Elements of ASL language and culture: beliefs and values; social norms; literary works and texts; traditions; history; art; community organizations

• What is the significance of ASL name signs? How are they given?
• How have ASL community members in the past contributed to current ASL culture and identity?
• How does your understanding of your own culture and identity help you to understand ASL culture and its connection to identity?
• What elements of your own culture and identity do you see reflected in the ASL works you’ve studied?

Teachers can:

• encourage students to use a Venn diagram to compare and contrast elements of their own culture with elements of ASL culture;
• invite a member of the Oneida Sign Language community to visit the classroom, and then ask students to work in small groups to create a presentation to showcase their basic understanding of the elements of Oneida Sign Language culture;
• attend an LGBTQ2S ASL presentation with the class, and then ask students to reflect on the terminology they were introduced to;
• encourage students to research communities that might exist within the broader ASL community, such as the Muslim ASL community, the Chinese-Canadian ASL community, and the Black ASL community.

Issues, events, and people: British Sign Language (BSL) settlers in Saskatchewan at the turn of the twentieth century and how their language and culture evolved as they established their settlements; linguistic research by William C. Stokoe Jr. in the 1950s that established that ASL is a complete language; De’VIA art by Helen McNicoll that represents Canadian ASL identity and celebrates life and pride in the ASL community; the invention of technology that has created more opportunities for social engagement and information sharing within the ASL community and between the ASL community and other communities; increased resource development related to ASL literary works; Dr. Samuel Supalla’s mid-1990s research in ASL graphemes; the creation of buildings and public areas with ASL spaces that affirm the culture; the development of more theatres dedicated to ASL audiences

• How have depictions of ASL people in artworks changed over time to reflect the pride of those who are part of the ASL community?
• How did BSL, and other elements of BSL culture, evolve among BSL settlers and have an impact on a few small settlements in Saskatchewan in the early twentieth century?
• What elements of contemporary society, such as technological developments, have influenced the evolution of ASL?
• As a class, we have examined an artwork that depicts Samuel Greene. What do you notice about the colours that the ASL artist chose?

Teachers can ask students:

• how art works from the De’VIA movement demonstrate an evolution in the ASL community;
• to create a presentation about the evolution of technologies used by the ASL community.

• How do members of the ASL community receive their name signs?
• What did Linda Wall mean when she said, “Original ASL stories and poetry convey the experiences and emotions of ASL culture”?
• How does the incorporation of ASL cultural practices into the field of sports – for example, the use of the football huddle, the use of lights in hockey goal nets, and the use William Hoy’s baseball hand signals – contribute to preserving ASL culture? What impacts might there be on the ASL community as a result of incorporating these practices?

Teachers can:

• ask students to consider how ASL websites are important to maintaining ASL culture, and then ask them to determine the authenticity of specific websites;
• ask students to examine how offering first- and second-language courses in ASL helps to preserve the ASL community;
• introduce a De’VIA artwork, and have students identify elements of the art that have significance for the ASL community;
• encourage students to examine, with support from their teacher, how Inuit Sign Language, which has probably been used for the past 5,000 years in Nunavut, is being preserved through research and documentation, and how that work is revitalizing people’s use of the language.