Literacy on Our Minds: A Student-Inspired Symposium

In the context of an imagined symposium, this article addresses the literacy practices of elementary students ranging from first through sixth grade. The arguments the students make throughout the symposium, as well as the practices they relate, are drawn from arts-based literacy research conducted by the two authors. The imagined symposium begins with a joint keynote presented by two international literacy and art education scholars, Dr. Jerome Harste, and Dr. Elliott Eisner. With students as presenters in three breakout sessions that follow, they describe a learning environment in which they develop positive dispositions towards writing, how the arts support effective writing, and how to become a good writer. The students are joined in each of these sessions by discussants, literacy scholars whose work has emphasized the same topics addressed by the students. Collectively, the student presenters, the keynote speakers, and the discussants argue that the arts, as an alternative means of expression, position the learner to connect to affect, to refine meaning, and to reason metaphorically. (Contains 7 figures.)