My aim in this unit is to unite and bring out both the artist and writer in my students. I believe that all of us have the potential to be both writers and artists in our own way. Who among us has not spent time doodling pictures of our thoughts on a lazy summer afternoon, or spent time drawing pictures on notes during a class in which our attention had slipped away? What child doesn’t jump at the chance to draw when a box of crayons and paper is taken out of the bottom of a drawer? Visual art is a natural communicator that we have all dabbled in at one time or another. The written word is also a medium we all utilize to reach other and ourselves. Who among us has not tried their hand at poetry or written in a diary or journal, or simply written a letter? A child learning the ABCs is fascinated at his/her ability to communicate an idea through words to an adult. We all have the desire to communicate our thoughts and ideas through both art and the written word. I want to help students to tap into this innate desire to communicate and share of themselves through their writing and art. I want students to examine others who have communicated through art and creative writing, and for students to learn through these people who both wrote and drew or painted. There are a wide variety of artists to examine, all of them with differing abilities and desires in their art and all of them with different focuses and goals. But all of them did find their artwork, like their writing, a way of communicating with themselves and/or with their world. While my unit here will focus more on Thurber and Poe than any of the other artists mentioned above, the techniques and strategies to be outlined can easily be adapted to fit any of these or other individuals. In fact, the degree of difficulty in performing some of the tasks I will propose could also be altered based upon the artists focused on. My Thurber/Poe focus in these pages will be aimed at seventh and/or eighth graders.