Members of the American Educational Research Association (AERA) who attend the organization's annual meeting in 2002 are invited to attend a professional development course (for only $70!) that will train them to engage "with poetic representation of data as a way of focusing, interpreting, clarifying, and communicating the results of qualitative research," according to a note in the December 2001 issue of Educational Researcher, the association's journal. The complete description, which appears on pp. 38-39, is as follows:
"Constructing Data Poems
This workshop engages participants with poetic representation of data as a way of focusing, interpreting, clarifying, and communicating the results of qualitative research. It further addresses the question of poetic representation as an avenue for culturally relevant research. Its purpose is to give participants a hands-on experience with poetic representation of data and an exposure to a range of forms and purposes. Participants may work with data that they will be guided to generate during the workshop or
with data they bring. Presenters will offer models of data poems; specific strategies for constructing and revising data poems; examples of poet-researcher collaborations; trans-national/trans-cultural collaborations, and ways of thinking about assessment. In this highly interactive session, issues for discussion will include a) the potential for poetic representation of research and the limitations of that potential, b)the potential roles of data poems in teaching and learning, and c) the potential of poetic representation for culturally relevant research."
This workshop is promoted in the same journal that in the last few years has published articles such as "The Awful Reputation of Education Research," by Carl F. Kaestle ( v22 n1 pp. 23, 26-31) and "Improving the 'Awful Reputation' of Education Research" by Gerald E. Sroufe ( v26 n7 pp. 26-28).