DIRECTIONS: The five parts every sign is built from. Keep pages 1 and 2 for sheets 30 and 40.
1Read the five parts
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2Page 3: name the part
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3Page 4: two questions
1handshape
The shape the hand makes. A straight finger, a hooked one, a flat hand, a fist. This is the pair from sheet 10 that turned candy into apple.
2location
Where the sign is made. On the chin, on the forehead, at the shoulder, or out in the space in front of you. This one turned mother into father.
3movement
What the hand does. Taps once, taps twice, circles, moves across. This one turned sit into chair.
The Two That Are Harder to Draw
American Sign Language · Page 2 of 4
DIRECTIONS: Parts four and five. Try number 4 with your own hand.
4orientation
Which way the hand faces. Palm up or palm down, fingers pointing at you or away.
Try it: hold your hand flat, palm down, then turn it over. Same shape, same place, different orientation.
5the face
What the face is doing. Not the feeling — the grammar. The eyebrows turn the same hands into a statement, or a question, or a different kind of question. Sheet 30 is about nothing else.
Swap any one part and you get a different word, not a similar one.
Name the Part
American Sign Language · Page 3 of 4
DIRECTIONS: Same three pairs from sheet 10. This time do not describe what changed — name it, using the list on page 1.
1.
Which part changed?
2.
Which part changed?
3.
Which part changed?
Which of the five parts could you not be shown in a picture, and why not?
Why Five and Not One
American Sign Language · Page 4 of 4
DIRECTIONS: Answer in your own words.
English builds a word out of one kind of part — sounds, in a row, one after another. ASL builds one out of five kinds of part, all at the same time. What can you do with five at once that you cannot do with a row?
A sign has a handshape, a place, a movement, a direction it faces, and a face. Guess: is that more or less to remember than the spelling of an English word? Say why you think so.