The emerging dialogue between the arts and humanities and professional health care education is explored by considering ethical practice in nursing via several narratives of student nurses and nurse educators in one Scottish university. Adopting a narrative methodology based upon the literary hermeneutic of Paul Ricoeur, this thesis is presented as a ‘narrative research text’ in which my own role as a narrative researcher is critically developed. Utilising two different narrative frameworks, narratives are ‘constructed’ from data drawn from the research methods of focus groups, one-to-one interviews, reflective practice journals and documentary sources. Contemporary approaches in professional health care ethics education tend to share features of deduction, universality and generalisability. Their merits notwithstanding, perspectives drawn from the arts and humanities can offer valid critiques and alternative perspectives. Reading literature and poetry is offered as an engaged and interpretive contribution to a teleological ethic characterised by attention to ends (e.g. human flourishing), cultivation of virtue, telling of narrative, recognising relationality and in acknowledging the significance of contextual factors. These perspectives can all contribute to an ‘eclectic’ approach to ethics education in nursing. These narratives of student nurses support the careful inclusion of the arts and humanities within nurse education curricula for their potential to encourage self-awareness, critical thinking and concern for others. Narratives of nurse educators support these insights in addition to demonstrating ways in which the arts and humanities themselves can offer critical perspectives on current curriculum philosophies. These narratives suggest that the reading of literature and poetry can contribute to an eclectic approach to ‘ethical competency’ in nurse education. This is a broad-based educational approach which draws upon shared interpretive dimensions of the arts and humanities via engagement, action and response. This thesis contributes to current literature in the field of professional health care education by demonstrating the significance of findings derived from inclusion of a teleological ethic within ethics education.

Reading and sharing poetry fosters richness in languages and encourages understanding of ideas presented through a beautiful form of expression. Poetry takes the reader through expression of emotion and the ideas that these emotions inspire in the poet. Further, the poet stimulates the reader to explore his or her own feelings and ideas. Discussion of what a particular poem means to individual students provides opportunities to share ideas and feelings which the poem evokes. The use of poetry invites students to read lines or particular phrases which are appealing to them or about which they have a question. Furthermore, teachers should be encouraged to combine the aesthetic dimensions of poetry with skills development. A poetry guide for encouraging basic language skills is presented herein.

Poetry and literature as a whole have been marginalized and discredited in Portuguese language classes in elementary school. Reading poetry and lyrical literacy are essential for students at this level of basic education to apply and make good use of their knowledge in various social contexts. In addition, working with the poem genre and / or other texts that retake poetic language is very enriching for the student, since with these textual genres in the classroom and at school the student is allowed to reach a substantial level of humanization, awareness and reflection on the culture and legacy of a people, and their own history in the world. The main objective of this initiative was to equip students for lyric literacy by reading poems and poetic language texts. The pedagogical intervention that gave rise to this academic report was held in Class A of the 9th year of elementary school, at the José de Alencar Cardoso State School, located in Aracaju / SE. For this purpose, questionnaires were applied before and during the activities with the corpus, whose purpose was to seek to know what the students knew or did not know and / or what they learned about poetry and poetry. The didactic activities were given dynamically, with silent, oral, expressive, analytical and interpretive readings. The corpus used in this research consisted of two chronicles and three poems. As a theoretical contribution, we are based on Rildo Cosson (2014); Neusa Sorrenti (2013), Octavio Paz (2012); Tzvetan Todorov (2009); Antonie Compagnon (2010 and 2012); Egon Rangel (2003); Antonio Candido (1987); Regina Zilberman (2009), Hélder Pinheiro (2007); Fernando Paixão (1983); Massaud Moisés (2007); Emil Staiger (1977), among other authors. / A poesia e a literatura como um todo têm sido marginalizadas e desprestigiadas nas aulas de língua portuguesa do ensino fundamental. Entretanto, a leitura de poesia e o letramento lírico são essenciais para que o estudante desse nível da educação básica aplique e faça bom uso de seus conhecimentos nos vários contextos sociais. Além disso, o trabalho com o gênero poema e/ou com outros textos que retomem a linguagem poética é bastante enriquecedor para o aluno, uma vez que, com esses gêneros textuais na sala de aula e na escola, permite-se ao estudante alcançar um substancial nível de humanização, sensibilização e reflexão sobre a cultura e legado de um povo, e sua própria história no mundo. O objetivo precípuo desta iniciativa foi instrumentalizar os alunos para o letramento lírico, através da leitura de poemas e textos de linguagem poética. A intervenção pedagógica que deu origem a este relatório acadêmico foi realizada na Turma A do 9º ano do ensino fundamental, da Escola Estadual José de Alencar Cardoso, localizada em Aracaju/SE. Para tanto, foram aplicados questionários, antes e durante as atividades com o corpus, cuja finalidade foi buscar conhecer o que os alunos sabiam ou não sabiam e/ou o que aprenderam acerca de poema e poesia. As atividades didáticas deram-se de forma dinâmica, com leituras silenciosa, oral, expressiva, analítica e interpretativa. O corpus utilizado nesta pesquisa constituiu-se de duas crônicas e três poemas. Como aporte teórico, fundamentamo-nos em Rildo Cosson (2014); Neusa Sorrenti (2013), Octavio Paz (2012); Tzvetan Todorov (2009); Antonie Compagnon (2010 e 2012); Egon Rangel (2003); Antonio Candido (1987); Regina Zilberman (2009), Hélder Pinheiro (2007); Fernando Paixão (1983); Massaud Moisés (2007); Emil Staiger (1977), dentre outros autores. / São Cristóvão, SE