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Appendix A: American Sign Language Literary Genres

The following chart illustrates the wide variety of genres in ASL literature. Teachers are encouraged to include as many of these genres as possible in their teaching and learning activities.

A flowchart showing the genres of ASL Literature. ASL Literature can be broken down into two areas: Folklore and Single-Authored. Categories of Folklore are humour, legends, riddles and tall tales. Categories of Single-Authored are Poetry, Drama, and Prose. Sub-categories of Poetry are Rhymes and Epics. Rhyme poetry can be handshape-based, location-based, movement-based, non-manual marker-based, palm-orientation-based, or based on handedness. Sub-categories of Drama are comedies, historical drama, and monologues. Sub-categories of Prose are allegories, fiction, humour, narratives of personal experience, and riddles. Source: Adapted from Andrew P. J. Byrne, "American Sign Language Literature: Some Considerations for Legitimacy and Quality Issues", Society for American Sign Language Journal 1, no. 1 (2017): pages 56-77.