This paper describes an exploratory study at the Ernest C. Drury School for the Deaf, Milton, Ontario, that comprises part of Early and Cummins' (2002) cross-Canada project From Literacy to Multiliteracies: Designing Learning Environments for Knowledge Generation within the New Economy.Focusing on the production of American Sign Language (ASL) identity texts by elementary-level Deaf1 students, the E.C. Drury project is a collaborative effort involving teachers from three classrooms, representatives from the Canadian Cultural Society of the Deaf and researchers from the Ontario Institute of Studies in Education (OISE), University of Toronto. The specific ways in which this project adapts the format and objectives of the larger study can be traced to the teachers' use of the ASL curriculum for first-language learners as their basis. The ASL curriculum, while it has yet to be published or implemented in all classrooms, is in use to foster ASL literacy and academic ASL learning across all grade levels at the three bilingual, ASL and English provincial schools for Deaf students in Ontario.
In this project I have asked the following questions:
The concept of multiliteracies was first introduced by the New London Group (1996), who sought to define a new approach to literacy pedagogy that takes into account both the cultural and linguistic diversity that is part of our schools and society, and the range of information and multimedia technologies that create new text forms and new ways for communicating. Minority-language students' development of identity texts is a central part of From Literacy to Multiliteracies. Students from linguistically and culturally diverse backgrounds invest their identities and demonstrate their multilingual proficiency in the production of these texts, which can take a variety of forms, including written, oral, musical or dramatic (Cummins, 2004).
In the E.C. Drury project, the cultivation of students' ASL identities and ASL literacy abilities were made the focus of the project.The use of technology took the form of a video camera to record the draft and final versions of students' ASL stories so they had the opportunity to review and enjoy their identity texts on a monitor.Another important feature of this classroom project was the involvement of visitors from the Deaf community.When inviting ASL storytellers to their classrooms, the teachers chose individual Deaf adults who could expose students to classic Ontario ASL: the dialect of ASL used by students at the former Ontario School for the Deaf (OSD), Belleville 2 and convey a sense of the heritage handed down from one Deaf generation to the next.Bahan (1991) discusses ASL stories as forming part of oral literature:
"For oral literature to be successful, there must be cultural harmony between the teller, the tale, and the audience.The teller and the audience must share a common cultural understanding of the meanings that the tale has and the specific social context from which it arises (p.154)."
Most of North American Deaf education is rooted in an ideology that separates Deaf students from Deaf language and culture (Padden and Humphries, 2005).In part, this ideology finds its source in the disability rights movement to integrate children with disabilities into mainstream classrooms, which started in the last quarter of the twentieth century (Lane, Hoffmeister and Bahan, 1996; Roots, 1999).As Roots (1999) notes,
"The implementation of mainstreaming has been guided by the principle of setting "the least restrictive environment for the child." Deaf advocates pointed out that to pluck a deaf child from a Deaf school and put him/her among hearing peers with hearing teachers conducting lessons in oral-auditory language was in fact to place that child in the most restrictive environment" (p.35).
Even providing a sign language interpreter for a mainstreamed Deaf student does not provide an accessible environment (Roots, 1999). This interpreter may or not be appropriately trained and qualified, since no school board in Ontario has a system of standards for ASL interpreters (Jackson, J. and Malkowski, G., personal communication, March 14, 2005).
The majority of Deaf children, born to hearing parents with little or no knowledge of sign language, are not exposed to a fully accessible language until later in life. As a consequence, the age range of Deaf students enrolled in auditory/oral (mainstream) programs and those attending specialized sign-supported or ASL programs differs significantly. As cited in Cripps and Small (2004), Akamatsu, Musselman and Zweibel (2000) found that 93% of Deaf children in Ontario were initially enrolled in auditory/oral programs and 67% of Deaf preschool children were educated orally; the figures dropped to 58% for elementary school students and 31% for high school students.?Between the early preschool years and adolescence, 62% of Deaf students shifted from oral programs to programs with sign support or ASL. From these statistics it can be deduced that the majority of Deaf children begin school deprived of access to a full language and fall steadily behind their hearing peers as they progress across grade levels. As a consequence, these students are often transferred to a sign language environment for remedial instruction when valuable years for language learning have been lost.
Less than ten percent of Deaf children, born to Deaf parents, acquire sign language from birth (Padden and Humphries, 1988). However, the well-documented superior performance of Deaf children of Deaf parents--who are native users of ASL--to Deaf children of hearing parents on tests of academic achievement, reading and writing and social development has been attributed to a range of factors other than their having had full access to a first language from birth, including genetic and intellectual differences (Israelite and Ewoldt, 1992). In part, this attribution may be due to a bias surrounding sign languages as legitimate languages, and an unwillingness on the part of educators to admit their benefits for Deaf students.
Gibson, Small and Mason (1997) state that a monolingual philosophy has dominated Deaf education since oral language was adopted as the only language of instruction for Deaf students at the 1880 International Congress of Educators of the Deaf in Milan. Carbin (1996) writes that prior to the Milan edict, sign language as well as spoken language was in use at the first schools for Deaf students to be founded in Canada.3 Similarly, Johnson, Liddell and Erting (1989) report that during the 1870s, over 42% of American teachers of Deaf students were themselves Deaf. Deaf teachers who could provide first-language models of sign language to Deaf students but who were believed to be inadequate teachers of spoken language were phased out of the classroom for most of the twentieth century (Carbin, 1996; Johnson, Liddell and Erting, 1989).
In the 1970s, various systems for manually encoding spoken language were introduced in classrooms for Deaf students, including Total Communication and Signed English (Gibson, Small and Mason, 1997). Petitto (1994) explains that these invented, sign-based codes for spoken language do not possess the qualities of genuine languages.They attempt to amalgamate parts of spoken language structure and parts of sign language structure, but do not possess the full grammar of either language (Petitto, 1994). Hence, students who are taught using these methods fail to acquire either ASL or English (Gibson, Small and Mason, 1997; Johnson, Liddell and Erting, 1989).
In the 1990s, bilingual (ASL and English) education programs began to be introduced at some schools for Deaf children, and in 1993, a bilingual bicultural policy was introduced at the three English-language provincial schools in Ontario. This movement followed a succession of published work on ASL linguistics and literature (Gibson, Small and Mason, 1997), and government-commissioned studies that reviewed educational programs for Deaf students in Canada and the U.S. (Carbin, 1996; Israelite and Ewoldt, 1992). It also followed the introduction of Bill 4 as an amendment to the Ontario Education Act that recognized ASL and the langue des signes quebecoise (LSQ) as official languages of instruction in the classroom (Carbin, 1996). However, the progress and implementation of bilingual bicultural education programs for Deaf students in North America face serious impediments, including the lack of support for ASL in the school system and its subsequent impact on the Deaf community (Gibson, Small and Mason, 1997).
Academic language learning of ASL--as supported by the ASL curriculum for first-language learners--is arguably the most powerful tool for activating prior knowledge, cognitive engagement and identity investment (as described in Cummins, 2001), on the part of Deaf students. With some support from the Ontario Ministry of Education, a team of teachers from the three provincial schools have developed this curriculum. In classrooms where the ASL curriculum is in use overall expectations are in place for each grade relating to students' use of ASL grammar, ASL text and literature construction and analysis, ASL media arts and technology. In addition, the ASL curriculum's focus on supporting Deaf student's identities by incorporating their language, culture and experience in course content makes it a vehicle for empowering education.
Cummins (2001) argues for the centrality of identity investment on the part of students to their developing academic expertise.The E.C. Drury project focused on the creation of ASL stories relating to traditional facets of Deaf culture: name signs, life in residence, sports. Sports have traditionally formed an important part of the Deaf student's identity, as described by Lane, Hoffmeister and Bahan (1996):
"Sports are one of the powerful bonding forces in the DEAF-WORLD.The love of individual and team sports is nurtured in the residential schools and whetted by rivalry among schools. Sports rapidly become a vehicle of acculturation for the Deaf child, a shared experience, a source of Deaf pride, and an avenue for understanding customs and values in the DEAF-WORLD" (p.131).
Due to the prevalence of mainstreaming and the monolingual approach to educating Deaf students, ASL literacy and literature and Deaf culture and heritage are seldom encountered in the school environment. The E.C. Drury project created a space where these elements were brought into the forefront of the classroom.
I participated in this project as a Deaf, bilingual research assistant for OISE. Joanne Cripps and Anita Small from the Canadian Cultural Society of the Deaf collaborated with Jim Cummins on setting the stage for this project at the E.C. Drury School for the Deaf. We held several planning meetings in the fall and winter of 2004 that included the participation of Deaf filmmaker Catherine MacKinnon and Kelly Akerman, another research assistant and a Ph.D. student at OISE. During three weeks in February 2005, Catherine and myself visited three classrooms of grade two, three and five students at the school. For three days before the project started, we visited the classrooms with our cameras but without filming the students so they would have the opportunity to become accustomed to our presence.
The grade two teacher, Linda Wall, had already received training in the ASL curriculum and is a member of the provincial schools' ASL Curriculum Team. The other two teachers, Laureen Baskerville and Andrew Byrne, were teamed with the elementary school's ASL curriculum lead teacher, Robyn Sandford.Each teacher has a class of six students.
We arrived in Linda's class at 8.30 am each morning to set up and filmed from 9-9.20 am.We then proceeded to Laureen's classroom and filmed from 9.30 until the 10am recess. During recess we set up in Andrew's classroom. We had the longest period of time with his class-- from 10.15 until lunchtime at 11.25--but did not always start filming until 10.45am.
ASL storytellers Brian Dymond and Rudy Lacis made separate visits to the classrooms. Brian visited the classrooms on the Monday and Friday of the first week; Rudy came on Tuesday. Because the project took place during a period in February with several snow days when some students were absent, the students reviewed the storytellers' visits on videos made by the teachers on alternate days and before proceeding with their own story creation. During the second week of this project, stories were created by students and shared with the rest of the class; the videos of the students' stories were then reviewed and editing work done. The final versions of the stories were then presented to the class.
This paper incorporates information from the video data analysis and daily field notes.
As much as possible, I tried to record the dynamics of each classroom; the effects of the ASL storytellers' visits and the content of their stories; student and teacher conversations and the development of individual student's stories.
In the course of this project and in my notes, I observed several factors at work that influenced the students' development of their identity stories and contributed toward the creation of a Deaf cultural environment in the classroom.
The students' enthusiasm and interest in the older Deaf visitors were apparent. From the start of the project, they were engaged with the storytellers and encouraged to share information about themselves, reflecting ASL storytelling's interactive process and the establishment of a shared cultural space. The students were asked about their name signs and family background, and the storytellers in turn shared their background information with the students. In many instances, the students could relate the name signs of their parents, siblings, grandparents and other relatives.Frequently, the storytellers knew the students' Deaf parents and adult relatives, as well as the teachers' Deaf parents. This enhanced the sense of community in the classroom and brought the students' existing knowledge into focus.
The teachers and storytellers drew the students' attention to their name signs and the differences between the giving of name signs in Classic Ontario ASL at OSD and how they are given today:
February 14: Brian explained his name sign. It uses the bent V handshape in an arc across the lower part of his face. It was given to him because he was STRONG4 and part of the STRONG GROUP at OSD. Children in this group were typically given name signs that used the bent V handshape 5 name sign is given based on how you are identified by other people on a daily basis.
February 16: Linda asks Rudy about his name sign. It is not based on his English name. His name signs uses the H handshape in the crook of the left elbow. The class leader gave Rudy his name sign.
Brian explained that name signs were given in residence, since ASL was forbidden in the classroom at OSD. Name signs and their categories were based on individual students' traits and mannerisms, as identified by other students. For Brian and Rudy's generation, an individual's ASL and English names were less related than they are for the students today. Previously, an individual's ASL name took precedence when making introductions:
February 18: Brian introduces himself by first giving his ASL name--it's how he is accustomed to introducing himself. He observes that today Deaf people provide their fingerspelled English name first when introducing themselves, then give their ASL name.
Many of the students were not aware of why or how they had received their name signs. Since most of them were named by their Deaf parents, they were told to interview their parents for more information about their name signs. No student mentioned having received their name sign from other students at school. Almost all of the students' name signs are based on the first fingerspelled letter of their English names--they follow Supalla (1992)'s description of the arbitrary name sign system in ASL.6 ?These discussions regarding ASL names promoted awareness of students' individual identities. During a visit from Brian, a discussion was triggered regarding the appropriateness of one student's ASL name:
February 14: An issue arose regarding Timothy's7 name sign. This name sign was given by a home visiting teacher. Brian explains that Timothy's name sign can change, but it must be based on how he is identified by other Deaf people on a daily basis.
Through these discussions, students were able to explore their identities in relation to ASL and the Deaf community--the signifiers of which include their name signs.
The storytellers shared old photographs of themselves with their school teams and wood shop projects. Brian told stories about his past exploits as a renowned Deaf athlete and football player, while Rudy demonstrated his talent for drawing. The storytellers also painted a picture of a previous generation of Deaf students who grew up with very different rules and regulations:
February 16: Rudy tells the students that every day in the cafeteria, the students ate the same food. Every morning there was cereal--corn flakes, Rice Krispies--and boiled eggs.The school staff ate fancy food like scrambled eggs and bacon, but the students didn't. Every day the students had brown bread, not white bread like the staff.
February 18: Brian talks about the night supervisor in residence. Brian was scared of him--he was like an army commander. [Retired army members actually worked at the school--when World War II ended, returning soldiers got government jobs very quickly.] There were calisthenics for the students every morning.
The storytellers were frank about corporal punishment at OSD and described the slaps and ear pulling they were routinely subject to by school staff. Brian mentioned being shut up inside the school's boiler room overnight for punishment. Most of the students participating in this project are day students and do not stay in residence. The stories about residence life provided a glimpse into the world of a previous generation that they might not otherwise have known about. This rare exposure to older Deaf community members in a learning environment also served to validate the special knowledge shared by this group.
The storytellers drew the students' attention to language issues, with Brian emphasizing the difference between the present classroom environment at E.C. Drury and the one he grew up in, where sign language was forbidden:
February 14: Brian narrates how in residence and during mealtimes, the students were allowed to sign. In the classroom, however, it was forbidden--he crossed his arms and tried to speak instead. Today, things are much better. In the future, when Brian is old, the students will need to keep up the fight so ASL is alive for the next generation.
As part of a family of refugees from war-torn Latvia, Rudy came up against a host of language barriers:
February 16: Rudy explains that he was at school to learn, but he didn't learn anything from his teachers. They wrote on the blackboard in English, but English was not his parents' language. Rudy learned English from comic books and from the other students.
The students learned Classic Ontario ASL vocabulary from the storytellers, for instance learning from Brian the old signs for hockey positions and school dormitories and from Brian and Rudy the signs for SCHOOL, TEACHER, BATHROOM, etc. Vocabulary was shared through storytelling rather than via explicit instruction. The storytellers' visits provided a unique opportunity for the students to witness an old dialect of their language in use.
The approaches chosen by individual teachers strongly influenced how the project unfolded.The teachers themselves took responsibility for the E.C. Drury project's design, and selected the individual storytellers who participated. The teachers emphasized for the students the importance of their shared identity with the storytellers, as when Linda reviewed the video of Brian's first visit with her class:
February 15: Linda asks her students why Brian asked so many questions of them. He is curious about who you are. He wants to feel a connection with you, and a shared identity.
Andrew's class also discussed the concept of a shared identity:
February 24: Andrew tells his students that when they listen to Brian and Rudy's stories, they feel a connection with the storytellers. Why is this? [The students answer it is because they are Deaf.] Yes, it's because you are Deaf that you feel a connection. You are amused, touched, made to laugh, feel sad and many other things, when you listen to their stories. You feel that you understand what the storyteller means when he shares his experiences--maybe not fully, since he's older and you are young, and in a different place. Yesterday, Robyn started to discuss a word that describes the connection you share--the mutual understanding and empathy you share with the storytellers. What is it?
For Andrew's class, the word sought is IDENTITY, the concept of who they are as Deaf, ASL-using individuals. In this way, the teachers facilitated discussion among the students regarding their unique language and culture, and why the storytellers were motivated to share their experiences with them.
When reviewing the storytellers' visits on video with their classes, the teachers explained classic Ontario ASL vocabulary and also clarified the meaning of comments made by the storytellers:
February 15. Linda explains what Brian meant by telling the class they were to FIGHT to keep ASL alive. Does he mean physical fighting? No, he means advocating for what we want to see in terms of improvements. We want to see ASL used in school, to have more Deaf teachers hired. We negotiate for our rights.
Through these discussions with their students, the teachers promoted collaborative critical inquiry into the students' and storytellers' experiences and social realities. The teachers encouraged the students to compare and contrast their experiences with those of the storytellers, and highlighted differences in school, residence life and society then and now.
In the students' telling of their sports stories, some differences between the generations became apparent. For the adult storytellers, sports represented the bonding force described by Lane, Hoffmeister and Bahan (1996), and were played at the residential schools with other Deaf students. In their own stories, the students talked about playing on teams with hearing children, outside of school. Yet, during discussions with their teachers, the students all mentioned sports when asked what they had in common with the storytellers. When telling their stories, the grade three students adopted Brian's bold attitude:
February 25: Jill tells a story. I'm speaking from experience here. I'm a soccer player. Sometimes I play in May, sometimes in August or July. I like to play in July because that's when it's really hot! I really like that. Even when it rains, we still play. I've slipped on the grass when it's raining and had water splash all over me.
I've gotten lots of penalties from tripping other players. I put my leg out and the player from the other team falls flat.So I get a penalty for doing that.
Recently I played against a team with yellow uniforms. I played pretty rough and dirty. I ran and tripped a player from the other team. I got a penalty about five or six times during that game.
At another tournament, we were up against a tough team with blue uniforms. That was one tough game. It was in August or July--I can't remember when. I think it was during the last week of July. Anyway, it was a beautiful sunny day. It was one hot match. First period, the score was 0-0. Second period, it was still a hot game. The score was still 0-0. Third period, we finally beat the other team! It was 3-0 for us. We whipped them 3-0! The next day, we played against a team with purple uniforms.We beat them again and again--5-0, 2-0, 3-0, 1-0. We took first place in that tournament.
In their stories, the grade three students revealed a secure sense of their identities as Deaf students. The sense of competence and confidence in his ability as a Deaf athlete that was conveyed by Brian served to inspire the students when creating their own stories.
The same was true for Andrew's class of grade five students, for whom storytelling became a more sophisticated exercise than it was for the younger grades. Initially, these students tried to copy Brian's tone and discourse in their stories about ice skating and hockey. Being himself a master ASL storyteller, Andrew was able to provide his students with another example of storytelling. He then invited his students to exercise their skills in literary criticism with his story (in keeping with the ASL curriculum's expectations for grade five students to be familiar with the ASL storytelling process and be able to produce and retell ASL texts in a variety of forms:
February 25: The class watches Andrew's story again on video. What needs improving in his story? Timothy mentions that he misunderstood who fell down in the story. Chris asks how the characters entered the skating rink if it was surrounded by wooden boards. Joseph asks how the ice was made. Ahmed asks how it became frozen. Andrew retells his story, incorporating the details suggested by his students. The students comment that now his story is much more comprehensible.
The next day, the students reviewed their own stories on video and provided each other with suggestions for how to improve them. When they presented the final versions of their identity stories, they paid special attention to the form, structure and elements of the ASL storytelling process. With the grade five class, this project demonstrated the ASL curriculum's goals for developing ASL literature. These students produced final texts that incorporated the introduction, event description, closing statement and rich detail that make a good ASL story, as with the following narrative:
February 28: Leo tells a story. I'll never forget what happened one time when I was six years old. It's branded in my memory. It was my birthday party. Somebody, I can't remember who, gave me a green bike. The bike was pretty small.
Later, everyone left one by one. I could hardly wait for the party to end. I was so excited about my new bike. I asked my mom and dad, "Can you walk with me while I ride my new bike around the block?" Dad said, "Sure, let's go." I was so excited and thrilled!
We went around the block together, and turned a corner. The road here was paved with little rocks and pebbles. I can't remember all the details. I thought to myself that I wanted to ride ahead and beat my dad. I sped ahead on my bike. My bike hit a rock and I flew headfirst over the handlebars. My face hit the ground and was scraped in a stripe that ran down my forehead and nose. Blood was everywhere.
We went home and cleaned my face. Later, I went to bed and tried to sleep but I wasn't comfortable. The scabs on my face had dried and started to itch. I picked at the scabs and they bled, but I didn't care--I felt better. I'll never forget what happened!
The grade two students narrated their personal histories of going to school and learning the name signs of their teachers and classmates. Linda individually guided these students through the storytelling process, encouraging them to talk about their experiences:
February 22: Amir talks about the different schools he's gone to: the Bob Rumball Centre for the Deaf preschool, the Metropolitan Toronto School for the Deaf, then E.C. Drury. Linda tells him that he has a lot of experience that he can talk about in his story his friends, his time in residence.
Most of the grade two stories followed the same format, with the exception of two students who come from hearing families. One of these students described her experience with moving to Canada:
February 22: Mia was born in Sri Lanka and moved to Canada. There was different food and drink. She fed the chickens in Sri Lanka (the chickens were numerous and very cute). Linda asks Mia how her hearing mother taught her to feed the chickens--what gestures did she use.
One other student had a story to tell that specifically related to his experience as a Deaf child formerly educated in a mainstream environment.
February 28: Phillip tells his story. I grew up with my twin brother. When we were two, we went to school together. I didn't understand anything. Everyone was talking--all the girls and boys, and the teacher. When the teacher read a storybook I asked my brother for help: "Please sign the story for me."I moved to another school with a different hearing teacher who had glasses and curly hair. I didn't understand the other student's talking. My brother took off with his friends and I was left alone feeling depressed. I then moved to the school in Milton where the students can sign [shows his classmates' name signs] and my teacher too.
Among all the others, this story stands out as a powerful image of a student articulating his experience of disempowerment. This self-reflection and self-analysis by a younger student demonstrates this project's success in promoting identity awareness and investment, and the beginnings of critical inquiry into social realities.
The E.C. Drury project provided several examples of Deaf students creating ASL identity texts in the context of a rich first-language and -culture environment. The conditions created by this project--the presence of older Deaf adult storytellers in the classroom, teacher-facilitated discussions of Deaf culture and language identity, and teachers' guidance of students through the ASL storytelling process--served to foster students' identity investment and cognitive engagement in their own stories. The enthusiasm and interest displayed by the students for the storytellers is a reminder to educators that Deaf adults' presence in the classroom can be an invaluable tool.8 Not only can these adults serve as first-language models and share their life experiences and histories as Deaf people, but they can also inspire the production of students' own ASL literature. In this way, this project should promote the utilization of the Deaf community--typically excluded from the classroom--as an educational resource for Deaf students.
The teachers' explicit instruction regarding identity was also a powerful influence. As they emphasized the students' and storytellers' shared identity and sought to build the students' sense of their own identities, the teachers revealed a certain way of looking at the concept of being Deaf members of an ASL community. Gee (2001)'s discussion of perspectives on identity is illuminating in this regard. In this project, the state of being Deaf--what has historically been viewed as a stigmatized identity or shaped by institutional forces--becomes membership in an affinity group, as described by Gee (2001). Possible approaches that can be used by teachers in the development of student identity and identity texts are an area for future research.
The students' creation of their identity texts revealed them to be confident, articulate storytellers in their own right. In their stories and during teacher-facilitated discussions, these students were shown to be capable of discerning and analyzing past and present inequities in their social environment. This project can serve as a model for other classrooms of Deaf students and promote literacy through the development of ASL or bilingual ASL/English identity texts, and through the collaborative critical inquiry that is fostered when Deaf students are encouraged to express their experiences and identities.
Deaf students are no different from any other group of minority-language students that owing to its inappropriate categorization and lack of accommodation by the school system is at high risk for failure. That the language and culture of the Deaf community are not routinely included in the standard curriculum for Deaf students reflects this systematic bias. This project highlights some ways in which identity promotion and investment can be incorporated into a bilingual bicultural education for Deaf students.
Special thanks to Robyn Sandford and Anita Small for their helpful comments on an earlier version of this paper. I would also like to thank Jennifer Jackson for her assistance with transcribing two of the students' ASL stories, Robyn Sandford for sharing her insights and knowledge of the ASL curriculum, and the individual teachers and storytellers whose effort and enthusiasm made this project a reality.
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