By Bruce A. Sofinski with Dyan Hansford, Sue Matthews, Rochelle Taylor, Kathryn Wilson, Rachel Henry and Lydia Polonofsky
from Inquiry, Volume 13, Number 1, Spring 2008, 65-73
© Copyright 2008 Virginia Community College System
Abstract
This article
explains how a final class project in an American Sign Language course
teaches teamwork, critical thinking, and research methodology.
How
does one teach critical thinking?
How does one foster teamwork? What
are the parts of a research study?
Why is it important to learn this “stuff” anyway?
We hoped to answer those questions during the spring 2007 semester at J.
Sargeant Reynolds Community College (JSRCC) when fourteen students in
“Comparative Linguistics: American Sign Language & English” (ASL 220) embarked
on a class project focused on linguistic variation.
The Capstone Project
Since 2000, I have had the opportunity to lead various groups of committed
learners through this course, ASL 220, which is a prerequisite for students
beginning the American Sign Language (ASL)-English Interpretation Associate of
Applied Science and a requirement of the Arts and Sciences’ social sciences
specialization in ASL/Deaf Studies.
Students in this course aspire to work in some way with deaf people, a cultural
group of Americans who use ASL as the primary mode of communication.
Their future endeavors are highlighted by ASL-English (sign language)
interpretation, but may also include other scholarly and educational pursuits
such as teaching, audiology, speech pathology, and linguistic research.
The capstone project in ASL 220 is a class project studying linguistic variation
in spoken English. While variation
can and does occur in many different ways, this project focuses on two common
types of variation – phonological and lexical.
Phonological variation occurs within the realm of sound when one produces
a certain word differently (e.g., “ant” vs. “awnt,” a term used when referring
to the female sibling of one’s parent).
Lexical variation occurs within the realm of words, when more than one
term is used to identify the same object or concept (e.g., “couch”, “sofa”,
“davenport,” terms used when referring to a piece of furniture designed to seat
at least three individuals) (Crabtree & Powers, 1991a; Crabtree & Powers, 1991b;
Valli, Lucas, & Mulrooney, 2005).
Each semester, each new class of students begins as many different individuals, yet somehow congeals as a cohesive unit. Differentiated instruction (Tomlinson, 1999, 2003) is employed to foster this group cohesiveness to pull together the final class project. In the case of ASL 220, the final class project in linguistic variation is the vehicle through which important skills in teamwork, critical thinking and application of content are combined to form an activity that is differentiated by interest and learning style of the students in the class. The process, product, and content of this activity are the same for everyone. However, the particular aspects of variation and the methodology employed to collect and report the data are determined and standardized through guided compromise and negotiation with the entire class (Sofinski, 2005; Sofinski, 2007). While many lessons are learned through the grappling of concepts and with hands-on application (Curtain & Dahlberg, 2004; Eggen & Kauchak, 2001; Richard-Amato, 2003), the final project write-up is further differentiated through each student utilizing the corpus of data to assess hypotheses made prior to the implementation of data collection. In the end, students have experienced the many facets of empirical research, providing them with the foundation to apply newly-developed critical-thinking skills when reading, digesting, and considering the claims made by various researchers.
The final product is called a “write-up” for several reasons, including the fact that the literature review and methodology sections are completed through whole-class activities and are not written individually by each student. Instead, each student focuses upon the development of two thesis statements, which are based upon hypotheses made prior to data collection. Each of these theses is then either supported or rejected based upon the corpus of data collected individually, but reported in standardized format, compiled, and used by all members of the class.
Methodology
As part of the introduction to ASL 220, the concept of lexical variation is
presented. During this first course
meeting, the syllabus is reviewed and the final class project is discussed,
typically to many sad-looking faces.
The instructor then leads the class on a discussion of critical thinking and
teamwork, challenging the students to put aside differences and work together on
the final class project.
Over the course of first half of the semester, as the other topics in the course
are introduced, taught, and discussed, ten- to twenty-minute periods of several
classes are used to encourage students to think about examples of linguistic
variation that they would be interested in studying.
After Spring Break, with the other lessons behind them, the class then
focuses attention upon the final class project.
Having given consideration to which examples of phonological and lexical
variation individual students wish to study, the instructor leads a
brainstorming session. During this
session, all ideas are proposed and described.
After a break, students are asked to discuss which examples are the best
to focus upon. It is during this
phase that the final write-up is discussed in detail.
After a session to continue the discussion of potential focal points via
discussion board (ASL 220 Blackboard), students come to the next face-to-face
class meeting for a final opportunity to convince classmates on which areas to
focus. Then, each student casts a
vote, which narrows the focus of the study to two examples of variation.
During spring 2007, the class initially decided to investigate
phonological variation in the pronunciation of the
Next, according to student
interest in the topics, four groups are formed – two subgroups for each topic
(i.e., two for Powhite and two for t-shirt).
Each subgroup then comes up with two or three possible ways to collect
data, which the subgroup prepares and presents to the other subgroup that is
covering the same topic. After
presentation and discussion, the subgroups merge, leaving two groups (one for
each topic) and selecting and refining the best two data-collection procedures.
During this process, the combined t-shirt group decided to change the topic of
study to another topic, a lexical variation regarding how people refer to the
vehicle known as a Volkswagen Beetle.
At the end of this process, the two combined groups reconvene in one
large group (i.e., the entire class), and the procedures are refined and
finalized.
During the refinement and finalization of the data-collection procedures, the
demographics to be collected and the reporting tool (an Excel spreadsheet) are
developed. Then, one or more test
subjects are selected and standardization of the procedures (focusing on data
collection, identification, and reporting) is completed.
By the end of the face-to-face meeting, the final data-collection
procedures and reporting tools are uploaded to Blackboard.
(See Appendix for the final data-collection procedures developed by the
ASL 220 students in spring 2007.)
During the intervening
period between these two face-to-face meetings, each student is then required to
complete at least ten complete pieces of data (interviews).
At the next face-to-face meeting, the data collected by each of the ASL
220 students is then combined into one master Excel spreadsheet, which is shared
via Blackboard. Each student then
completes the final project write-up by accessing, manipulating, and analyzing
the same, shared corpus of data to investigate the two individual hypotheses
made prior to the initiation of data collection.
The final write-up consists of three major parts:
introduction, analysis/discussion, and conclusion.
These final products are assessed based upon these three parts, as well
as appropriate use of English grammar.
Student Involvement
While not required, some students conducted limited research, typically
restricted to online search engines, into the backgrounds of the foci of the
class project (Henry, 2007). For
example, Matthews cites a source regarding the
The official pronunciation is “Pow-hite,” in the same manner as you
pronounce
“Powhatan” and “Powder.”
The name comes from the name of the creek that the parkway follows.
References to the creek by this name have been found in records more than
300 years old, and the creek probably was named by Native Americans who were in
the area long before colonial settlers arrived.
(www.rmaonline.org
in Matthews 2)
Some other students used broadcast media as information for the basis of thesis
statements:
What I was hoping to
gather from the data collected was that, regardless of how long someone has
lived in the
Students were required to make initial hypotheses and translate these into thesis statements in the final project write-up. The goal was to analyze, manipulate, and utilize the shared corpus of data either to provide support for or to refute the assertion made. To do this, students found the importance of collecting demographic information in order to examine one’s hypothesis:
I believe that the
pronunciation of the word “Powhite” would break down along ethnic lines
regardless of age and gender, and without regard to where they were born and
raised or even how long they lived in the area.
I anticipated that most black people and other minorities would pronounce
the word “Po-white,” while most white people would pronounce the word as “Pow-hite”
or “Pow-white”. As for the lexical
differences for the Volkswagen Beetle, I anticipated the differences to be
attributed to whether or not the person had children and the age of those
children. Whether or not those
surveyed had siblings and the age of the siblings were not taken into account
for my hypothesis. (Hansford, 2007,
2)
Students then applied
basic critical-thinking skills as the hypothesis was analyzed in light of the
corpus of data. This typically
required students to sort the data in different ways before coming to some type
of conclusion.
I sorted the 50
participants raised in
The grappling with data –
trying to make sense out of so many numbers (166 interviews were collected,
coded and collated into the corpus of data) – was challenging for many students.
In fact, some students went beyond initial theories as the analysis of
data “spoke to them:”
Upon further analyzing the
data from the study I noticed that quite a few people answered more than one
term for their answer. There were
almost 10 occasions in which a person responded with the car’s full proper name,
“Volkswagen Beetle,” which was a combined answer of two of our choices. There
were also quite a few people who answered with “Volkswagen Bug.”
There also seemed to be two instances of people making odd combinations
of the choices. For example, an
individual gave “Volkswagen Beetle-bug” for an answer and another responded with
“Punch Buggy-Love Bug.” Another
interesting thing I noticed when it came to making combinations of names, is
that most of the people who did this were over the age of 50.
As far as demographics go, I was correct about many people changing their answer the second time they were prompted to name the vehicle. Nearly 45 people gave two different answers, and females tended to change their answer more than males. Secondly, I found out that the only people who answered “Punch buggy” or “Punch Bug” were people who had siblings and children. I, however, found my hypothesis that men would answer with more technical manufacturer terms, to be inconclusive. (Polonofsky, 2007, 2-3)
Assessing the Capstone
Conclusion
So, what did these
students find out about the way Richmonders refer to the toll road that connects
References
Crabtree, M., & Powers, J. (1991a). File 120 – Regional variation: The origin of
American dialects. (Eds. Crabtree, M. & Powers, J.) Language files: Materials
for an introduction to language, 367-368.
Crabtree, M., & Powers, J. (1991b). File 123 – Regional variation: Variation at
different levels. (Eds. Crabtree, M. & Powers, J.) Language files: Materials for
an introduction to language, 373-374.
Curtain, & Dahlberg. (2004). Language and
children – making the match: New languages for young learners, grades K-8 (3rd
ed.).
Eggen, P., &
Kauchak, D. (2001). Strategies for
teachers: Teaching content and thinking skills (4th ed.).
Hansford, D.
(2007). Lexical and phonological differences.
Unpublished manuscript.
Henry, R.
(2007). Lexical & phonological variations in the American English language.
Unpublished manuscript.
Matthews, S.
(2007). ASL 220 class project write-up.
Unpublished manuscript.
Polonofsky,
L. (2007). Punch buggy beetle VW vroom-mobile. Unpublished manuscript.
Richard-Amato, P. (2003). Making it
happen: From interactive to participatory
language teaching (3rd ed.).
Sofinski, B.A. (2005). A big idea or just common sense?: Five powerful
generalizations about teaching and learning.
CIT News, 25, 2, 3-6.
Sofinski, B.A. (2007). Differentiation in
the ASL classroom: Five big ideas to
guide ongoing curriculum & instruction decisions.
Unpublished manuscript.
Taylor, R.
(2007). ASL 220 project write up.
Unpublished manuscript.
Valli, C., Lucas, C., & Mulrooney, K. (2005).
Linguistics of American sign language: An
introduction (4th ed.)
Wilson, K. (2007). ASL 220 class project write-up. Unpublished manuscript.
Appendix: Interview Questions and
Format
If the participant will
not provide the answer, say “Thank you for your time.”
Male
Female
5.
How long have you lived in the
11. If yes, how old are they?
Linguistics Questions
If no response, add,
“It made a recent come back.’
Bruce A. Sofinski is
an assistant professor and the American Sign Language & Interpreter Education
(ASL&IE) coordinator at J. Sargeant Reynolds Community College in