More than words: Culturally and environmentally responsive literacies in The Arts

Tuhia ki Te Ao—Write to the Natural World is a Teaching and Learning Research Initiative-funded research project that considers what it might mean to read and write about/to/for the natural world within the secondary school context. This article explores ways in which students communicate a relationship and kinship with the natural world through The Arts. We examine a visual arts unit delivered in the first year of the project, highlighting the culturally responsive approach taken by the teacher, who encouraged his predominantly Pasifika students to explore and express their relationship to the natural world using personally and culturally significant imagery.