Education Commons^™

Poetry And Pedagogy: Exploring The Opportunity For Epistemological And Affective Development Within The Classroom, Jennifer Hennessy, Carmel Hinchion, Patricia Mannix Mcnamara

Dr. Jennifer Hennessy

This paper provides a review of the priority afforded to the development of pupils’ affective and epistemic development within the contemporary poetry class. The paper reports on the findings of a research project which explored the experience of teaching and learning within the post-primary Leaving Certificate programme in Ireland. The research includes interview and questionnaire data obtained over a three year period from 2007-2010 from 80 post-primary teachers of Leaving Certificate poetry and 200 post-primary Leaving Certificate pupils. The paper highlights the malign impact of summative assessment on teachers’ pedagogical aspirations, identifying widespread professional dissonance amongst the cohort. Resultantly, empirical …