| The purpose of this naturalistic study is to explore how students name and represent their experiences through the arts and how arts integration is a potential for transforming the social engagement and classroom culture in high school classrooms. Framing my qualitative study in social constructivism (Vygotsky, 1978), the notions of capital (Bourdieu, 1977), social semiotic theory (Jewitt & Kress, 2003; Hodge & Kress, 1988; Halliday, 1978), and Hispanic feminist theory (Alarcon, 1992; Anzaldua, 1985), I utilize case study methodology (Patton, 1990; Stake, 1985) to explore the experiences of two bilingual Hispanic female students as they engage in semiotics-based literacy events centered on self-identity and transmediate (Siegel, 1995) their experiences through multimodal semiotic representations of their identities (Jewitt & Kress, 2003; Semali, 2002; Eisner, 1998b). Through teacher portraits, metaphorical language, and discourse analysis, I contextualize how two English teachers and one Art teacher advance and restrain the possibilities of such an arts-integrated curriculum. Implications of this study focus on the need for the implementation of multicultural education in urban high schools, the development of teachers' critical consciousness in providing space for students' articulations of experiences, the collaboration of teachers in arts integration, and the implementation of curriculum that supports alternate ways of representing knowledge and understanding. |
