The Stories We Live By and the stories we won’t stand by: Measuring the impact of a free online course in ecolinguistics

Current dominant narratives of economic growth, consumerism, and anthropocentric views on human existence, to name a few, are behind the driving forces responsible for the increasing destruction of the very own ecological systems that all life depends on. By utilizing tools of Discourse Analysis while adopting an ecological perspective, the free online course The Stories We Live By (TSWLB) offers a practical and accessible framework in which stories can be critically evaluated, questioned, and resisted. Crucially, students are encouraged to apply their newly acquired theoretical insights to search for alternative stories to live by. While current approaches of impact assessment beyond academia can be measured more readily in the sciences, it is harder to assess whether, how, and to what extent humanities research produces change in society; arguably, the digital format of the course adds to the complexity of assessing its impact. In this article, the authors aim to draw attention on the inherent value of the dissemination of traditional academic tools beyond academia. By combining both qualitative and quantitative methodologies in relation to the free online course TSWLB as a case study, the article provides an innovative tool to effectively measure impact which renders itself suitable for a wider range of disciplines across both traditional and digital humanities.

Composing Lives Alongside

Drawing on a broader narrative inquiry into the curriculum making of participants who compose identities dissonant with dominant stories of gender and sexuality, this article explores the shaping influence of the social (relationships, communities, and contexts) in one participant's life story around sexuality from a curricular perspective. The term curriculum making represents an ongoing process through which individuals make sense and meaning of experience, position curriculum broadly as a course of life, and shift notions of curriculum and curriculum making beyond the bounds of school. Individuals engage in identity making as they make sense of themselves in relation to their curriculum making, narratively understood as the composition of stories to live by. This inquiry highlights the ways that life stories are composed alongside, connected to, and shaped by other people and draws the attention of educators to the complex lives unfolding in schools.

Being and becoming online teachers

In this paper, we retell the process of our collective autobiographical narrative inquiry into our experiences of teaching online. Our research wonders come from two questions, What is online teaching? and, Who are we in this space? Early in our time together we came to understand how our individual backgrounds, experiences, and perspectives have influenced the ways we see, create, and navigate our place, and our students’ place, in online classroom communities. We also came to understand how the stories to live by that we carried of becoming “teacher” shaped the ways we live and experience online teaching. From this collective experience we see the potential and value of autobiographical narrative inquiry for all those being and becoming online teachers.

Post-Qualitative Inquiry: Four Balancing Acts in Crafting Alternative Stories to Live By

Post-qualitative inquiry can be seen to challenge—not fix—at least four elements of what Elizabeth St. Pierre calls conventional humanist qualitative inquiry: the nature of data, the role of methods, the quest for increasing clarity, and the idea of an individual “voice.” In conducting post-qualitative research rather than offering replacements for these or completely renouncing them, I outline four key balancing acts. Unless understood as continuous acts of balancing, post-qualitative inquiry runs a risk of being identified as yet another isolated fortress of righteousness.