ABSTRACT

Artistic thinking teaches us to attend to process, to have condence in learning through process, and to imagine a world that is necessarily interdependent with others. is book assumes artistic thinking is a necessity for all students and, indeed, for the health and survival of our future. Arts teachers need to ensure that the physical and imaginary learning contexts foster artistic thinking, positioning/inviting all students to participate wholly as creators. And, in doing so, learning opportunities demanding student engagement (see the interrelated contributing qualities outlined in section 2.2 of attentiveness, personal involvement, emotional commitment, felt freedom, dialogue and interaction, attunement within inquiry, and enlarged self-knowledge) through artistic processes of making and relating, perceiving and responding, connecting and understanding, will enable ELL students to nd the time and space to negotiate and translate understandings, play with and speculate about possibilities. eir participation contributes to enlarging their understandings and communication capacities in the process. rough engagement in this process, ELL students will nd respect, armation, and appreciation of individual and cultural uniqueness through artistic thinking. As a result, productive learning connections emerge for all the students involved. Teachers’ lived understandings of the curriculum as a medium for artistic thinking, with assessment understood as the individual and collective accompaniment on an ongoing basis, are primary tenets permeating such enactment.