A teacher's communication choices can spark student understanding. By harnessing and modeling the power that qualitative language provides when characterizing artworks, these choices support a student's evolving capabilities from simple description to a deeper embodiment of art criticism. This article is aimed at helping teachers understand how they can enhance students' responses to works of art by broadening their qualitative vocabularies. It provides a description of the characteristics of qualitative language, including its use by critics and students; an explanation of basic language theory; and a description of teaching methods aiming at improving students' use of qualitative language to respond to works of art. (Contains 5 endnotes.)