Thanks

I just wanted to say Thank You to Dr. Sharon Pajka-West for answering my email about this project, sending me information for my article and allowing me to use her interviews with some of the authors in my reviews. I know this is linked to my blog site but it bears repeating, if you need any information on this please visit http://pajak.blogspot.com.

Review of article "Perceptions of Deaf Characters in Adolescent Literature"

After reading Perceptions of Deaf Characters in Adolescent Literature by Sharon Pajka-West, I think that I will need to find the rest of the books that she mentions and read them for my self. I also need to keep in mind the insider/outsider debate for most of the positive feedback from the study showed that the hearing authors created more interesting and numerous deaf characters in their novels. Where as the deaf authors created only one or two deaf characters, usually the main character was deaf and the rest of their small world was hearing. Pajka-West gives a possible explanation for this by stating “With fewer deaf characters, it is nearly impossible for the various ways of being deaf to be included in the book. Thus, the preference for the books by the hearing authors may be connected to the preference for a variety of deaf people represented.” (p44) Having read Deaf Child Crossing and Nick’s Secret I did notice this to be true. There was only the main character Nick who was deaf, and signed some with his mom and then read everyone else’s lips. The same goes for Deaf Child Crossing, the main character Megan is deaf but the minor character of her friend at summer camp Lizzie is Deaf. If you are looking to show your full Deaf students’ characters in books that are the same as they are it will be more difficult to find in deaf author books, especially if the characters are female. Many of the male characters got positive comments if several of the books but the female deaf characters were said to be “weak and, at times pathetic.” (p42) Most of the deaf adults that read the books for Pajka-West’s study claimed that these deaf female characters “could be seen as positive role models for their numerous successes; yet, their behavior appears as outliners and makes them unrealistic and unbelievable.” Overall, after reading Pajka-West’s article I think that she uncovered a central theme in many of our studies in multicultural literature and what teachers should put into their classroom libraries; to read the books and look at all the criteria, not just is this written from an insider perspective, but to make sure that the story and characters are shown in a realistic light. I could not agree with Pajka-West more when she says “If an important purpose for dear characters in fiction is educational and informational, then I suggest there is a need for the characters to be presented as realistic models of deaf people. If not, the readers of such fiction gain inaccurate information about deafness including reinforced negative stereotypes, as can occur in any other literature portraying cultural minorities.”(p40)

I you would like more information about this topic and a reading list to get you started with deaf characters in teen’s literature then please go to Dr. Pajka-West’s blog site at

www.pajka.blogspot.com

Summary of critical article

Perceptions of Deaf Characters in Adolescent Literature

Sharon Pajka-West- Written for the ALAN Review Summer 2007, vol 34,3 page 39.

This article reviews several books that have teen deaf characters in them, some are main characters and others are only minor but are interesting enough to be mentioned. The study that Pajka-West proposed was to examine six novels, three from deaf authors and three from hearing authors. The six books that were selected were Apple is my Sign by M. Riskind(hearing); Of Sound Mind by J. Ferris (hearing)(two characters); Finding Abby by V. Scott (deaf); A Maiden’s Grave by J. Deaver (hearing) (two characters), Deaf Child Crossing by M. Matlin (deaf); and Nick’s Secret by C. Blatchford (deaf). The study had adults read two of the six books to gage their response about the deaf characters in the books. The adults were put into three categories, adults who where deaf, adults who had friends or associated with deaf and adults that had never had exposure to the deaf world. Pajka-West then goes through the list of deaf characters in the different novels and breaks down each adult category and what they thought about the characters. Pajka-West originated this idea for a study on this topic when a former student asked her for a reading list with characters like her (the student was deaf). Pajka-West then thought about a possible reading list and asked the question-because more deaf characters are appearing in books are they really quality characters? So Pajka-West started the study and then printed her findings in ALAN magazine.

Book review "The Printer"

The Printer

The Printer written by Myron Uhlberg and illustrated by Henri Sorensen is a wonderful picture book about a young boy whose father worked in a large newspaper printing room. The boy explains that his father would type the letters into words and set the printers to ready the paper to print. Every day the boy’s father would come home from work with that day’s paper and make him a newspaper hat just like the ones that he would wear at work. Then the boy tells us that his father is deaf. This was a common job for many deaf men in the larger cities during the early to mid 1900’s. One day at work the father noticed that there was a fire that was spreading quickly and he knew that he needed to warn the other workers. With the printing machines being so loud the hearing workers would still not hear him if he screamed. So what did the father do? He jumped onto an ink drum and waved his arms until he got the attention of a fellow deaf worker across the room and signed to him that they needed to tell the hearing worker that they need to get out. So sign language and the father save the day and everyone’s lives. Uhlberg took many ideas for this story from his own life; his father was deaf and did work for a major newspaper in the 1940’s. Uhlberg does a good job describing the sometimes loneliness that the deaf worker feels when it is difficult to communicate with your co-workers. Uhlberg’s insider perspective gives him unique advantage to seeing life through a child’s eyes when you have deaf parents. The story is simple yet at the same time informative about deafness and the relationship between father and son and the co-workers. Sorensen’s paintings that accompany the text only adds to the authenticity of the work and helps create a feeling for the story and the time frame in which it is set. When asked what readers will take away from his books, Uhlberg replied “The world of the deaf is invisible to the larger hearing world-invisible in plain site. It is only when the hands of the deaf come alive and begin to speak the beautiful language contained in them that the hearing are aware of the deaf world.” The authors note has some explanations about his own father and printing in the mid- 1900’s. There are also instructions on how to make a newspaper printers hat.

Book review "Deaf Child Crossing"

Deaf Child Crossing

Marlee Matlin’s debut novel Deaf Child Crossing is a decent first attempt at writing a fictional piece, in which certain events were loosely based on her own childhood. Although an insider (Matlin lost her hearing at eighteen months of age) it is apparent that Matlin sometimes struggles with not only English grammar but also at times with expressing the frustration that the main character, Megan, feels at being deaf and living in a hearing world. Megan uses her hearing aids, lip reading and some sign language to communicate but Matlin does not capture the true frustration that many deaf people feel in social situations when there is a communication barrier present. Most of the time Megan just comes off as being angry at the whole world and at times an egocentric nine year old with a short temper. Matlin does paint a clear picture of new friendship with the ups and downs of making new friends and the testing the boundaries of those friendships. For example, when Megan and her new best friend Cindy decide to go to summer camp together, everything is fine until another deaf girl Lizzie shows up. Lizzie only uses American Sign Language (ASL) and does not voice, so Megan and Lizzie sign all the time and leave Cindy feeling left out. This is a frequent feeling for Megan herself; deaf people are quite often left out of conversations and sometimes what is going on in the hearing world around them; so this is something that Megan should be aware of and from there trouble ensues at summer camp. Matlin however does not make that connection very obvious in the novel. A frustration that I had (being an interpreter that took years learning ASL) with the book was that Cindy started to learn sign language and picked it up rather quickly. After only a week or two she is interpreting for Megan at a shopping mall. Over all Deaf Child Crossing is a good idea and starts out strong but it is not pulled together through the middle and the end and most of the characters are not given enough depth.

Book review T4

T4

Ann Clare LeZotte’s first novel is a breathtaking new look at World War II and Hitler’s killing machine known as Tiergartenstrasse 4. The Nazi’s elimination of persons who did not fit the mold of a “perfect race” first started with the killing of anyone with disabilities; including all deaf persons, adults or children. LeZotte creates a strong emotional connection to her main character Paula Becker, who is a thirteen year old deaf girl. Deaf since sixteen months old when she had a high fever, Paula and her family finally accepted her deafness after trying several homemade remedies to cure her. I a time when many disabled children were not educated, Paula learns to write and read, learns lip reading and, sign language from a local clergyman. Because of her deafness her parents agree to let their local priest Father Josef move Paula to a safer area of Germany. When asked what readers will take away from a book about the Holocaust from a perspective of a person with a disability, LeZotte, deaf from birth, replies “I hope readers will realize that Deaf and Disabled people have been the victims of the most horrible kinds of persecution, and that we still live on, and value and enjoy our lives.” What makes this novel even more potent is that these sometimes dark and sometimes hopeful facts are written about in verse. Not since Nikki Grimes’ Masquerade Bronx has verse been used to capture such a stirring message. In a verse titles “A Knock on the Door” a portion reads:

That was the night

Terror came into our home

Although I was so young,

I knew that moment

Was a dividing line

Between my childhood

And whatever came next.

More GLBT questions

Just a quick word. We seem to have a lot of comments about the GLBT topic so I thought that I would throw out another question. I was flipping through the channels last week (when we were on break) and came across a Dr. Phil show. I'm not a big watcher of this type of programming but there was the topic at hand. There was a panel discussion about the recent decision in California to over turn the same sex marriage being allowed. The panel raised some interesting questions; one of the biggest for me was the idea that this was a civil issue not a religious issue, so there for we need to remember there is a separation between church and state. So that begs the same question in our schools, if there is a separation between church, state and school then why is this such a big deal to mention same sex relationships in our teachings? Just something to ponder.

Deaf Literature

I has been a fun time finding some of the references for this final project for this literature class. There are many books out there that show deafness or explain what it is and the tools associated with it (hearing aids, cochlear implants, interpreters) but finding good books written from an insiders perspective that has some merit has proven to be a little more difficult. There has been some books written that just have a deaf character put in there but without any good information about that character; like how or why they are deaf, what method do they use to communicate? Finally, after searching for "literature with deaf characters" I found several websites that mention lists of books that are suitable for research purposes. One site was a blog from a masters graduate that has some good information about deaf character books and some interviews with several authors. If you want to check it out it is at Deaf Characters in Adolescent Literature at http://pajka.blogspot.com
She has some interesting stuff on there.