ABSTRACT
This chapter explores a tacit reframing that undergirded the expansion of text in the English classroom: the inclusion of the arts across endless shapes and forms as story. Narrative is a powerful and available way to engage with the arts because much art, though not all, tells a story. Narrative art is the oldest art form that can be traced across cultures and geographies, from the earliest cave paintings of Mesopotamia and Egypt to early pottery upon which visual stories and myths of creation and culture were drawn. Art as story at Tobin thus began with a wide definition of what counts as art and aesthetic experience. A range of arts as stories consistently aimed to lift marginalized voices and push back against dominant hegemonic narratives. Another Brick in the Wall was the ninth graders’ first shared text and it invited them, through art and narrative, to probe and examine their ideas about school through symbol, language, and music.
