Artists read about art.
Artists write about art.
Artists talk about art.
Artists make art.
I have had this up in my studio classroom for years. It was years ago when I picked it up from a sculptor friend of mine who was teaching public art to high school students. This has always resonated. As art educators---we are to create an environment within the school day that is a studio that guides the children to practice and master creative processes.
Mastery within the studio is best seen when it 'volunteers' itself in other parts of the students school day --- in reading , in writing, in math. Not because the child has written about their art work --- although this is great when it happens --- but rather because the child has a seamless practice and experience of imaginative process that is deliberate, that is quality and that shows a clear path to and from idea to idea.
All too often classroom teachers and well meaning art educators ( myself included) have created lessons wherein the child is to illustrate a text or use writing as a compositional element --- and named this as integration. This is art in service of other disciplines.
This attitude alternately makes me uncomfortable, frustrated and sad. Uncomfortable for its lack of authentic and challenging content for any aged student. Frustrated that art educators allow themselves second place when really all disciplines weave in and around one another. An sad simply because it is so easy to use the poem or delivered text for the children that the art making is not interesting for the child and the viewer.
Give the children a corridor of questions around their art making. Allow them to be frustrated by having to 'write in art too!' Then guide them them to realizing that the writing they engage in in art is about making as much as it is about practicing the skill of creative thought. Circle back to previous writing.This will demonstrate to the children as well as to yourself that there is a clear spiral of thought towards idea and making.