ASL 121
Expressive Narrative #2 "My Daily Grind"
Barbara Bernstein Fant
Seattle Central Community College

Directions:
1.  Create a signed story about your daily routine. Refer to "Jack's Daily Grind" for ideas.  The content of the story is totally up to you.   Plan your narrative well.

- Include any of the information that you have learned in class:
    - Core vocabulary Units 1-2 & 4
    - clothing and personal accessories
    - colors
    - numbers/clock time
    - time signs
    - fingerspelling
    - classifier handshapes (whole entity, perimeter, descriptive)
    - ASL grammar - WH questions, Y-N questions, Negative and Positive statements, etc.
    - Emotive prosody

Refer to Receptive Narratives #1- #2 and Homework Sentences #1- #2 and see how all signers incorporate classifiers  and spatial referents in some of their sentences.  Also pay attention to how Geoff and Clyde set up their narratives.  Watch how their stories flow.  Look at both the opening and closing sentences for both narratives.

2) Create a mental map of your story -  Put your story into "chunks" and think about how to transition between "chunks".  Use my Mental Map PPT  (Lecture Notes web page) and see how the theme, categories/chunks and details are set up using circles, squares and arrows.

3) Have your polished signed draft with a neat mental map ready for practice  for  your class on Tuesday, March 2nd.    You will rely on your mental map to help remember important highlights from each chunk.  Do not write out your story in full sentences or a script per se - use your mental map to help plan your story and to help you visualize what you want to sign.  

4) Record your first sign draft  in lab on Tuesday, March 2nd.   Exchange your videotape with a classmate to translate and give feedback. Your classmate should use the evaluation form linked here.  All students are to print out a copy of this evaluation before class time!  Your classmate's feedback/evaluation is due at the next class section on Thursday, March 4th.  Please be courteous and return classmate's video/evaluation on time!

5) On Thursday, March 4th,  classmates are to discuss feedback in voice.

 Partners are to:
--exchange translations/videos/paperwork
--discuss what and where the problems occur in partner's narrative
--give suggestions on signs or phrases to help make partner's stories clearer
--sign story again using suggested changes to your partner

Keep in mind students are to make minor revisions or deletions in their stories; not to change it entirely.  Be sure you memorize your story and just use your mental map as a backup.  Bring a videotape and have your final story ready to record on Tuesday, March 9th.
 Before that date, click on this evaluation form and print again.   After recording, turn in video along with:
            --mental map
            --translation of your first video
            --classmate evaluation of first video
            --2nd evaluation (Right column left blank for me to evaluate you)

6) Keep your story around 3 - 4 minutes in length.

7) If you make a mistake, correct it  by shaking your head: backing up a little to repeat and keep going.  Keep your pace even and smooth.

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Introduction to Mental Maps and ASL Narratives
"Jack's Daily Grind"

ASL is a visual/spatial language.  As such, ASL users often create "mental maps" of their stories.  A mental map is an imaginary visual/spatial "outline" of a story.  It is used to help organize and structure the story.

Mental maps help the signer determine:

Key "topics" of the story - used with topicalization grammar markers

Spatial layout - to determine how classifiers and spatial verbs will be  incorporated into the story-telling space,

Transition points - knowing when to move from one part of the story to the next

Opening and closure tie-ins - keeping the viewer clear about the point of the story.

 Receptive Translation #2

1)  Use "Jack's Daily Grind" Mental Map" diagram (see below) to see how the story was organized in the signer's imagination.

2)  Watch the story "chunks" in the accompanying video - you have already translated the narrative.

3)   Make two observations of the relationship between the map and the story.  Can you see how the map determines how the story is structured?  How classifiers are set up?  How the spatial relationship of the topics are laid out?

You can  watch the streamed video of "Jack's Daily Grind" here.