Professional Experience and the Investigative Imagination: The Art of Reflective Writing [Paperback]

This book explains and demonstrates how creative writing can be used successfully in the context of professional education where traditionally a more distanced approach to reporting on professional experience has been favoured.
It is based on many practical examples, drawn from several years' experience of running courses for social workers, nurses, teachers, managers and higher education staff, in which participants explore their professional practice through imaginative forms of writing. The participants experience of the work is presented through a discussion of interviews and evaluative documents. The book includes a set of distance-learning materials for those wishing to undertake such work for themselves or to establish similar courses, as well as a full analysis of the link between professional reflection and the artistic imagination.
The book makes available a new and more broadly-based approach to the process of professional reflection, and the concept of the patchwork text has general relevance for debates about increasing access to higher education qualifications.This book explains how creative writing can be used successfully in the context of professional education. It argues that there is a role for this imaginative style in an area that has traditionally favoured a more distanced approach.'Richard Winter is known for his innovative and challenging educational research and teaching, and this text, as might be expected, provides stimulating and challenging material.' - Marilyn Leask, British Educational Research JournalRichard Winter is Professor of Education at Anglia Polytechnic University, where Alyson Buck is Senior Lecturer in Mental Health and Paula Sobiechowska is Senior Lecturer in Social Work.List of stories and patchwork texts, 1 Reflecting on experience and the imaginative construction of meaning: writing and sharing fictions 2 The imagination of meaning: writing and interpreting stories in a pl£W