b'identitydevelopment,wemayalsorepositionthemasagentsofmeaning-making and change. Just as our students are artists rather than people learning to make art, they are also capable researchers in their own right, especially of their own experiences and selves. Though they may need guidance to develop coherent meaning, they come to our classrooms already brimming with tacit, practical, embodied understandings of who they are and how they wish to be in the world. Regardless of years lived, our students stories are nonetheless messy, complicated, lived, and worthy of consideration. Adolescence is when our students begin to craft narrative identities and internalize their life stories (McAdams, 2001), making svecondary and post-secondary art classrooms the prime context for student-led, visual narrative inquiry. As art educators, we know art can tell a story, with or without words. When authentically made, it expresses something representative of the artists life experience and generates personal meaning as it is created. However, authenticartexperiencesthatpromoteextended,complexself-knowledge are lacking in abundance when compared to simplistic, pre-defined identity projects (Gude, 2007). Combining text and image, or more specifically, linking visuals with narrative, may encourage expanded awareness for students about how they are consciously formed through storied, entangled experiences.Even though it may be a foundational and valuable experience, crafting anengagingandwell-constructedstorycanbedifficultformanystudents. This may be the first time they have been encouraged to craft a semblance of an autobiography, directly confront an inner struggle, or seek out a plot within the seemingly disconnected experiences of their lives thus far. Making meaning of our stories is a skill that requires persistence, but it is well worth theeffort.Researchshowsthatwritingopenlyaboutlifeexperiencescan promote emotional/cognitive processing and improve well-being (Pennebaker, 1997).Inparticular,thosewhohaveexperiencedtraumaorfeelinhibited, marginalized, or othered may find it to be particularly empowering. Though done infrequently with youth, expressive writing interventions have found that when at-risk individuals write their narratives and make meaning out of them, rather than merely recounting, their well-being improves (Smyth et al., 2001). Whencombinedwithvisualimagery,self-narrationcanincrease agencyanddevelopasenseofidentitybyobjectifyingtheself(Hatfield, 2005). By intentionally offering visual, autobiographical narrative experiences, we shift the art classroom to embrace being in the midst of life. As a result, ourstudentsmightbebetterabletoenvisiontheirlivesandidentitiesas continuously becoming and unbound, while simultaneously recognizing how they are shaped by people, places, and experiences. To illustrate this, I offer an autoethnographic visual story as a model for what could be done in an arteducationcontexttoencourageastorytellingrealityandexplorationof expanded, empowered self-knowing.TRENDS 202549'