Chapter 5: Visual Thinking Strategies for Emergent Bilinguals

Ana (first author) was first introduced to visual thinking strategies (VTS) as a teacher working in an urban district in Connecticut. The assistant superintendent at the time suggested the training as part of a professional development activity in the hopes of adding a new strategy to the teachers’ toolkit of strategies to use with K–12 students, many of whom were emergent bilinguals in the process of learning English. Ana was apprehensive at first since traditional art museums are not known for being welcoming to children; her apprehension grew when she noticed that most of the museum docents were White English-speaking women. The children in the district were mostly Latinx emerging bilinguals in the various stages of learning English (García et al., 2008) and she was concerned with potential disconnects between museum language—the language used to describe works of art in abstract ways—and language that is accessible and engaging to school-aged students. However, as the training progressed she had the opportunity to observe and practice implementing VTS, her apprehension turned into excitement.