In this article, the authors reflect on their experiences of integrating visual arts, specifically painting, into an English language arts curriculum. Although each of them had previously used art as a response to literature with our students, neither of them had before collaborated with professional artists or been as intentional about scaffolding students into the processes of researching, practicing, and producing art. Their explorations with this have led to their "co-equal arts integration" framework, which considers the purposes and processes of visual arts integration by exploring ways that efferent and aesthetic responses to literature, the artistic process and the final product, and personal and communal audiences can be addressed in generative ways in the English language arts classroom.