, and the spirit of the participant’s story (Faulkner 2018; Leavy 2015). The crafted poems should aim to transform (Hirshfield 1997), inspire (Longenbach 2004), demonstrate attentiveness to detail (Parini 2008), and ring “true” despite accuracy (Brady 2004). As Faulkner (2018) contended, arts-based poetry should yield to an “embodied experience” in which the audience feels with or experiences in situ.

Background on the Class

I utilized poetic transcription in an elective honors sociology course on arts-based research methods. The primary objective of this course is to immerse students in bricoleur approaches to research that emphasize the more expressive elements of the qualitative tradition and encourage conversation with broader audiences outside academia (Corte and Irwin 2017). We engage sociology by paying attention to how ABR can enrich social inquiry involving empowerment and social justice advocacy. To graduate in the honors college, students must maintain a 3.25 GPA or higher and complete 15 honors credit hours and a thesis project. Many of the students who enroll in this course come from outside sociology, have little formal artistic training, and seek to expand their methodological skills in preparation for their theses. I collected the data for this article during the fall semester of 2019. Sixteen students were participants.

Graded assignments for the course included experimentations with autoethnography, fiction-based research, poetic transcription, photography, and collaborative artmaking. Many of the works cited in this article were required readings for the course. The class met twice per week, and the days were divided into practice/discussion days (I do/We do) and exhibit days (You do). Practice/discussion days focused on theory, methods, and practicing the building blocks of ABR. On exhibit days, the students presented solo work and gave and received feedback. The practice facilitated active discussion among learners and helped develop awareness through dialogue and critique (Braa and Callero 2006). At the end of each class, the students’ impressions were assessed through “exit tickets,” which frequently comprised of three to four open-ended reflection questions (Marzano 2012).

An Activity and an Assignment

The day we practiced poetic transcription, I spent the first minutes of class overviewing the weeks’ assigned readings, which explained and gave examples of poetic transcription (Faulkner 2018; Glesne 1997; Leavy 2015; L. Richardson 1994; A. Sullivan 2000). Next, we divided ourselves into groups and received a set of poems by one of three authors: Gloria Anzaldúa, Rupi Kaur, and Charles Bukowski.1 Anzaldúa and Kaur are Women of Color writers whose works bring to light issues of racial and patriarchal oppression. Bukowski exposes the students to a white male voice whose poems arguably engage themes of toxic masculinity and issues of mental health. In all, the three poets examine matters that are intimately sociological and relevant: racial subjugation, immigration, living in the borderlands, gender, the American working-class, substance abuse, and suicide.

Once we were organized into groups, I asked the students to read the set of poems as if they were transcripts from in-depth interviews and use a grounded theory approach to generate a reoccurring theme from the set of poems. This process required the students to interact with data (the poems) in an inductive and iterative modality, going back and forth from the text to sense-making and back to the text again until patterns emerged. Subsequently, I asked each group to employ poetic transcription as a method to compose a poem that displayed their finding (an emerging theme from the analysis of the set of poems). The students used Faulkner’s (2018) criteria for evaluating poetic inquiry to self-assess the work. The measures included: “artistic concertation” (the craft of lines, punctuation, sound, word choice, mood, and tone); the “embodied experience” (poetry’s ability to charge the audience emotionally); “discovery” and “transformation,” which involve bringing about new insight and/or inspiring transformation; and “conditionality” (a poem’s sense of truthfulness). The activity lasted the entire 120 minutes of the class session. We used the first 20 minutes to overview the readings and explain the activity, allotted 30 minutes to work in groups, and reserved 10 minutes for reading aloud each group’s poem. We used the last 20 minutes to discuss the activity in relation to the readings.

At the end of class, the students were given a graded assignment to engage poetic transcription on their own. The homework asked the students to gather 10 to 15 media articles about a current event of sociological relevancy. The guidelines emphasized the importance of using a diverse sample of sources. As with the class activity, the students were asked to employ a grounded theory approach to identify themes in the media articles and use poetic transcription to write poems that crystalized three emerging themes. In addition to the poems, I asked the students to include a discussion of their methodological process and cap the assignment at 600 words. The students were given a week to complete the work.

I designed both the class activity and the assignment considering the tenants of critical pedagogy, which mutually align with the principles of ABR (Braa and Callero 2006; Fobes and Kaufman 2008; Freire 1974; Jafar 2016; MacNamara, Glann, and Durlak 2017). In addition to practicing coding, analysis, writing skills, and collaboration, my goals also were to: (1) engage students through material that was relevant to them, (2) have students develop awareness of both self and society in context of systems of oppression, (3) encourage students to challenge the status quo, and (4) embolden them to produce content that inspires transformation in society.

Students’ Poems

For their graded assignment, every student in the class engaged a topic of sociological significance, namely, climate change (four), the U.S. and Mexico border crisis (two), the legalization of cannabis (two), sexual assault and rights to the body (two), body positivity (one), the 2019 Hong Kong protests (one), child abduction (one), the vaping ban (one), mental health (one), and queer justice (one). The three poems that follow are examples of the students’ graded work.

De Este Lado

A man is meant to work with

His hands or on his feet

De este lado

The expectation to support

The family remains

De este lado

It is only getting worse

De este lado

From the Aztecs to the Tejanos to the

Contemporary Latino

De este lado

Personally, I am an American first

De este lado

Living in that constant fear

De este lado

I am now a U.S. citizen

The Fighters

Right now world leaders keep

Acting like children

And somebody needs to be

The adult in the room

Twelve-year-old Mari Copeny

Fourteen-year-old Massimo Biggers

Young people, young girls

Leading this movement

Fifteen-year-old Autumn Peltier

Sixteen-year-old Greta Thunberg

World leaders feel threatened

By a new generation

Sixteen-year-old Isra Hirsi

Climate activist

Seventeen-year-old Helena Gualinga

Nineteen-year-old Bruno Rodriguez

Got the world’s attention

This is real hope

Although the students’ assignments varied from the class exercise (coding media articles instead of poems), the guided practice prepared the students to engage poetic inquiry on their own. To do this, the students engaged grounded theory and synthesized distilled meaning into poems. Because poetic transcription requires active consideration of method/ethic/politic and (re)presentation of voice, the students had to engage in reflective thought process and action, which by proxy enlist critical analysis of self.

Writing poetry also enabled the students to discuss topics relevant to contemporary society as well as their interests. In alignment with the values of ABR and critical pedagogy, these poems promote social action and consciousness-raising ideas and connect with the audience through empathetic engagement (Longenbach 2004). The students employed repetition to elicit emotion and thus disrupt cultural assumptions about marijuana, monolingual communication, and effective leadership (Barone and Eisner 2012; Faulkner 2018). These reiterations show artistic concentration and stimulate an embodied experience in the process of compounding the medical advantages of cannabis in the first poem, code-switching from Spanish to English in the second, and stressing the young age of environmental activists in the third. Through these poems, the students challenged the status quo.

The poems also encourage a sense of optimism by underscoring hope in their closing lines. The first poem moves its focus past the health benefits of cannabis and brings attention to the pardon of “non-violent marijuana convicts,” which adds a layer of compassion to the poem’s narrative. The second poem offers a materialized reality to the dream of many immigrants by ending with the line, “I am now a U.S. citizen.” Moreover, the third poem sees the rising generation of activists as the future of environmental justice. These depictions of hope juxtaposed to representations of disfranchisement (deviant, immigrant, and youth statuses) encourage emancipatory perspectives as noted in the ABR and critical pedagogy literatures.

Hope as a theme was explored in the students’ works as a class. Generally, students focused on the “heavier” themes from the data first and then shifted to optimistic crystallizations. The students also played with spacing, enlarging and minimizing specific phrases as part of the aesthetic representation of their poetry. The first sample poem (shown previously), which adopts “black-out” words in the composition, is an example of such enactment.

Students’ Impressions

The students’ experience using poetic transcription was assessed through an open-ended questionnaire after the students shared their poems on exhibit day. I asked the students to reflect on the following: (1) the skills they built practicing poetic transcription, (2) how they might use these skills later in life or other research (i.e., honors thesis), and (3) how the assignment helped them become better sociologists. Every student enrolled in the course (16) completed the reflection.

As a class, the students expressed that practicing poetic transcription helped them gain valuable skills, including “creativity,” “critical reading skills,” “reflexivity,” and “consciousness,” which the students often tied to accounting for “multiple perspectives” and looking “through different lenses.” These reflections illustrate the process of closely listening, as explained by Hesse-Biber (2016). For example, one student stated, “I had to take in multiple viewpoints without allowing my personal beliefs to keep me from truly listening.” Another student said, “I paid more attention to the language and the dialogue.” Another student commented, “I had to imagine how others would understand the meaning without reading the articles.” On similar points, two other students remarked that “poetic transcription forced [them] to become more concise and to choose words carefully for getting [the] point across” and that “this method forced a new kind of critical reading as it made [them] ‘take on’ another’s perspectives, which will be useful for future research.” One student connected these ideas to matters of “collaboration” as they highlighted the importance of “maintaining voice or authority of who/what is being transcribed.” Likewise, another student noted that poetic transcription helped “create a voice [they] weren’t aware of.” These last two comments speak to what Glesne (1997) described as fostering a third voice (a voice that arises from collaborative efforts). Furthermore, the comments highlight the importance of collaboration as a substantial source of creativity (Corte et al. 2019; Sawyer and DeZutter 2009) and help demystify the perception that “creativity” and artmaking require unique talents, gifts, and abilities that only a few have (Taylor 2019).

In terms of conducting research and growing as sociologists, the students noted developing the ability to “code” and practice “analysis,” “interpretation,” and “grounded theory.” One student said, “I learned how to translate hard facts into an artform that is enjoyable to read, while still maintaining evidence-based research.” Another student concurred by stating they had learned how to create “art from data” by “cutting down unnecessary information” and “creating feelings from abstract numbers.” For another student, this meant “identifying what is striking and what stands out when it comes to data.” On at least two occasions, students indicated expanding the sociological imagination by noting the intersection of the micro and macro aspects of society (Mills 1959). One student said, “I was able to see the connection between the micro problems in sexual assault to the national problems of victim-blaming.” A second student observed how the assignment “allowed for practice of making micro-macro connections to find overall themes.”

The students also acknowledged that “poetry is an effective method of evoking emotions” and “connecting to a larger audience.” Furthermore, they addressed the role of vulnerability in the research process. One student brought attention to the importance of “letting [themselves] be emotional as a tool,” and another said that they were “able to practice the skill of finding words and phrases that would elicit emotions from others, not just [themselves].” A third student referenced one of their poems and said, “I cried writing it.” They explained that “these skills will allow [them] to approach situations, in research and life, empathetically and connect with a broader audience.” A student stated, “I had to imagine what they would feel and how they would want to take action.” Another commented on the affective value of poetry and how “the emotional element of social research” would help their undergraduate research “stand out.” Considering how emotions affect researchers and their audience speaks to the development of empathy. By noting how the arts can invigorate social inquiry and connect with a broader audience, the students bring attention to ABR as a critical tool for both teaching and research.

Lastly, students remarked on the “rigor” of poetic transcription. One student said, “I’m not likely to strongly advocate for anything, but after this assignment I might want to.” Another added, “it gave me a new approach and an open mind.” A third student commented, “It challenged me creatively and pushed me to be intentional with my words.” A fourth student mentioned, “This was hard. Using others’ words and maximizing the essence of themes required a new kind of critical reading.” A fifth student echoed, “This wasn’t an assignment I could complete in one sitting. It deserved thoughtfulness and depth.”

Discussion

In sociological research methods courses, poetic transcription can aid students to practice coding, thematic analysis, and a grounded theory approach. By nesting poetic transcription within the arts-based methodology, practitioners also give students exposure to various epistemological approaches (i.e., anticolonial, feminism, postmodernism, social justice; Corte and Irwin 2017). Moreover, as noted in the students’ impressions, engaging poetic transcription can help students develop crucial skills for other research projects and/or sociology classes. Examples of these include developing self-awareness, considering multiple perspectives, paying close attention, listening, collaborating, practicing brevity, and feeling empathy.

In other sociology courses (introduction to sociology and courses on gender, race and ethnicity, inequality, etc.), poetic transcription can be used as a critical pedagogical tool. That is, instructors can use poetic transcription to engage students through experiential knowledge, activate participation and collaboration, promote awareness, and inspire social action. For example, I used the poems of Anzaldúa, Kaur, and Bukowski to tap into narratives of resistance and oppression. Through their assignments, the students engaged in discussions of environmental justice, immigration, crime/deviance, and queer justice, among others. In both instances, we enlisted topics that are intrinsically sociological and often contentious, which allowed us to reflect, discuss, and make meaning together. As shown through the sample poems, using poetic transcription empowered the students to subvert the status quo. Resistance and challenging the status quo might be perceived as “too political” by some instructors; nevertheless, this class exercise allows students to apply and reflect on sociological concepts, whether instructors’ underlying goal is “teaching to transgress” (hooks 1994) or not.

Furthermore, by encouraging sociology students to experiment with poetry, we also animate creativity and heal the scientist/artist divide (Leavy 2015, 2018). In doing so, we emphasize common grounds over differences and generate an ethos of compassion, which can arouse public engagement. For example, students can learn about how to present sociological ideas and research beyond the walls of the university by considering different audiences (Buroway 2005). Students themselves may be moved into political action by writing or listening to poetry (over more standard approaches), as was noted in one of the students’ comments. Related to this last point is poetry’s ability to stimulate polyvocality and digress from the canon. These initiatives have the potential to charge the sensibilities of instructors and students who would instead teach and learn sociology through alternative mediums.

Practitioners may consider modifying the activity and assignment explored in this note to include other forms of data (in-depth interview transcripts, political speeches, court case transcripts, vignettes from a sociological theory text), assigning poetic transcription as one part of a larger project (opening a paper/thesis/research project with a poem demonstrates methodological dexterity), and/or employing poetic transcription as a warm-up exercise (the “black-out” method may mitigate issues of time constraint). Furthermore, as with other critical pedagogical practices, poetic transcription will not stand without challenges (Fobes and Kaufman 2008). For example, some students may express hesitation to engage poetic transcription because they do not see themselves as “creative” or because they have been socialized to keep science and art divorced. Students also may experience a sense of displacement if prompted outside of the “banking model” of education and thus feel vulnerable in the face of learning risks. Professors, too, may encounter the pressure to stay within the bounds of traditional pedagogy and/or find it challenging to decenter authority (consider nonwhite, female, and/or marginalized instructors).