That's a Good Story, But Is It Really Research?

Abstract

This article chronicles the author's journey of writing short stories. Following an opening story, the author explains how she wrote short stories and field notes during her study of Head Start policy Initially, the stories captured the author's emotive and physical memories of mundane and extraordinary events. Later, with the help of Norman Denzin, the stories became part of a research text. Acknowledging that researchers are encouraged to write experimental texts, the author argues that there are few exemplars in educational research of such work. The author then describes and shows how she combined short stories with connecting text. The connecting text provides historical and cultural background on policies depicted in the story. The article concludes by raising questions about how short stories will be evaluated by qualitative methodologists and other researchers.