Once I had gathered up all my memos, coded data, and notes, I started to write my grounded theory. I started by “entering the data” – I revisited my coding docs, created a colour-coded system, and set about making connections between Marjorie’s poems and journals. 

I also read Kathy Charmaz’s (2014) and Robert A. Stebbins’ (2001) work to prepare for writing the paper, and I frequently revisited them when I needed a boost. I was inspired by Charmaz’s convenient report writing structure (p. 285) and visual tool about the writing process, where ideas move in an upwards flow (reaching from the ground up) until the final stages and arrows flow in both directions. I found this reflected the non-linear journey of my research and writing. Charmaz reminds me that writing is an “iterative process,” while Stebbins encourages a literary approach to writing up explorative research (p. 42). He challenges researchers to use their imaginations, be interesting, and use creative writing conventions, which gave me permission to take a creative non-fiction approach to my paper. I also appreciate that Stebbins advocated writing in the present tense (p. 47), a detail that I wouldn’t have considered and which made my writing feel more present. 

Woods and Sikes provided guidance on organizing my data for my report. I followed their structure (p. 65) to create an outline for my paper and found their organizing strategies (p. 84) to be particularly useful. They encouraged persistence, studying data at different times of day from different angles, play, and experimentation. I especially liked how they reminded me to “appreciate the value of imperfection” (p. 84). 

I was worried I may have taken on more than I was ready for with my attempt to use a hybrid approach – integrating what I learned about grounded theory with a life history approach, which I refined to a narrative and arts-based inquiry. I found that it didn’t feel natural to attempt to write Marjorie’s life history (or a creative non-fiction biography piece about her, although I did construct a timeline of her life and include some biographical information about her). Instead, I started with my own life history, intertwining the story of my life and a series of poems I had written for/about Marjorie to create a multilayered narrative. The poetry series was an arts-based research practice that allowed for a different form of representing ideas and connecting with Marjorie and her poems. 

Finally, I managed to find a useful model before I started writing and which I returned to again and again during my process. James Haywood Rolling Jr.’s essay, This do in remembrance of me: Narrative uncertainty and the frothing of contentious identity, guided me through the possibilities of narrative and arts-based inquiry. Although he didn‘t incorporate qualitative research, his piece was an “excavation of an understanding of auto biography, purpose, and portent” (p. 186) in which he used poetry for emotional resonance. He provided a useful structure where his poems followed a question about feeling, since as he describes, “poems tend to convey the felt part of the story best” (p. 190). This helped me think about how to introduce and integrate my poems into my essay.  

I was amazed to see the threads of my research come together in my final paper, as all my hard work and analysis paid off. 

References 

Charmaz, K. (2014). Constructing grounded theory (2nd ed.). Sage.  

Rolling, Jr., J. H. (2010). This do in remembrance of me: Narrative uncertainty and the frothing of contentious identity. In Bathmaker, A.-M., & Harnett, P. (Eds.) Exploring learning, identity and power through life history and narrative research. Taylor & Francis Group. 

Stebbins, R. A. (2001). Exploratory research in the social sciences (Qualitative research methods series no. 48). Sage.  

Stewart, L. (n.d.) Life history research. Atlasti.com https://atlasti.com/research-hub/life-history-research 

Woods, P., & Sikes, P. (2022). Successful writing for qualitative researchers (3rd ed.). Routledge. 

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