ASL201: Final Exam with Two Parts plus a Bonus Question

1.              Do a three minutes of Freesigning. Freesigning is like Peter Elbow's Freewriting. See the handout about this nonstop expression and watch your own Freesigning videos in your e-Portfolio. You may create a new video if you believe you have new idea. For each sign (or classifier) in the video, you are to write a transcription of glosses

(http://webpages.csus.edu/~bad51/ASLGlossingDirections.pdf)

in capital letters.

2. Translate and annotate the above video transcription in the best equivalence of English, bearing in mind the spirits of free expression and repetition.

Bonus.

  Discuss the following ASL compounds written in glosses.  Make H-M-H denotations to show which hold bundles undergo the H-deletion.

TEACHER

DANCER

DOCTOR

ARTIST

LAWYER

ASL101: Take Home Final Project

There are two ways to answer the final exam question: (1) Select and transcribe in uppercase glosses (GLOSSES) a "freesigning" video (maximum three minutes) that you think best represents what you have been learning in this course, ASL101. (2) Translate your glosses into the best equivalent possible English. You can prepare your video on DVD, if you’re submitting your paper to me, or you can email your video and paperwork to me at cschroeder@clackamas.edu. The length or repetition in ASL doesn't matter. 

The Meaning of American Sign Language (ASL) in Colorado: A Report

The meaning of ASL is shown,

In the logics of Life, language and leisure

And its basic and fundamental,

Liberty and function to reach,

Its equilibrium of happiness for all within it,

As individuals and thereby as a unity,

Of a whole universe.

The traditional, liberal, civil rights position on American Sign Language (ASL) is under powerful assault within the Colorado Association of the Deaf (CAD). Old allies in the liberal alliance have parted company. Deaf intellectuals now question the old notion that ASL is not a language is not only defensible but offers the best route to a language bigotry. Rather, the new critics  of ASL verities argue on a number of fronts that ASL disenfranchises the Deaf.

Two kinds of crime are singled out. First, there is hate speech. It is difficult to define this category precisely, but it generally includes offensive speech directed at ASL users. In its most vulgar form, it includes the linguistic epithet, such as initialized signs and Signed English. At a more subtle level, or as it is argued, it includes adult education underwritten by the CAD that demeans and denies ASL. For example, some adult learners view Signed English as an example of hateful speech.

Hate speech is criticized as lacking any of the elements that warrant constitutional protection of speech--ASL is a form of speech and it must never be depicted as emotional speech without intellectual content.  Worse, the new critics of the First Amendment argue that hate crime is false, lacking any basis in science or enlightened culture. Worse of all, such speech degrades the objects of language abuse, silence them through fear, does them psychological damage, and creates a smarmy and nauseating culture that harms the Deaf.

Let me argue that our American society is so inherently hateful that, as I have indicated above, the constitutional protection of ASL as a form of speech actually serves to subordinate the Deaf. Why should we permit hateful offensive speech against ASL? In this blog, I attempt to answer this question. Let me now advance a skeptical, pragmatc basis for a strong version of the First Amendment, one that protects the most offensive form of speech, including hate speech. The human conversaton as a path toward knowledge can never end, because we are not and do not. Indeed, even those among us with the use of ASL should not wish to end the dialogue, because we see as through a muddy jar darkly and can profit from argument. 

Let the muddy jar stand, it becomes clear.

Socrates and I

The Road goes ever on and on

Down from the door where it began,

Now far ahead the Road has gone,

And I must follow, if I can,

Pursuing it with eager feet,

Until it joins some larger way

Where many paths and errands meet,

And whither then? I cannot say.

__J.R.R. Tolkiens

One sunny morning last week, woke up by a sunlight, I was thinking when, to my complete astonishment, into my bedroom stepped a well-known ancient thinker, Socrates, not looking any diffferent than his statue that I saw in Greece in 1983. And he had taken out from my bookcase a copy of Cratylus by Plato and said in ancient Greek Gestural Language (please allow me to translate to the best of my understanding), "Hey Buddy, in this book, Plato got a lot of things right but he left some points out of focus. Let me explain some of them."

After philosophizing with Socrates, I’ve come to the following short story about American Sign Language (ASL) storytelling art:

I am a well-claimed ASL storytelling artist whose magic helps my audience to understand the language and culture of the Deaf. This magic also raises a larger question: What then is ASL? My reply is that we must simply trust our other senses, yet whatever we perceive only reflects our personal reality filtered through these senses. ASL is not a spoken language; since ASL is a visual-gestural language, voicing is not included.

Even the most intelligent among us can mistake spoken sounds for reality. For example, an acquaint of mine with cochlear implant (CI) told me how she had witnessed a little girl with CI speaking. She couldn't believe it so she ran to her hearing mentor to see whether or not it was real. She did it because she's still stone-deaf, which makes a lot of sense.

I encouraged you to visit my blog as if Socrates himself had written them. Because, in a paradoxical way, perhaps he did.

What Then Is Topic-Signing?

Topic-Signing Project
During the last month of class, we will be having topic-signing for three minutes on the topics chosen from among the topics posted on my s-Portfolio (www.asleportfolio.blogspot.com). In the class, you will be using ASL to the best of your ability for one of those topics. There are several parts to this topic-signing project:

1.    Choosing a Topic - I will assign a topic to students.

2.    Class Lesson - your group will be responsible for leading one topic-signing session.

3.    Required meeting with me - meetings will be scheduled later in the term.

o    At the meeting, you should be prepared to use topic-signing that will be videotaped.

The Topic-Signing Plan
For your topic, think about what major point(s) are most interesting/important and focus on those in ASL. Your lesson plan for the day needs to include each of the following elements:



Topic-Signing Tips

• To get a topic-signing started: I've found that it helps if you open with a question about one's personal experience (e.g., "How many of you remember your first class?") or, at least, a question that does not have an obvious right or wrong answer (e.g., "Do you think men sign differently than women do?"). It also helps if you open with a question that is small in scope. For example, asking "So, what IS the meaning of ASL?" as your first question will probably result in silence. Once the ball is rolling, you can begin asking larger questions about the topic material.
• Be prepared to re-phrase the question if the initial phrasing is not understood.
• Try to ask questions that go beyond the material presented in the e-portfolio rather than asking questions that simply review the information. If it becomes clear that a key concept is poorly understood by the class, you can back up and clarify that concept.
• Your class needs to have had in-depth discussions of the material and the questions you've decided are most interesting. Things generally go poorly when you ask the class to consider discussion questions that you, yourselves, have not worked through.
• For each of the questions you plan to pose during topic-signing, imagine what a student's answer might be. Then, think of a follow-up question to that answer (one that will extend or deepen the conversation). In this way, you will be thinking in-depth about the issues and you will be prepared to really lead an actual discussion, rather than read a list of questions.
• Let the topic-signing flow freely, but also don't be afraid to reel it back if you've wandered too far from the topic you'd wanted to discuss).
• Don't feel that YOU must be the one to say something after every comment someone in the class makes... asking other classmates to respond or add to an initial answer can help prevent the discussion from becoming a tennis match (the class, you, the class, you).

o    Also remember that 3 minutes of topic-signing feel like an hour when you are nervously standing in front of the half of the class waiting for a response.

General presentation tips:

·                     PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE.

·                     PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE

·                     PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE.

·                     PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE.

·                     PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE

·                     PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE.

Topic-Talking for Three Minutes

Their are four errars in this sentance.





;-)

Observe Palm Orientations For Manual Letters

Painting by Fernando Gallego

(1480 - 1488)

in Ciudad Rodrigo