Informing Poetry Pedagogy: Listening to the Voices of University Students With Intellectual Disabilities

Abstract

There is a paucity of empirical research on poetry pedagogy within inclusive higher/post-secondary education programmes for students with intellectual disabilities. This chapter goes some way to address this omission by presenting an investigation of poetry pedagogy as informed by university students of the Trinity Centre for People with Intellectual Disabilities (TCPID), School of Education, Trinity College Dublin. By asking the question: How can university students with intellectual disabilities be supported to respond to poetry? two themes were identified in the findings: ‘Curriculum content’ identified the importance of providing background information on the poet and selecting poems that directly relate to their life experience. The second theme ‘Pedagogical approaches’ examined how the utilisation of a variety of teaching and learning strategies, informed by a Universal Design for Learning (UDL) approach, can be successfully used to develop Arts, Science and Inclusive Applied Practice (ASIAP) students' interpretations of poems.

Citation

Kubiak, J. (2024), "Informing Poetry Pedagogy: Listening to the Voices of University Students With Intellectual Disabilities", Rose, R. and Shevlin, M. (Ed.) Including Voices (International Perspectives on Inclusive Education, Vol. 23), Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 165-175. https://doi.org/10.1108/S1479-363620240000023013