ABSTRACT
In this introductory chapter, we open with our positionalities as editors exposing why utilizing the arts for language learning with emergent bilingual (EB) students, families, and communities is so close to our hearts. We proceed by contextualizing the work with demographic information regarding emergent bilingual learners, followed by the theoretical foundations and connections among the three disciplines represented: the arts, literacies, and language acquisition. Art as a Way of Talking is organized in sections by guiding themes. Section I centers student situated practice, codeswitching and translanguaging, engaging heritage languages, culturally relevant pedagogy, and academic literacy. Section II features accelerated learning through the arts, multimodalites, and multimodal arts-based assessment. Section III deepens expressions of critical democratic practice, development of collective identities, reclaiming indigenous languages through community collaborations. Rich examples from researchers and practitioners within this volume artfully connect to students’ funds of knowledge creating access to academic achievement. This introduction concludes with an invitation to read the artful culturally responsive practices as we briefly describe the heart of each chapter within Art as a Way of Talking.
