Book excerpt: This book provides a unique glimpse inside Ernst's sketch journal, in which readers can watch her teach, reflect on her observations, and see descriptions of her students' pictures and writing. Beginning with the understanding that children have stories to tell and to picture, she shows how to link art with reading, writing, and learning in the elementary classroom, takes art into the writers workshop and across the curriculum, and establishes an important partnership with classroom teachers and parents. Readers will discover how to use a picture as a springboard to writing, build a classroom community, form teacher study groups, introduce student sketch journals, take trips to museums, set up classroom and school galleries, establish routines, and organize the classroom studio.