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Alisha Ricks
Ms. Blommer
ENGL 1010
02 March

Reflection Essay
When choosing the topic for the personal narrative essay, many topics came to
mind. Thinking about all of the things in my life is a lot to think about. Finally, deciding
that the topic of American Sign Language would fit best, the writing process began.
Teaching myself ASL would captivate other readers to want to learn more about the topic
the best to learn about. Once the peers in my group had looked at the personal narrative,
it was pointed out to me that the essay actually was more of an informative essay, rather
than a personal narrative essay. What happened next, was that I threw out the essay.
Starting from scratch was the best option of the moment for me.
Re-writing seemed easier to do, rather than trying to salvage any and all of the
personal narrative essay that was really an informative essay. Learning that the personal
narrative became more interesting when adding in personal thoughts, in italics, was a
learning curve from other peers. On page 4, paragraph 3, adding in closure to the question
did she pass the audition? Was added to keep the interest until the very end of the essay.

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Dialogue and personal thoughts were a strong staple in the personal narrative.
Page 4, paragraph 1, I have no idea where to go. Helps the reader to understand the
confusion I was facing. Page 3, paragraph 3,Do you know sign? A deaf gentleman came
up and asked me. Yes, I replied. These little pieces of dialogue alone added interest and
depth to the essay.
There are a few weak-points in my essay that I can see that could be fixed. Page
1, paragraph 1, adding my thoughts to this paragraph in general could spark more interest
in the readers. In the same paragraph, starting out with a tiny bit of dialogue could
captivate the readers attention. What I want the readers to notice the most is the
determination that I had to teach myself ASL. Setting goals that would mostly be
accomplished and having a self-motivated attitude was a big influence for myself to keep
working towards learning the sign.
Learning that if I set my mind to it, I will be able to throw away my first draft and
start with nothing, is a motivation that helped me to become a confident writer. Instead
of just having an idea, being able to add depth and detail to the essay helped me to write
more fluently. It also helps to know that other people are in the same situation that we
are in is a reassuring factor that plays part in the writing process.

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Alisha Ricks
Ms. Blommer
ENGL 1010
02 March 2015
ASL
I taught myself American Sign Language. Which I know is cool, I first started by
teaching myself the alphabet. It was hard at first, until I started to set goals. Memorizing
the signs were a minor challenge for me, I started by wanting to learn all of the signs in
the world at once. Then I began by setting a goal to learn twenty words a day. I now
realize that that is an excessive amount of words to have learned and memorized
completely in one day. After I realized that it was an ignorant idea for me to try, to
ending up having only acquired one sign. Then later that day being disoriented about
what it was that I had learned in the first place.
The next ambition that I had was probably something like learning four words a
day. This is when I just ceased trying to learn word after word. Probably a year later, or
so, I bought myself an ASL dictionary. I started by randomly, every once in a while,
choosing a word out of the glossary and then learning that one word throughout the
entire day. I later set a goal that I would choose one word out of the lexicon every day,
then learn the meaning of the word. I was following through with this goal for a few

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weeks, and I learned a lot of sign. Deciding to read the entire dictionary was the next
goal that I set. Actually following through with this aspiration was something that I did,
for a while anyway. Even though I didnt scan the entire dictionary, it was still
informative for me to read.
Looking up words online was what I started to do next. I remember that one day
I randomly looked up the word for bubbles. I looked up words consistently throughout a
week or two. One Christmas my parents bought me a volume on ASL. It was an in depth
publication on a lot of different things about sign. The novel, and the dictionary equally
helped me to study sign. I started to read this book, and almost finished fully reading
the text when I thought to myself what if I taught a class on ASL? That would be cool. Ok
yeah Im going to do it. Im going to teach a class. A few days later I went to my mom
Mom, I want to start, and teach an ASL class.
Ok when do you want to do this? My mom casually asked me.
On Thursdays for like an hour.
Just remember that you have work too. She told me.
Okay. Running off to start planning for my class.
When I was sitting down to start my class, I decided to make an outline for the
class first. I explicitly wrote out what I was going to teach and a caution that I was going
to give out homework and make it a legitimate class. Im really excited. Commencing to
set goals in the beginning is what helped me to officiate the class. This may sound a little

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egocentric, but I started the class with the intent and benefit for myself to learn more. I
was right because when I was teaching I had to educate myself on all of the signs and
background information before I could instruct others, and the classes became reviews
of the words for me. Okay, now I need to teach numbers. This is going to be kind of a
boring class because there are just too many numbers in the world. Maybe well play a
game. Yeah ok, well play a game. Then I wont fall asleep either.
During the preparation throughout all of the classes I was going to teach, I
learned more and more about sign. It would take me a few hours at first to try and get
ready for the classes that I was going to instruct. Then, when I had gotten used to it,
preparing for the classes were simpler than it had been before. I learned a lot of
American Sign Language from teaching those classes.
What helped me to learn and use sign often was having a deaf friend that I could
talk to. Always being able to only use sign, forcing myself to remember how to use sign
in a conversation. After a while I was able to infer certain words and what they were,
even though I didnt know what the meaning of a certain sign was. I could adequately
infer the meaning anyway, which helped me to learn more sign.
Do you know sign? A deaf gentleman came up and asked me.
Yes.
We would then have a conversation, completely in sign. Even though I did not
fully know everything, I still understood the discussion. By being forced to only use sign,
I was able to learn a lot words and the sentence structures involved in the language.

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One night I went entirely out of my comfort zone and went, by myself, to a deaf
school. I drove over and as soon as I pulled into the parking lot someone said hi. A
little information about the Deaf community, everyone says hi to everyone and if you
dont say hello it is considered highly rude. I had NEVER been to that academy before so
I had absolutely no idea where to go. I was there because my deaf friend said that she
wanted me to come and try out for interpreting for the Shakespeare team. Shakespeare,
as I found out, is strenuously hard to understand in the first place. Deciphering from ASL
to voicing Shakespeare and vice-versa is confusing. I had decided that I would go to the
school and try out anyway. I walked into the building, literally shaking, and instantly
forgot the first courtesy rule. A teacher said hi to me and I forgot to say hi back.
Instantly after forgetting to say hi I started saying hi to everyone in the hallways. I have
absolutely no idea where Im supposed to go. These hallways are really long. Where am I
going? Ok, Ill just keep walking straight down this hallway, I guess. Lost in my thoughts,
I passed the table that was set up with the papers to be a voice actor. I then walked
back and realized that I had passed the table.
While I was surveying the hallway, I saw my deaf friend and said hi. We, meaning
me and the other people who were there with me, were then told to follow them to the
room where we would have the auditions. Voice acting, meaning the deaf actors are on
stage signing the scene, while the voice actors are off the stage voicing for them through
a microphone. When we got to the room, we first played a get to know you game,
completely in sign, and afterwards did a cold reading of the script. When the tryouts
came for the monologues, I decided to leave. I said bye to my friend, who understood

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why I was leaving. I wasnt fluent enough in sign to interpret Shakespeare from sign, and
sign to Shakespeare on the spot.
As for my audition, I didnt make it. This was understandable considering the fact
that I was shaking really badly and left when the monologue portion of the audition
started, I knew I wouldnt make it. Although, I learned a lot from that experience, like
using sign more confidently. I learned that American Sign Language is completely
different from English. When I am around ASL more I become a better signer. I
encourage probably everyone around me to learn at least some ASL. Not only because it
is a cool language, but because it is an effective way to communicate with other people
as well.