Leaving Cert Poets: AI and TikTok Displace Textbook Study

Irish secondary school students preparing for the Leaving Certificate now face a different intellectual environment than their predecessors. The traditional method of close reading and independent analysis, once enforced by sparse textbook notes, has been replaced by a constant stream of digital advice. This shift has altered how students approach poetry questions, moving them from self-reliance to dependency on external, often contradictory, online sources.

The change is visible in the materials students use. The textbook My Soundings, used in Irish schools from 1969 until 2000, contained minimal guidance. Following each poem were up to seven questions and short biographies, but no detailed analysis of meaning or language. For example, a question on Kavanagh’s Inniskeen Road: July Evening asked students to show how the poem combines features of the Shakespearean and Petrarchan sonnet. The only note in the back of the book explained who Alexander Selkirk was. Students had to rely on their own knowledge or their teacher’s instruction to answer.

Today, students have access to a vast array of information. They can consult notes sites, search YouTube, follow teachers on Instagram, or use artificial intelligence. This abundance of resources is intended to help but often overwhelms. When a student watches a video on a poet like Emily Dickinson, social media algorithms push more content about that poet to their timeline. The clips rarely agree with one another, and frequently contain incorrect information.

A senior staff reporter noted that these digital sources often produce essays containing random, offbeat sentences filled with errors. AI, trained on this dubious online content, has entered student writing. The reporter observed that students increasingly ask to study specific poets not because they have read the other options, but because an influencer predicted the poet would appear on the exam.

The reporter described this prediction game as a charlatan’s pursuit of clicks and likes. Students listen to these influencers because the Leaving Certificate functions as a high-stakes competition. It pits student against student to earn CAO points, which act as currency for university courses. The system operates similarly to dynamic pricing in concert ticket sales, creating pressure to secure the best possible result.

Fearing they will be wrong, students turn to their screens and their parents’ credit cards for assistance. They purchase extra notes and follow advice from social media experts. This reliance has led to a generation of students who lack confidence in their own critical thinking. They are full of doubt and hesitant to analyze a text without external validation.

The result is a student body exhausted by the constant flow of advice. Each new clip promises more insights than the last, but the cumulative effect is a loss of independence. Where students once closed their books and rested, they now close them to face more poetry content on their feeds. The reclusive poet is everywhere, and the student is left to navigate a sea of conflicting opinions without a clear anchor in their own judgment.