Making Sense by Making Art: How Arts Residency Programs Provide Access for English Learners

• In Event: Engaging Diverse Learners and Communities Through the Arts

Abstract

This paper explores how arts residency programs provide elementary English learners (ELs) with access to rich sense-making opportunities that impact participants’ agency as learners and teachers in increasingly diverse contexts. Emerging from a larger study grounded in mulitiliteracy theory, the paper asserts that work in the arts strengthens public education by contributing to an assets-based view of ELs’ engagement in learning and communication of knowledge through multimodal expression. The study employs a language and literacy research lens to conduct a multi-case study of two theatre arts/writing and visual/maker arts programs. Data sources include extensive classroom observations, semi-structured interviews with students, teachers, artists, and administrators, and collection of student- and teacher-created artifacts.

Author

• Kristin Papoi, University of Wisconsin - Madison