Capstone Project

 

During my time in the Minor In Writing Program, the Capstone Project was introduced to students as a way to effectively work on the skills learned through the minor with an individual project idea. Each student was able to choose a topic of their liking that somehow related to their field of study or similar interest. Since this was a research project, a lot of background information was needed to complete the visuals for our projected audience(s) and hence students were required to have a mentor that specialized in that area of study in some form.

 

My mentor, Paula Berwanger was my American Sign Language instructor at the University of Michigan. She taught me a multitude of things pertaining to ASL and Black ASL culture. She also encouraged me to take classes abroad, learn more about the deaf community, and practive my skills outside of the classroom. Following this I went abroad to Gabon, Africa where I worked with students in under-represented communities. I was even able to visit the French School for the Deaf! This sparked my project topic to learn more about the culture of Black American Sign Language through its history and social construction. Because this project was done in the past by professors of Galludet University (The Black ASL Project), I instead decided to remediate the project and tailor it to reintroducing the ideas as well as incorporating my reasons for being interested. 

 

My Capstone Project: Writing To Sign, can be found here.