The blockbuilding, painting, and oral expressions of young children provide evidence of a natural tendency to symbolize experience and to use the symbolic elements of expressiveness, creativeness, and living form. Up to the present time, educators have not fully grasped the fact that the need to symbolize is at the base of all education. They should recognize that the real task of schooling is to extend the "expressed need" of the child's inner world to other modes of knowing. In designing language arts activities to include the total brain process, teachers may find it helpful to consider seven criteria developed from the works of Susanne Langer and Marshall McLuhan. (A rationale for conducting language arts activities involving both brain hemispheres is provided, criteria for designing such holistic activities are listed, and specific activities for each criterion are suggested.) (RH)