Imaginary gardens with real toads: Using poetry as metaphor in our own academic practice

• Catriona Cunningham and Jennie Osborn

• Higher Education Academy• UWS Learning and Teaching Conference • 20th June 2013

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“our species thinks in metaphors and learns through stories” (Bateson, 1994, p.110)

“Metaphor has the power to change our reality: words affect concepts and “changes in our conceptual system do change what is real for us and affect how we perceive the world and act upon those perceptions” (Lakoff and Johnson, 1980, p.146).

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Metaphors

“We always live with multiple subjectivities, but we generally conceal the multiplicity behind a few predictable and typical guises. Poetry invites us to explore the plural identities of human be(com)ings constituted in the play of language.” (Leggo, 2004, p. 12)

“teachers, both beginning and experienced, should learn to know themselves as poets in order to foster living creatively in the pedagogic contexts of classrooms and the larger pedagogic contexts outside classrooms.”(Leggo 2005)

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From narrative to poetry . . .

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From writing to reading

• Gut reactions• What is it saying – literally?• Metaphor• Imagery• Rhythm/pace• Who’s speaking• Who are they speaking to?

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Analysing poetry

• We will give your group a poem.• Read the poem twice to yourself, then once

aloud in your group.• Respond to the questions on the sheet,

continually returning to your own academic practice – your professional story

• Group discussion

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Reading and drawing