On October 13, 2006, the Washington, D.C., Metropolitan Police Department arrested 133 Gallaudet University students, staff, and alumni, the largest number of university arrests in the United States since the 1960s. The arrests occurred amid weeks of building and campus lockdowns, hunger strikes, a sprawling tent city, rallies, and a two…

One of the greatest challenges teachers of deaf students face is how to teach students to write effectively. Teachers want them to plan, organize, and relay meaning in a coherent way, but teachers also expect them to develop a sense of control over English writing conventions and mechanics. It is probably no surprise that teachers are constantly…

States that ASL (American Sign Language) has recently gained the interest of theater educators as a teaching tool, and that Gallaudet University is the leader in deaf theater education. Discusses sign language interpreting for the theater as a growing field. Explores programs in the New York School for the Deaf and the Cleveland SignStage. (PA)

Describes a director's experience working with "A Taste of Sunrise," a play depicting the deaf culture. Stresses how important it is to educate the cast and provide them an opportunity to learn sign language. Notes that American Sign Language is complex and beautiful and deserves to be carefully studied and respectfully acknowledged by the hearing…

Details a collaborative production of "West Side Story" with hearing actors from MacMurray College and deaf actors from the Illinois School for the Deaf. Explores some of the practical dilemmas encountered as the distinctions between the Deaf and hearing communities were negotiated. Explains that the show explored the ways in which sign language…

Although American Sign Language (ASL) has a long and rich history in America and scholarly research on ASL is in its third decade, ASL has been slow to garner any degree of status in the academic community, although some higher education institutions are beginning to consider ASL for their foreign-language curriculum. (CB)

Describes the long process through which American Sign Language (ASL) was accepted in fulfillment of the foreign-language requirement at the University of New Mexico. It was discovered the mutual discovery and sharing of facts about ASL in the long deliberations proved effective. (CB)

Suggests methods for incorporating American Sign Language and knowledge about the deaf culture into a bilingual/bicultural approach to deaf education. (CB)

Provides a current example of recent legislation that promotes the instruction of American Sign Language in public schools and/or at the college/university level for foreign or second-language credit. Addresses the impact and planning necessary to meet the challenge of this "new" old language in the schools. (RJM)

Until the 1960s, people who were Deaf and mentally ill lacked access to psychological treatment. Few mental hospitals and clinics had interpreters available, and few psychologists and mental health professionals had knowledge of sign language. Major court decisions and federal laws have effected change, culminating with the Americans With…

Although American Sign Language (ASL) currently lacks an accepted writing system, one of the common reasons why it is not accepted for credit in foreign language programs, ASL does have a rich literary tradition. Several curricular remedies to improve those sign language courses are proposed. (CB)

This paper and the accompanying CD-ROM disks are the outcome of a federally funded project to research and develop an interactive multimedia sign language training system for educational interpreters for students with deafness. The program consists of four 20- to 30-minute lessons on the use of non-manual grammatical markers in American Sign…

A bilingual/bicultural approach is presented to prepare deaf students for community college English courses. The approach focuses on American Sign Language as the primary language and teaches English as a second language. Students learn, in both languages, to differentiate meaning and to render the complexities of language more accessible.…

Reviews various methods of communication for hearing-impaired individuals, including American Sign Language (ASL) and a computer system which analyzes speech and flashes appropriate symbols onto a wearer's eyeglass lenses to aid in lipreading. Illustrates how an ASL sign can be changed to create a new word. (Author/JN)

Outlines the procedures used to identify, analyze, and organize components of an American Sign Language curriculum, based on processes used to develop second-language curricula. Students are encouraged to develop communicative competence and cultural awareness in a classroom environment, allowing for natural language learning. (CB)