Grab the Lapels

Teaching ASL

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Volunteer vs. Career Firefighters and Mental Health

For my ASL final exam, we students were tasked with choosing a topic on which to report, something that’s more academic than casual. Over the last few years, a beloved family member has been struggling with PTSD related to his time as a volunteer firefighter. Because he lives near the shore of a Great Lake,Continue reading “Volunteer vs. Career Firefighters and Mental Health”

My Ethics Class: Power, Privilege, and Oppression Discussion

Currently, I am enrolled in Interpreting Ethics, a class in which we examine models for ethical decision making and practice how we would use the Code of Professional Conduct and core values to respond to real-life situations in the interpreting field. Our last unit was about power, privilege, and oppression, and we were assigned threeContinue reading “My Ethics Class: Power, Privilege, and Oppression Discussion”

Finding Zoe: A Deaf Woman’s Story of Identity, Love, and Adoption By Brandi Rarus and Gail Harris

Finding Zoe is very much a feel-good book about stars aligning. Brandi and Tim Rarus find the daughter they want in Jess and BJ’s baby girl not only because she needs a home, but because they are the right home for a deaf infant. — thoughts by Melanie Page, originally published at Grab the Lapels

The Words in My Hands by Asphyxia

It truly feels like Piper is navigating the hearing world and constantly making choices about speaking, signing, hearing aids, interpreters, writing notes, etc. — thoughts by Melanie Page, originally published at Grab the Lapels

Train Go Sorry by Leah Hager Cohen

An interesting look into Lexington School for the Deaf because it was historically an oral school, teaching deaf children to speak, but had to recognize that ASL is an actual language and then find staff who are Deaf and/or use ASL. — thoughts by Melanie Page, originally published at Grab the Lapels

Growing Up Deaf by Rose Pizzo

While Pizzo signed, Jonas interpreted into a tape recorder. There was an editorial time during which Pizzo and Jonas confirmed that what Jonas said into the tape recorder matched Pizzo’s intention. — thoughts by Melanie Page, originally published at Grab the Lapels

On the Beat of Truth: A Hearing Daughter’s Stories of Her Black Deaf Parents by Maxine Childress Brown

Childress Brown chooses anecdotes that allow the reader to see how being black, Deaf, poor, educated, and living before the Civil Rights Movement are all intersections where her parents exist. — thoughts by Melanie Page, originally published at Grab the Lapels

Sounds Like Home by Mary Herring Wright

There was one moment in which the author compares White D/deaf school to the Black D/deaf school, and thus we do learn about race in the South as it connected to D/deaf people at this time — thoughts by Melanie Page, originally published at Grab the Lapels

A Loss for Words: The Story of Deafness in a Family by Lou Ann Walker

I’ve never read another memoir in which the parents are so unfailingly kind, modeling the kind of behavior we wish to see in society. — thoughts by Melanie Page, originally published at Grab the Lapels