🕵️♀️ASL Level 1, Activity 6-Describing Identity (Face-to-Face)
Description:
Students will better their fingerspelling skills by making a short story with their lab mates. In the main activity, students will play a game, while learning about physical descriptions and additional information about a person. Students will get to ask each other questions while assuming a secret identity as a spy.
Semantic Topics: Questions, Spy Mission, Story, Country, like, identity, secret, nationality
Products: Fingerspelling, signing space, nationalities, and questions
Practices: Fingerspelling, utilizing signing space, forming and responding to questions, and practicing with nationality signs
Perspectives: How do identities vary in American Sign Language?
Standards
NCSSFL-ACTFL World-Readiness Standards:
- Standard 1.1: Students engage in conversations, provide and obtain information, express feelings and emotions, and exchange opinions.
- Standard 1.2: Students comprehend and interpret live and recorded American Sign Language on a variety of topics.
- Standard 1.3: Students present information, concepts, and ideas in American Sign Language to an audience of viewers on a variety of topics.
Idaho Content Standards for World Languages:
- COMM 1.1:Interact and negotiate meaning (spoken, signed, written conversation) to share information, reactions, feelings, and opinions
- COMM 2.1:Understand, interpret, and analyze what is heard, read, or viewed on a variety of topics.
- COMM 3.1: Present information, concepts, and ideas to inform, explain, persuade, and narrate on a variety of topics using appropriate media in the target language.
Can-Do Statements
NCSSFL-ACTFL Can-Do Statements:
- I can communicate basic information about myself
- I can ask others simple questions about themselves
- I can fingerspell memorized words and phrases
Materials Needed
- Google Slides
- Backgrounds Cards
- Secret Identity Cards
Would you like to make changes to the materials? Access the template(s) below:
- Backgrounds Cards (Canva Template, free account required)
- Secret Identity Cards (Canva Template, free account required)
Need help with customizing the templates? View this video for help.
Warm-up
Materials Needed for Warm-up
- Have students in partners, with a whiteboard and marker
- “PARTNERS GRAB 1 WHITE BOARD, 1 MARKER.”
- One student will begin by fingerspelling a word
- “START ONE PERSON FINGERSPELL WORD.”
- The next student will write down what they fingerspelled, then fingerspell a different word to add on to their story
- “OTHER PERSON WRITE WORD. THEY ADD FINGERSPELL WORD STORY.”
- Their partner will write down what they fingerspelled, and they’ll keep going for about 5-7 minutes.
- “FIRST PERSON WRITE WORD CONTINUE”
- Remind students to remember they’re trying to create a story from what they fingerspell
- “FINGERSPELL STORY MAKE, REMEMBER “
Main Activity
Materials Needed for Main Activity
- Background cards
- Identity cards
Secret Spy Game
- Pass out the instruction cards and introduce the game to students.
- “TODAY GAME PLAY NAME SECRET SPY AGENT.”
- Then, pass out the identity cards and the photo ID lanyards. Have students wear their ID lanyards.
- “ALL CARD PHOTO HAVE WEAR PHOTO ID.”
- Have the students read about their secret spy identity.
- “READ SECRET SPY AGENT IDENTITY”
- Then, have the students walk around and converse with each other, learning about everyone’s identity. Don’t have them write anything down.
- “HANGOUT CONVERSATION LEARN OTHER IDENTITY. WRITE NOT”
- Afterward, there will be a mission debriefing. Write all the spies’ names on the large dry-erase board, and ask what the class learned about each individual. *Remember students cannot write any information down*
- “WHITE BOARD, WRITE NAME. YOU LEARN WHAT?”
- Write down the students’ responses under each of the spies’ names.
- Ask the Spy if the class forgot about anything.
- “NAME ONE GROUP LEARN SECRET IDENTITY RIGHT, WRONG? INFORMATION FORGET WHAT?”
- If there is time left over, have students pick new identities and start again.
Wrap-up
- What went well in this lab?
- “LAB(fs) GOOD WHAT?”
- Was remembering information hard?
- “INFORMATION REMEMBER HARD?”
- Do you think signing makes things harder to remember than spoken language?
- “SIGN, SPEAK INFORMATION REMEMBER HARD MORE, WHICH?”
- Is there anything you’d like to see changed in this lab?
- “FUTURE NOW LAB(fs) CHANGE THINK WHAT?”
Deaf Culture
A sense of identity is really important to members of the Deaf community. Deaf individuals embrace their form of communication as a part of who they are. Even though a part of Deaf culture is pride in being Deaf, it does not define a person as a whole.
End of Lab:
- Read Can-Do statements once more and have students evaluate their confidence.
- (Use thumbs up/thumbs down or download our student cards.)
- Encourage students to be honest in their self-evaluation.
- Pay attention, and try to use feedback for future labs!
Can-Do Statements
NCSSFL-ACTFL Can-Do Statements:
- I can communicate basic information about myself
- I can ask others simple questions about themselves
- I can fingerspell memorized words and phrases
