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By: Joe Hitchcock,
on 7/1/2015
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Imagine that your hearing sensitivity for pure tones is exquisite: not affected by the kind of damage that occurs through frequent exposure to loud music or other noises. Now imagine that, despite this, you have great problems in understanding speech, even in a quiet environment. This is what occurs if you have a temporal processing disorder
The post Hearing, but not understanding appeared first on OUPblog.
By:
Roger Sutton,
on 9/30/2014
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This week, I was lucky enough to have a thirty-minute window when I could pop into my favorite independent bookstore in Los Angeles. They have a large children’s section on the second floor that I love perusing because they do an excellent job at getting new books.
On one of their displays sat El Deafo by Cece Bell. Intrigued first by the illustration of a superhero bunny and second by the title, my immediate thought was “What is this book about and who is this written for?” As if by fate, a children’s book worker looked up from her task of stocking new books and said “Oh that’s a really cute story. I highly recommend it.” I inquired about the reading level and she said it could be from fourth grade to middle school. Opening it, I was stoked to find out it was a graphic novel. Sold. It may be one of the best impulsive $20 I’ve spent of late.
I read this book in two days. It follows the author’s childhood experiences of being deaf, and specifically highlights her experiences in school. What captured me was the depiction of how people treated her and, since it’s from Cece’s point of view, how she felt. Her emotions come through strongly in the text and illustrations, and made me stop and think about how I treat people even if my intention is good. I connected with Cece’s superhero persona, “El Deafo.” Cece uses El Deafo to imagine the ideal way to handle tough situations, even if that doesn’t play out in real life (something I did as a kid too). What I really loved about this book was how the author depicted her friendships with the other kids (the good and the bad). It reminded me that children can sometimes do really mean things but that most of the time they mean well and can be really amazing friends to each other. It’s a lesson I need to carry for the school year.
Cece’s journey starts at the age of four and ends in fifth grade, so as a fifth grade teacher, I’m very excited to bring this graphic novel to my classroom. I think the students will enjoy this book and learn a lot from it. I believe that it will carry lessons of tolerance and respect for those who are hearing impaired, and prepare my students with tools (Don’t cover your mouth while someone is lip reading! Don’t assume all deaf people can sign!) to create meaningful and comfortable experiences with someone who can’t hear well.
The post El Deafo appeared first on The Horn Book.
This summer, I was asked by a parent whose child had attended our reading tutoring program in the spring, to work one-on-one with her daughter, a rising middle schooler with CHARGE syndrome. CHARGE syndrome involves a number of developmental and medical differences (see www.chargesyndrome.org to learn more), and for this particular child it means profound deafness in addition to other factors. Her signs could at times be challenging to understand, and it was not always clear when you asked her a question whether she understood the answer or whether she was repeating what you last said to her. So what was my approach in teaching reading with this student? Pull out all my favorite picture books, naturally.
When my undergraduate student who had been tutoring her in the previous semester pulled out The Red Book by Barbara Lehmann, she was at first confused and later delighted to find this rich story told entirely through pictures. Over the summer, in addition to many others, we have been reading a great deal of Mo Willems (the Knuffle Bunny books and the Elephant and Piggy books) and Jon Klassen (mostly of the hats-being-stolen-by-fish-and-rabbits genre). Halfway through Knuffle Bunny Too, she had the whole story figured out, excitedly signing to me, “Wrong rabbit, wrong rabbit!” The language and understanding that came through when presented with engaging literature was a delight to see.
We do more than read picture books, of course. We work on building vocabulary, we develop American Sign Language (ASL) skills and compare how concepts are conveyed through both languages, and we even examine word order through mixed-up sentences. But these lessons are always underpinned with marvelous books that are clever and engaging. It is through these books that her abilities come shining through. And although reading tutoring during the summer months would not be the favorite activity of most middle school students, her mother told me that she actually begins laughing and smiling as they approach my building. The joy of reading!
Has anyone out there worked with children with CHARGE syndrome or those with multiple disabilities? I would love to learn about strategies you have used to support their reading!
The post Engaging literature and students with CHARGE syndrome appeared first on The Horn Book.
By: Stacy Dillon,
on 7/23/2014
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After an illness at age 4, Cece loses her hearing. She is soon equipped with a hearing aid that involves wearing a pouch around her neck attached to some "ear globs". Cece is happy to hear again, but now has to learn how to understand once more. To top things off, Cece now has to go to a new school.
A good thing about the new school is the other kids are wearing hearing aids too, and Cece is learning some useful skills like lip reading and using visual, context and gestural clues to help in understanding. Cece is just finding her way, when her family decides to leave the city and head to the country, where she will be going to a regular school.
Cece gets a brand-new-BIG-for-school-only-around-the-neck hearing aid (The Phonic Ear) that comes with a microphone for her teacher to wear and is superpowerful. What nobody expects is that it comes with the added feature of having a super long range, allowing Cece to hear not only her teacher teaching, but whatever her teacher is doing when she is out of the room as well (yes...even *that*!).
Cece has to negotiate the things that all kids go through at school - including navigating a friend who is not-so-nice, and getting her first crush. Things unique to her situation include dealing with friends who TALK TOO LOUD AND TOO SLOW, and those who refer to her as their "deaf friend".
This is more than a graphic memoir - it is a school and family story for all kids. Cece is an imaginative and emotional kid with whom readers will identify. There is an accessibility to Bell's art that immediate draws you in and you can't help but cheer with her successes and cringe with her tears. Fans of Telgemeier and Varon will readily scoop this up off of the shelves, and it *will* be passed hand to hand. I am certain I will see many doodles of Cece and her friends in the margins of writer's notebooks this coming school year. Do yourself a favor...get more than one!
By: Alice,
on 12/13/2012
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By William Kinderman
Our fascination with creativity is a timeless and universal phenomenon. Since Greek antiquity, its most telling embodiment has been Prometheus: that heroic benefactor of humanity who stole the fire whose vital sparks sustain science and the arts. In more modern times, it is the fire of the imagination that is understood to illuminate and guide the creative mind, transforming the conventions of culture. For Ludwig van Beethoven, at the threshold of the nineteenth century, the challenge retained its force: his first major piece for the stage was the ballet music to “The Creatures of Prometheus,” op. 43. That work in turn became the stepping-stone to a pivotal masterpiece of fiery daring: the Eroica Symphony, completed in 1804.
In the world of art, the notion of a work emerging through long toil and unfailing vision is perhaps most readily associated with sculptors such as Michelangelo or Rodin. A prolonged creative process with intermediate stages in the form of models, studies, sketches, and earlier versions, is illustrated in the work of Leonardo da Vinci and many others. Among writers, one thinks of Goethe’s long preoccupation with Wilhelm Meister or Faust, or Jean Paul Richter’s prolonged work on his novels.
Portrait of Ludwig van Beethoven by Joseph Willibrord Mähler, 1804-1805. Vienna Museum.
Beethoven’s labors on major projects could extend over many years and even decades of his life, with certain compositions serving as stepping-stones toward larger comprehensive efforts. Thus the Choral Fantasy, op. 80, from 1808, acted as a springboard in the achievement of the choral finale of the Ninth Symphony, completed in 1824. Beethoven himself pointed out the affinity, describing the finale as “a setting of the words of Schiller’s immortal ‘
Lied an die Freude’ in the same way as my pianoforte fantasia with chorus, but on a far grander scale.”
In the age of Romanticism, the emphasis on originality and the cult of genius raised the stakes of artistic creativity, and propagated the image of the suffering artist-hero. Beethoven’s reputation for defiant independence fit this heroic image and his handicapped status as a “deaf seer,” in Wagner’s words, made it stick. With Beethoven’s worsening deafness came an inevitable retreat from the concert platform as well as an increasing social isolation. His loss of hearing also impacted his composing methods. As he grew older, Beethoven relied more on written musical sketches and drafts. As a young composer who was also an active keyboard virtuoso and skilled improviser, Beethoven could immediately test ideas at the piano. Increasingly, such exploratory activity was transferred from the piano to his sketchbooks and thereby captured on paper, with the musical sketches sometimes taking on the appearance of notated improvisations.
The legacy of Beethoven’s sketchbooks offers us a rare opportunity to gaze into the workshop of one of the greatest artists. Beethoven made thousands of pages of sketches and drafts for his music in addition to the finished scores, many of which are also full of his changes and corrections. This process of writing traced both the swift arc of the imagination and the very conscious deliberation demanded by specific compositional problems. His unusual and consistent reliance on these papers and attachment to them after use have preserved a detailed record of the creative process.
Beethoven’s commitment to sketching his music was noticed and remarked upon by his contemporaries. Ignaz von Seyfried, for instance, reported that Beethoven “was never found on the street without a small note-book in which he was wont to record his passing ideas. Whenever conversation turned on the subject he would parody Joan of Arc’s words: “I dare not come without my banner!”
How can we best do justice to Beethoven’s legacy and influence in the present day? One imperative is to seek to overcome narrow or overspecialized approaches that sever history from theory, and performance from aesthetics. Such pigeonholing is often encouraged by institutional structures, but often does not help us to grasp the magnitude of Beethoven’s achievement and continuing cultural importance. Beethoven once wrote characteristically about the need for “freedom and progress. . . in the world of art as in the whole of creation.” To refer to his own artistic goal in this context he coined the term Kunstvereinigung or “artistic unification.” Today, two-hundred forty-two years after his birth, Beethoven scholarship is entering its most vigorous stage yet, influencing our contemporary musical and cultural life.
William Kinderman is Professor of Musicology at the University of Illinois – Champaign-Urbana. His books include Beethoven’s “Diabelli” Variations (OUP, 1987), ed., Beethoven’s Compositional Process (Nebraska, 1991), Beethoven (OUP and California, 1995), ed., The Second Practice of Nineteenth-Century Tonality (Nebraska, 1996), Artaria 195: Beethoven’s Sketchbook for the ‘Missa solemnis’ and the Piano Sonata in E Major, Opus 109 (Illinois, 3 vols., 2003), ed. (with Katherine Syer), A Companion to Wagner’s “Parsifal” (Camden House, 2005), ed., The String Quartets of Beethoven (Illinois, 2006), and Mozart’s Piano Music (OUP, 2006). He is also an accomplished pianist whose recordings have been met with global acclaim; his CDs of Beethoven’s last sonatas and Diabelli Variations have appeared with Arietta Records.
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The post Beethoven’s creativity in the 21st century appeared first on OUPblog.
American Sign Language (ASL) books for kids
As a general rule, unless I am under obligation to SLJ or LT, I don't write reviews of books that I don't like. The work of many committed people goes into the commercial publication of a book, and it would be the height of arrogance to assume that I am the best or only arbiter of good taste and quality. I offer my opinions here for the benefit of myself and those who may not have the time to read as extensively or expansively as I do. That being said, without referencing a particular book, I wish to offer a caveat regarding American Sign Language books for children.
I am very fortunate in that I work with a deaf woman who has been teaching me sign language for over a year. She and I often share books and discussion about deaf culture, ASL, and unrelatedly, our interest in star gazing. (We both loved
Wonderstruck.)
Over the past few weeks, I've received numerous new ASL picture books at my branch. These recent additions depict ASL in simplistic drawings. This may make for a cute picture book, but the signs are nearly impossible to decipher and replicate with one's actual hands. Sign language is a fluid language. The required movements are very difficult to duplicate in pictures. If you
must rely on printed text and illustrations (which
will work fine for
most of the ASL alphabet), purchase or borrow books with photographs of hands rather than artistic renderings. A better suggestion, however, if you are seeking to teach ASL, is using one of the many kid-friendly DVDs, or YouTube tutorials. Purchasing books which rely on simple, hand-rendered illustrations of complex signs is, in my opinion, a waste of money. My co-worker
did use our new books to teach me something - the signs for "wrong picture." (I already knew the signs for "bad book.")
If you want to learn about deaf culture or ASL, check out the site for the
National Association of the Deaf, or the
National Institutes of Health site, or best of all, ask a deaf person.
Wise, Bill. 2012.
Silent Star: The Story of Deaf Major Leaguer Willliam Hoy. Ill. by Adam Gustavson. New York: Lee & Low.
No one today would call a deaf person "dummy," but from 1888-1902, Major League Baseball player, William Ellsworth Hoy, wore that nickname with pride.
Deaf from the age of three, his chances of becoming a major league baseball star were slim to none. At the turn of the century, deafness itself was a great hurdle to overcome. Attitudes were different, and his early years were difficult until his parents sent him to the
Ohio School for the Deaf, where,
Nobody stared or pointed him. Nobody felt sorry for him.
Presumably, this is where he learned the confidence and persistence (he
already had a love for baseball), that helped propel him to the top of his game as a major league outfielder. Bill Wise chronicles his early life, his rise to stardom, and the unique challenges he faced in the game of baseball. His baseball challenges were not necessarily due to his disability, but rather, just the way the game is played. If the opposing team has a weakness, exploit it.
Because he could not hear the home plate umpire shouting balls and strikes when he was at bat, Hoy had to turn around to look at the ump after each pitch. The umpire would repeat the call, and as Hoy read the ump's lips, opposing pitchers often quick pitched Hoy, throwing the next ball before he was ready to bat.
This didn't stop Hoy for long, though. There's a "workaround" for nearly everything. Some historians argue that Hoy's deafness may have been the impetus for the umpire's use of hand signals. In any case, the fans loved him - knowing that he could not hear their cheers, fans waved their arms and hats and threw confetti to show their approval.
Gustavson's mostly double-spread illustrations depict Hoy as a determined and confident young man.
Much of the text is presented in text boxes which appear as aged scrapbook or autograph pages outlined in faded fountain pen. The subdued tones of the illustrations, along with the many undefined faces, help give
Silent Star the appropriate "old time" feel.
The Afterword offers additional information and photos of Hoy's baseball card and a Hoy-autographed baseball. Biographical sources are included on the dedication page. As for baseball sources, they're unnecessary, for that is one of the many beauties of baseball. There are official statistics for everything! (read or watch Moneyball, anyone?)
See all of "Dummy" Hoy’s major league stats here.
Although he is not in the Baseball Hall of Fame, you may read two entries about William Hoy on the Hall of Fame's w
By:
smmorris,
on 4/19/2012
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A to Z Challenge Day 18: R . 4.5 Today, the A and Z letter of the day is R, and it brings you two things: The author, whose last name is Richmond (Millie), and the word Relief. By the end of the review, relief will become apparent, and not because what I have written [...]
Wonderstruck by Brian Selznick, Scholastic Press, 2011, 608 pp, ISBN: 0545027896
Recap:Two very separate lives, decades apart, become inextricably linked through the magic of howling wolves (not werewolves, real wolves!), a great big museum, and a little blue book called Wonderstruck.
Review:The story of Wonderstruck is lovely - a little girl growing up in New Jersey in the 20s, and a little boy growing up in Minnesota in the 70s, are unaware that their lives are being knit closer and closer together with each passing page. Neither have any parents to speak - due to either death or just really bad, dismissive parenting. And both are deaf, and just beginning to learn to communicate with their hands.
I had a few different ideas about how their stories would eventually connect, and I thought that their ultimate resolution was completely satisfying.
But... the real star of this story is the artwork. And that's not just because Brian Selznick creates some truly fantastic illustrations. Obviously, he does that, but the magic of the artwork here is the way that they communicate an entire storyline with almost zero words.A series of illustrations will zoom in and out, so you think you're seeing one thing, but then realize that it's actually only a small part of a much larger scene. And he includes tiny details, so that discerning readers can approach each page as a treasure hunt, searching for clues that will connect back to the story in prose.I remember reading The Inventio
(Advance Reader Copy)During the course of reading
Wonderstruck, I misplaced the book. When I asked my family if anyone had seen it, my daughter answered, "Which book? The one with two different covers?" I hadn't thought of it that way, but yes, the book with two different covers.
*minor spoiler alert*
(though I'm not giving any more away than Brian Selznick does in his Wonderstruck video - see below)Wonderstruck's cover is a preview of its contents - two stories, two eras, two modes of storytelling. One would think that after his ground-breaking, Caldecott Winner,
The Invention of Hugo Cabret, Brian Selznick could not have any more surprises up his sleeve, but in
Wonderstruck, he again inspires us with this singular story of two mysterious and wonder-filled journeys.
Ben's story begins in Gunflint Lake, Minnesota, in June, 1977; Rose's, in Hoboken, New Jersey, 1927. Though 50 years divide their stories, the children embark on parallel journeys fraught with uncertainty and risk, and guided by purpose - a need to know. Ben's story is told in third person prose, while Rose's is told in Selznick's incredibly detailed, unmistakable pencil drawings. The two stories are woven together, sometimes almost touching, other times gathering distance until at last, in a single drawing, with a simple turn of the page, Selznick seamlessly binds the two stories together, where they stay, until
Wonderstruck's conclusion.
It is clear that Selznick's fascination with silent film and early cinema did not end with
Hugo Cabret. Silent film is featured in
Wonderstruck, not in the same capacity as in
Hugo, but rather as a vehicle for introducing deaf culture. It is museums, not film or mechanics, that take center stage in
Wonderstruck. Both Rose and Ben are seeking something, and both find themselves, a half century apart, at the same location, the
American Museum of Natural History, where they are fascinated by museum dioramas and early museum collections, or "cabinets of wonder."
Readers will be fascinated as well, by
Wonderstruck's story, artwork, and the offered glimpse into another time and another culture.
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A page from Brian Selznick's, Wonderstruck. © 2011
Rose can be seen ducking behind a "cabinet of wonders." |
2 Comments on Wonderstruck: a review, last added: 9/8/2011
Laurie by Elfi Nijssen & Eline van Lindenhuizen
Originally published in Belgium and Holland, this tremendously sweet book takes a straight-forward approach to the story of Laurie, a girl with hearing loss. Laurie has trouble hearing other children, so she usually plays alone. The others tease her about being deaf and refuse to play with a girl who can’t understand them. Laurie’s dog doesn’t mind that she’s different from the others. Finally one day, Laurie and her mother go to the ear doctor. He discovers she needs hearing aids, or “hearing computers” as Laurie calls them. Now Laurie can hear cars coming, plays happily with others, and pays better attention in class. Sometimes though, she still likes the quiet and turns her hearing aids off just to return to the silence.
Nijssen’s writes as an author who has experienced hearing loss herself. This makes the emotions and struggle of Laurie very real. The book doesn’t shy away from conflicted feelings and one of the nicest parts is when Laurie decides to turn her hearing aids off or down once in a while. It makes for a lovely moment that shows that being different was not the problem, being misunderstood was.
Lindenhuizen’s art is simple and friendly, depicting Laurie separated from the other children at first and later connected with others. She uses space on the pages very successfully, emphasizing the spirit of the text visually.
A great pick for units on differences and diversity, this book is friendly and straight forward. Appropriate for ages 4-6.
Reviewed from library copy.
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By: Angela Cater,
on 3/25/2010
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Please can you tell us a little about your childhood and background?
I was born in Kansas City, Missouri, the oldest of three children. As a toddler, I was diagnosed as being profoundly deaf, the result of my mother contracting rubella, or German measles, during her pregnancy. As a child, I was fitted with my first hearing aid and enrolled in a special preschool for hearing-impaired and deaf children, during which time I learned to speak and lip-read with the help of my mother, who by that time had gone back to college to earn her master’s degree in audiology. I was mainstreamed into a regular classroom in the fourth grade and remained in the public school system until I graduated from Olathe (Kansas) North High School.
Was it difficult to adjust to that?
It wasn’t all that much of a challenge for me because I already felt very comfortable around most hearing people, especially my family. I have rarely ever had any problems communicating with most people, and vice versa, and that carried over into a mainstreamed classroom. If I had grown up using sign language as my main form of communication, it would have been considerably more difficult to become integrated into a hearing environment – but since my parents insisted that I learn how to speak and lipread, I didn’t have all that much trouble adjusting.
How were you treated by hearing children? Were you picked on for being deaf?
Yes, this happened more in grade school, especially with boys who made fun of me, but they were pretty isolated incidents for the most part. Once I got into junior high school, I was treated pretty much like anyone else and nobody made my deafness an issue then. Did you study further than high school?
Yes, I went on to Washington, D.C., where I earned a B.A. in English at Gallaudet College, the world’s only liberal-arts institution of higher learning for the deaf and hearing-impaired. When and how did you first become an illustrator?
It was at a very young age when I discovered my passion for art and horses, two loves that naturally went hand in hand. Quite often during class I would take a pencil and draw realistic sketches of horses in the margins of my notebook when I was supposed to be paying attention to the teacher. It wasn’t until I was a sophomore at Gallaudet that I found out I could draw cartoons, and Hayseed was “born” in 1981 on the college campus there. I have been drawing him ever since. What is the inspiration behind Hayseed?
Well, Hayseed is loosely based on an Appaloosa gelding I owned as a teenager, named Rainbeau Shayne, or Shayne, as I called him. Hayseed actually has a number of influences. The one thing that inspired me to draw him in the first place was a Bernard Kliban cartoon of a cat wearing tennis shoes on all four feet. I also have a very old birthday card with a horse on the front that must have been in the back of my mind when I drew Hayseed for the first time. When I came across it after Hayseed was created, I was amazed at the similarities between Hayseed and that greeting card horse.
Who and what has influenced you artistically?
My early artistic influences came from Walt Disney’s classic animated films, and more recently, Pixar Animation Studios’ brilliantly innovative 3D comedies and Japanese animation director Hayao Miyazaki (“Spirited Away”
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What kid-friendly dvds do you (and your friend) recommend? I need to update this section in my library.
Signing Time! is the best DVD series that we have. They're very popular, too. They circulate quite a bit. Thanks for asking.
Thanks! Our neighboring library serves a town with a school for the deaf, so we usually just borrow their stuff, but I'd like to have a few things myself!
Sounds like great advice, thank you so much for sharing. Will also check out the dvd series you noted above.
I wonder if there is much difference between JSL and ASL. Because my co-worker is orignially from India and often uses older versions of signs that have been swapped out here in the States for more politically correct ones, I've joked with her that I've been learning ISL. It's interesting that JSL is a school requirement in Japan. Does Japan have a higher incidence of deafness, do you suppose?