1. Imagine that you have been asked to come into an elementary school as an ASL interpreter for a second-grade student. The classroom teacher (and even the administration) are not too familiar with ASL and the needs of Deaf students so you need to educate them regarding what kind of environment and setup will be needed for you to successfully interpret. Explain what you would say to this teacher if they asked you how they could best prepare their classroom for you and the student? How can they make sure their student will be able to see your signs as clearly as possible? What do they need to make sure the classroom environment has or does not have in place to maximize their student’s success with you as interpreter?

2. Helen Keller is an example of a well-known member of the Deaf community, though she was also blind. As a child, Helen developed her own version of home signing that allowed her to communicate a little bit with her family, but eventually her parents hired a teacher (Annie Sullivan) to teach her sign language. Conduct 5-10 minutes of research about how Sullivan was able to successfully teach Keller to sign. What obstacles do you think they faced as Keller was learning to sign without the benefit of being able to see what Sullivan was teaching her? How did Sullivan overcome those challenges and succeed in teaching Keller to sign despite her inability to see?

3. Your friend Simon finds out that you are taking ASL as a class and asks how you like it so far. You share with him that one of the most interesting things you have learned is that the Deaf community actually has a culture all their own, with their own customs, beliefs, history, and recreational activities. Simon disagrees with you. He has a cousin who is Deaf, and doesn’t think the Deaf community should be considered a separate culture as his cousin plays baseball and watches the same movies he does. From what you know about the nature and origins of Deaf culture, what would you say to Simon? How could you explain Deaf culture so that Simon better understood your point of view?

4. Character-based languages like Chinese, Japanese or Korean use visual symbols to represent whole words rather than spelling out words with letters like we do in English. Why might it be easier to develop a form of sign language based on a character-based language rather than from words in a language like English that uses several individual letters to create words?

5. Many people in the Deaf community view deafness as a different way of experiencing the world, rather than as a disability. However, in mainstream American culture, being Deaf or Hard of Hearing is technically a disability that is protected by the Americans with Disabilities Act. How might this difference in the view of Deafness between Deaf people and others in the larger culture be problematic?