Verbal and Visual Arts Engagement in University Classrooms

ABSTRACT This article examines the efficacy of various interdisciplinary methods in creating more effectively developed teaching and learning of English poetry. Worldwide, poetry’s prestige in academia within the humanities curriculum has declined. In Saudi universities, poetry is one of the most difficult literary courses taught in English departments, Princess Nourah bint Abdulrahman University is no exception. For these reasons, there is a need to explore new pedagogies in poetry teaching. This article introduces a new intersection of verbal and visual arts contexts in female basic- and advanced-level classrooms. This paper focuses on twofold approaches, first is the theoretical (verbal) where the overall artistic evaluation is delineated. Second is the empirical approach (visual) when the concrete pictures of the poems are made. Next, the paper analyses the pictures through the lens of multimodal theory highlighting the learning outcomes and skills the arts-based classroom generates, amongst which are creative thinking, emotional intelligence and problem solving.