This book presents an integrated approach to the education of children that teaches them how to see and describe their world - both the natural world around them and their own culture and identity - through linking the media of art and language, considered as parallel creative-expressive processes of arting (representation in visual images) and writing (representation in words). The goal is transformative education based on the combined power and synergy of arting and writing processes to raise the educational experience to a higher level of exploration, personalized learning, and empowerment.

Two complete multi-lesson units illustrate arting-and-writing activities centered on local ecology and culture and on students’ own lives and interests. The Hawaiian context exemplifies the approach and how it can be adapted for use in elementary and middle-school classes in other contexts to integrate learning in students’ home language and culture with mainstream English language and culture, and to explore students’ cultural identity as connected to family and place.

The book is inspirational in content, suggesting an approach to educating children that will be enjoyable to teach and will engage learners and help them realize their full potential. It is also visually inspirational, richly illustrated in color with examples of student work and the work of artists and teachers, including that of the authors themselves.