ASL poetry and nursery rhymes

[Valerie Sutton]

SignWriting List
July 5, 2006

> Cherie Wren from Georgia, US wrote:
> I attended the RID Region II conference while y'all were at NAD.  
> One workshop was on using ASL poetry to interpret nursery rhymes...  
> the attached was our groups rendition of "Jack and Jill". For those  
> who aren't familiar with ASL poetry, rhyming is done with repeating  
> handshapes. This interpretation of Jack and Jill uses the 1 (index  
> finger extended) handshape almost exclusively... brief modification  
> with the classifier describing the pail, but other than that...I  
> had some trouble with the diagonals for up and down the hill... Did  
> I write them correctly? Also how do you indicate that a handshape  
> is left in place from the previous sign, while the next part  
> happens? Did what I did here convey that adequately?
>> Jack and Jill
>>
>> went up the hill
>>
>> to fetch a pail of water
>>
>> Jack fell down
>>
>> and broke his crown
>>
>> and Jill came tumbling after.
>>
>> cherie

-----------------------

Hello Cherie and Everyone!
This is so cool. Great to see sentences in SignWriting.... Thank you!  
And most with the Index Finger...interesting!

For the purpose of this email, I created a GIF of the sentence to  
make sure everyone on the List will see it. I think our List is  
suffering from not enough memory to handle all the many email  
messages and big graphics, and also spam...so when a big diagram is  
posted, it can rob other messages from a chance to post...

So see the GIF attached.. The first sign establishes Jack? and the  
second one is Jill? When I first read it, I longed for having Jill  
there waiting with white palm on the left side while Jack moved...so  
the sign would start with two white palmed index hands somewhat far  
apart from each other...but then I realized it may not have been  
signed that way...It doesn't feel like a beginning of a sentence  
because we have always written a facial expression in the beginning  
of sentences...like eyebrows up for a topic marker, or eyebrows down  
for emphasis... Does the beginning of the sentence have a facial  
expression? It would help the reader anchor the sentence's center...

I look forward to discussing sign three next...I hope later  
today...Val ;-)




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