Sign Language Essay Topics
This should be a "Rogerian Method" of argument. The thesis/claim of the paper should be that American Sign Language take precedents in our schools and be a requirement to high school graduation, instead of the current foreign language requirements. The idea is that ALL Americans, including those deaf, be in the Focus of the American Educational System. Americans should be the first to reap the rewards of the benefits of our educational system. This essay must include a minimum of five sources. Three should peer-reviewed sources preferably from the APUS databases. You may use eBooks; however, as discussed earlier this semester, books generally are not as current as peer-reviewed articles. You may also use primary sources (interviews, statistics, etc); however, these primary sources should be obtained from experts within that field. Make sure to include the following sections in your essay: introduction and claim, background, body, and conclusion. Within the body of your Rogerian essay, make sure to include the following in any order: the background for your chosen topic, the opposition, the strengths and weaknesses of your opponents claim, scholarly research, your claim, discuss the warrants for your claim and the opposition in order to find the common ground, and show the common ground between your opponents claim and your claim.
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American Sign Language (ASL)
Introduction
American Sign Language (ASL) represents a complex well-organized language that involves the use of signs or gestures like hand movements, facial expressions and other body movements. The language bears a level of similarity with the English language and is a major language in North America, where it is serves as the primary language for the deaf and people with difficulties in hearing. ASL relies on visual portrayals instead of audio transmission and entails its own structuring. An estimated 28 million of people in the United States use ASL (Deaf Culture)
For purposes of attaining a high school diploma, a student is required to learn a foreign language. The choices of languages to be learnt include European languages (French, Italian and Spanish), classical languages (Latin and Greek), heritage languages (Arabic, Korean, Haitian…) and others (Mandarin, Japanese, and Russian). In cases where a student is disabled, state laws allow for specialized education services as well as inclusion of world languages in an individualized education plan (EP). However, the option of learning ASL in place of the foreign language stands out as a viable and significant one. Such an option would enable disabled students (the deaf or those with hearing difficulties) to meet the foreign language requirement. Equally importantly, it would allow for the mostly isolated disabled students, language and hearing impaired students to interact and connect with the rest of the people around them (Vicars 24-6).
For the deaf and hard-of-hearing, they need to be introduced to ASL at an early age to enable them achieve desired sustainable communication skills that are vital in their lives. It is no doubt that the first few years in someone's life are most important for establishing communication skills (Gaustad 112). It is noteworthy to point out that students with disability express signs of depression, especially when they are present in the same environment with mainstream students. They tend to be withdrawn from their surroundings for the most part because of intense impacts of depression. They also exhibit signs of irritability, sulkiness and agitation characterized by non-verbal clues of emotional struggles. Major depression can be characterized by long-term impacts (Rosen 98). For these reasons, school systems ought to put up amenities for specialized care of such students.
Closes of 90% of deaf children in the United States come from hearing families. This even more expresses the need for their intergration into the hearing world. Promotion of the study of ASL in the country bears strong positive impacts to this intergration process. The subject of lip reading stands out as a major area to be considered for this aspect despite previous indications that a mere 30% of total words spoken can be read up on (Anita et al. 215)
In the United States today, ASL teaching in high schools remains on a limited basis. In addition, the implementation of changes on requirements of receiving a high school diploma (in terms of ASL consideration) has experienced a sluggish comprehension demonstration by both the states and federal government. So far, not many people understand that ASL bears no limitations in achieving optimal and effective communication, even when discussing complex matters like politics, religion and philosophy for example (Warshaw 1). Even, emotions can be well expressed using ASL using specific and meticulous body movements. For instance, finger positioning depicts the letters of the alphabet and can effectively communicate the names of people, cities, states, movies, books and brands (Gaustad 108).
The American educational system ought to take account of the educational needs of all citizens, including the disabled. As such, there is a great need for the recognition of ASL by high schools and other state institutions, giving it credit of the foreign languages studied (Vicars 57).
For as long as high schools continue to require that students meet the criteria of fulfilling foreign language diploma graduation requirements, ASL should be a viable option...