Articles in this issue of the Journal for Learning through the Arts report on the efforts of researchers and teachers to understand the components and outcomes of effective arts programs. The authors are pursuing the overall goal of improving arts education for all children and youth. And, in the process, helping them to employ their imagination and creativity throughout their lives.

This article explores commonalties between literacy instruction and learning to understand the symbolic languages of the visual and performing arts. A detailed case study of an urban professional development program for secondary arts teachers looks at the learning initiated by writing assignments that prompted students to reflect on arts experiences. Evidence of the effectiveness of integrated arts and literacy instruction is provided by a quasi-experimental study, which showed that the expository writing skills of the students of participating teachers improved significantly.