By Samantha Sarafin, VI Form

ASL Sign Language to Popular Songs

In the spring term of St. Mark’s Saturdays, I created and taught this course: “In this course you will learn and practice the foundational elements of American Sign Language, from alphabet-based finger-spelling to more specific signs in vocabulary units. You will learn essential questions and phrases to communicate effectively in ASL and engage with various activities to practice ASL with your peers. You will also learn the history and social contexts of American Sign Language to develop an appreciation for the diversity and cultural richness of the deaf community.”

I designed the final project to be a video performance of an ASL song cover. Each student

Please click image for full video!

found resources and learned the signs to perform one whole song in ASL. Students spent time in and out of class working on the project and presented their videos in the final class. The goals of the assignment were to learn ASL vocabulary, understand how to sign songs, understand ASL word order, and practice sign fluency. This video is a compilation of each of the covers created by the students.

In order of appearance in the video:

Samantha Sarafin is a VI Form boarding student from Lancaster, MA. She loves to row, run, act, and spend time with family.