My mother’s favorite unabridged dictionary is part of my personal history. I had grown up with this gargantuan volume, leafing through to find definitions for unfamiliar terms. When it cracked at the spine, I took the loose pages to school instead of wasting them. What started as a sentimental moment turned into a literacy-rich art project for my middle-school students, many of whom speak multiple languages. When students started to scroll through the dictionary pages, they were spellbound. They enjoyed discovering new words, contrasting the different meanings, and choosing a single word to visually illustrate.
Art teachers advocate for their programs, their students, and themselves. Young students foster positivity and intergenerational connection through mandala displays, elementary students collaborate with a local artist to problem-solve and construct papier-mâché houses, middle-school students create illustrated dictionary pages to share with the community, high-school photography club students use their voices to advocate for a full class, and more.
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