HOW TO USE THIS STUDY GUIDE
Book-It Repertory Theatre’s Arts and Education Program closely aligns its performances and learning materials with research-based reading instruction. The purpose of this study guide is to engage students in the Book-It Style®, literacy objectives, and hands-on activities that support the comprehension of El Deafo.
LITERACY OBJECTIVES ACTIVATING PRIOR KNOWLEDGE MAKING SELF-TO-TEXT CONNECTIONS VOCABULARY DEVELOPMENT
FIRST: READ THE BOOK
As part of Book-It’s touring package, your school has received a copy of the story that serves as a permanent resource for your library.
BUILDING BACKGROUND KNOWLEDGE REFLECTING & EVALUATING
SECOND: SELECT ACTIVITIES
Select one or all of the activities and adjust them to fit your students and classroom needs. Some activities are designed for teachers to lead students through an interactive process; directions and support materials are included for successful facilitation. Others are handouts for independent student work or to be used for whole-class instruction.
THIRD: KEEP READING!
Standards for the study guide and Performance: Common Core State Standards in English Language Arts*: R.CCR.1, R.CCR.2, R.CCR.3. R.CCR.4, R.CCR.5, R.CCR.6, L.CCR.4 Washington EARLs in Theatre: 1.1, 1.4, 3.1, 3.3, 4.3, 4.4 *Exact standards depend upon grade level, reading the text, and instructional shifts to meet the Standard Study Guide Written and compiled by: Annie DiMartino, Director of Education Jillian Johnson, Book-It Teaching and Touring Artist
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THEMES & CONCEPTS HEARING LOSS DEAF CULTURE GROWING UP FAMILY DYNAMICS PEER RELATIONSHIPS
An important note on the Book-It Style® The use of narrative, particularly third-person narrative, is a hallmark and founding principle of Book-It Repertory Theatre productions since the company’s inception in 1987. Book-It’s approach to narrative text on stage is known throughout theatre communities regionally and nationally as the Book-It Style®. Book-It adaptations provide an experience of the book unlike any other adapted work. By preserving the author’s original language, Book-It adaptations capture the essence of the novel’s original intent and tone, while celebrating the author’s unique voice. Actors in a Book-It Style production perform narrative lines in character with objectives and intentions as they would with any line of dialogue in a standard play. Narrative lines are delivered with motivation to other characters, as opposed to a detached delivery straight out to the audience as a narrator.
SCRIPT EXAMPLE:
AUDIOLOGIST The audiologist shows Cece a little box with cords attached to it. He puts the ear buds into her ear, adjusts the dial—
MOTHER AND CECE We both know everything is different. AUDIOLOGIST
CECE
An audiologist runs all kinds of hearing tests and shows them a chart he has filled out
And I can hear!!! But everything sounds funny. Like underwater funny.
CECE
And I don’t like the way my hearing aid looks. Those cords.
My mother doesn’t seem too happy after that. MOTHER
DORN (TEACHER)
No, Mother isn’t happy after that!
At Cece’s new school CECE
CECE
Everyone had cords! And everyone adores the teacher, Dorn!
But one week later
Book-It adapters will often divide descriptive narrative amongst several characters. This arrangement and editing process is a result of purposeful exploration and development over the last 29 years of the company’s artistic history, and overseen by Founding Co-Artistic Directors Jane Jones and Myra Platt. 3
TABLE OF CONTENTS ABOUT THE STORY & CHARACTERS
Story Synopsis……………………………………………………………………………………………………………….5 Characters in the Story………………………………………………………………………………………………..6 About the Author: Cece Bell………..……………………………………………………………………………..7
CONTEXT
El Deafo; An NPR Interview with Cece Bell………………………………………………………………….8 Self-to-Text: Feeling Excluded …………………………………………………………………………………...9 Self-to-Text: Identifying Your Superpower…………………………………………………………………10 American Sign Language………………………………………………………………………………………………11
ADDITIONAL ACTIVITIES
Say What?.......…………………………………………………………………………………………………………..12 Character Matching……………..……………………………………………………………………………………..13 Make Your Own Graphic Novel………………………….………………………………………………………..14 Additional Resources…………………………………………………………………………………………..……..15
INTRODUCTION TO BOOK-IT REPERTORY THEATRE’S ARTS & EDUCATION PROGRAM:
Book-It’s Arts and Education Program is dedicated to inspiring people of all ages to read. We tour a diverse range of stories to schools, libraries, and community venues throughout Washington state, conduct long-term residencies in schools, offer teacher professional development for school staff, and present low-cost student matinées of our mainstage shows. What you will see and hear at a Book-It performance is literature spoken by the characters as if it were dialogue in a play—actors speak both the narration and the dialogue. Book-It takes the written word back to its roots—storytelling!
OUR MISSION
To provide an interactive relationship between youth and literature through diverse theatrical productions and educational programs that promote the joy of reading, enhance student and teacher learning, and inspire the imagination. 4
STORY SYNOPSIS
K-3 Activity
4-6 Activity
El Deafo is a semi-autobiographical young adult graphic novel by Cece Bell. In the novel, an anthropomorphized rabbit version of Cece Bell, known as Cece, struggles to balance her childhood with her deafness. The story begins when Cece is a four year-old rabbit who is living a normal, happy life. However, after contracting Meningitis, Cece loses her hearing and has to wear a hearing device which she does not like because it makes her look different from everyone else. Cece is required to attend special education kindergarten class, where she is placed with other hearing loss kids. While there, Cece learns how to both hear and understand what is being said through lip reading. After Kindergarten though, Cece’s family moves to Roanoke Virginia where she starts 1st grade at a neighborhood public school. Here, she learns that communicating with others can be very difficult. As she grows up her challenges include passing P.E., making friends, talking to her crush, and explaining to her peers how she wants to be treated. Sometimes speaking up for herself is hard especially when Cece has to explain to others what it means for her to be deaf. Wanting to be just like anyone else in her class, Cece’s hearing aid doesn’t make it easy to blend in. Cece creates an alter ego called El Deafo– a super-powered version of herself that she uses to help her find her voice in tough situations. With her Phonic Ear hearing aid Cece discovers that she has the ability to hear teachers talk even when they aren’t in the classroom. Using her ‘super-power’ Cece becomes the hero of her class and acts as a look-out, giving warning to her misbehaving classmates to get back in their seats before the teacher comes back into the room. With this acceptance by her classmates, Cece is able to blend her secret self, El Deafo, with her true identity. PRE-SHOW CLASSROOM DISCUSSION QUESTIONS (K-3): After reading the book or book synopsis in class, guide your students through these discussion prompts: Who is this story about? Who is El Deafo? In the story, Cece really wants to fit in with her classmates. Have you ever been left out of a group? How did that make you feel? How do you think Cece was feeling at the end of the book? What happened to make her feel that way? PRE-SHOW CLASSROOM DISCUSSION QUESTIONS (4-6) What does semi-autobiographical mean? What is an alter-ego? How does Cece’s alter ego help her? What types of challenges did Cece face being deaf? What kinds of things did she have to do differently in order to communicate? PRE-SHOW WRITING PROMP In the author’s note at the end of the book Cece Bell writes that “our differences are our superpowers.” What does this mean to you? What is one difference you have that is your super-power? 5
CHARACTERS IN OUR STORY ACTOR 1 Cece: A young girl who contracts Meningitis at the age of four leaving her Deaf. She has to navigate starting school and making new friends all while getting used to wearing a hearing aid. She gives herself a super-powered alter ego named El Deafo.
ACTOR 2 Doctor/Audiologist: Doctor who treats Cece when she becomes ill and loses her hearing Mrs. Lufton: Cece’s first grade teacher at public school. Mrs. Blakenship: Cece’s sign language teacher. Mike Miller: A boy that moves in to Cece’s neighborhood in 4th grade. Cece has a big crush on him. Mr. Potts: Cece’s PE teacher. P.E. is Cece’s least favorite subject ACTOR 3 Ginny: Cece’s friend from 2nd grade. She talks loud and slow which makes it hard for Cece to read her lips. She invites Cece to a sleep-over with all her friends. Dorn: Cece’s Kindergarten teacher at the school for the Deaf. Mom: Cece’s mom. She tries to get Cece to learn sign language in a class with her. Girl Scout and various other kids
ACTOR 4 Laura: Cece’s first friend at her new school. She is a leader and makes Cece feel bossed around. She compares being friends with Laura to being a fish on a hook. Bonnie: a friend from 4th grade. She knows sign language and tries to sign with Cece. Martha: Cece’s 3rd grade friend. They have a lot of things in common and Martha doesn’t make a big deal out of Cece’s hearing aids. She becomes Cece’s True Friend. Various other classmates 6
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Cece Bell
4-6 Activity
Cecilia Carolina “Cece” Bell was born in Richmond, Virginia. She went to college for art where she met her husband. She then went on to get her graduate degree in illustration from Kent State University. Originally, Bell was a children’s author and illustrator so she was used to writing and drawing, but El Deafo was her first graphic novel. She was particularly excited to tell her story with this medium because of the way she could use speech balloons to show what Cece was hearing or not hearing. When Cece can’t hear what another character is saying, the speech balloon is empty. Bell was also inspired to represent the characters as rabbits because growing, up she often felt like “the one rabbit whose big ears didn’t work.” Cece Bell wanted to tell the story of her childhood but was wary because she didn’t want to be labelled as “that one Deaf children’s author.” She wanted to be known as an accomplished children’s author that just happened to be deaf. In the author’s note of El Deafo, Cece Bell writes that she is an expert on no one’s Deafness but her own and goes on to describe how the experience Deaf people have can vary greatly from person to person.
Cece Bell as a young girl with hearing aids
Some of Cece Bell’s books including Crankee Doodle and the Sock Monkey series
RIGHT-IN-THE-TEXT QUESTIONS: (4-6) 1. Why did Cece Bell draw the characters in El Deafo as rabbits? 2. What was different about El Deafo from Cece Bell’s previous books? 3. What important note does Cece Bell stress in her author’s note in El Deafo?
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4-6 Activity
'El Deafo': How A Girl Turned Her Disability Into A Superpower An NPR Interview from December, 2014 Writer and illustrator Cece Bell has been creating children's books for over a decade, but in her latest, she finally turns to her own story — about growing up hearing-impaired, after meningitis left her "severely to profoundly deaf" at the age of 4. The book, a mix of memoir, graphic novel and children's book, is called El Deafo. Bell sat down for an interview with NPR's Arun Rath, where the two talked about her story, her art style and more. Like her character in the book, Bell in can lip-read — as long as Rath's microphone was out of her line of sight. "You have a good voice too, and that helps," she told him with a laugh. "No mustaches or beards." When asked why it took her so long to put her own story onto paper, Cece explained that she just wasn't ready yet. "Even though in the book, it seems like at the end of the book that I'm totally cool with it, with having trouble hearing — it took me much, much longer in my life to get to that point," she says. "But suddenly I was ready so then I did it. And I'm kind of glad I waited, because I got a lot more experience as a storyteller with these other books, and I think that made me better ready to do it now." About her hearing aid, the Phonic Ear and the book’s title, El Deafo! The Phonic Ear was a big bulky hearing aid. I wore it strapped onto my chest, and I had cords with earpieces that went up to my ears. This hearing aid worked with a teacher's microphone, and basically the microphone amplified my teacher's voice and made it really clear, really loud, just for me. And soon after I got outfitted with it, I discovered that not only was I hearing her wherever she was in the classroom, but I could hear her wherever she was in the entire school building. So I had a lot of power, and it was awesome. ... At home, [my deafness] was more of a disability. And in my mind it was [too], because I felt very embarrassed and self-conscious to be wearing all this equipment and to be different from everybody. But because the Phonic Ear kind of gave me these superpowers — just like Bruce Wayne has to wear all that technology on his belt and turns into Batman — I had this awesome piece of technology on my chest that turned me in to El Deafo, this great superhero. On using a graphic memoir to tell her story This is the perfect medium for [this story] because of the speech balloon. For example — if as a lipreader — if I'm wearing my hearing aids and I'm looking right at you speaking, I understand every word you say, because I've got some sound coming in and the visual clues from your lips. So in a graphic novel, that speech balloon would be understandable to everybody, what you were saying in that balloon. But if I maybe had my hearing aids out and wasn't looking at you, your speech balloon would be empty, because I wouldn't know what you were saying, and I wouldn't hear what you were saying. And then if I had my hearing aids in, and I'm not looking at you — I can hear your voice because of my hearing aids, but it's all garbled, and so the speech in the speech balloon would be garbled. It's just the perfect visual way to show all the ways a hard-of-hearing or a deaf person might or might not be hearing. On the book's focus on regular elementary school life, not just deafness I'm not a maudlin person. And one of my least favorite things are the movies that have some disabled person, and the violins come out, and it's all weepy, "Boohoo." That's not me. That's probably not most people with a disability. And there's a lot of funny things that happen with equipment, with misunderstanding people. There's so much humor in it. And I wanted people to come away and think, 'Well, it's not all bad.'
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K-3 Activity
SELF-TO-TEXT CONNECTIONS: Feeling Excluded “Being different feels a lot like being alone” When Cece gets her hearing aids there are many times that she feels left out because she can’t hear what people are saying– when the neighborhood kids listen to the radio, when her friends talk in the dark at a sleep-over, or even at busy family dinner conversations. Think about some times in your life when you have felt left out and times when you’ve felt included. How did you react? Draw or write about those situations in the boxes below.
A time when my friends laughed at a joke I didn’t understand...
A time when I a friend and I played a game together...
A time when I was told I couldn’t do something...
A time when a friend shared with me...
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K-3 Activity
SELF-TO-TEXT CONNECTIONS: IDENTIFYING YOUR SUPERPOWER In the book, Cece is able to use her hearing aid– the thing that she is self-conscious about– as her super power. Think of something about yourself that makes you unique or different and draw a picture of yourself below using that thing as a superpower. Your super power can be something you like about yourself or even something you feel self-conscious about.
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4-6 Activity
American Sign Language American Sign Language (ASL) originated in the early 1800s in the American School for the Deaf. It formed through a process called language contact with French Sign Language. It is said that French Sign Language is the closest language to American Sign Language. American Sign Language isn’t the only sign language. There are 137 different ones used by Deaf people all around the world! Due to users not having ever been counted in the United States census, it is not accurately known how many people use ASL but it is estimated to be between 250,000 and 500,000. Each sign in ASL is comprised of 5 components: Hand Shape (DEZ)– the positioning of your hand. There are 18 hand shapes in ASL Orientation (ORI)– which way your hand is facing Location (TAB)– where your hand is in relation to your body. ASL uses 12 different locations around the hands, face, head, and body. Movement (SIG)– how you move your hand. In ASL there are about 20 different movement which involving twisting the wrist, wriggling the fingers, or a number of other movements. Expression– also known as non-manuals. These are component such as facial expression or raising the eyebrows which can influence meaning of a sign.
RIGHT IN THE TEXT QUESTIONS: 1. How many ASL users are there in the US today? 2. How many sign languages are there in the world? 3. What are the 5 components of a sign in ASL? BONUS: Using the chart above, try to fingerspell your name. 11
K-3 Activity
SAY WHAT? In the story Cece learns to read lips in order to understand what people are saying. Cece quickly discovers that lip-reading is not always easy and that there can be a lot of factors that make it confusing to tell what someone is saying. Cece’s kindergarten teacher, Dorn, gave her some strategies to help Cece figure it out. One of these strategies is context. Thinking about the subject of conversation, Cece can make an educated guess on what someone said even if their lips were not clear to read. In the paragraphs below use the context to fill in the words with missing letters. (hint: some words are missing more than one letter).
Paragraph 1: Do you want to go camping with me this weekend? My parents just got a big new __ent that they are excited to take out. We love to go to this pretty little __ake that has a dock you can jump off and trees growing around it. It’s very safe. We’ve never seen any __ears or wolves there. For dinner we’ll cook __ot__ogs over the __ire. When it gets dark we’ll look for ___ars and see what pictures we can see in the ___y. It will be so much __un! Paragraph 2: My class went on a field ___ip to the zoo last week. We got to split into small groups with our chaperones and explore. My friend Mary’s __ad was my group’s chaperone. He took us to see the monkeys and tigers and even the piranhas when they were being __ed! One boy ran ahead on the __ath and got lost though. We had to look for him everywhere! We eventually found him near the lemur __age. Paragraph 3: My school is in a huge building. It is ___ee stories tall and has a giant front __air__ase. The outside is __ick and it looks really old. The inside is so colorful! Each teacher decorates the __oor to their classroom however they want to. Some of them are really cool! My favorite teacher has a field with __unnies eating grass on her door. My other favorite part of my school is the ___ay___ound. It has a big __ide and lots of ___ings!
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K-3 Activity
CHARACTER MATCHING Cece meets a lot of different people in the book. See how well you can remember them all. Using the clues below, draw lines to match the statements to the characters they are true about. (There should only be one statement per character)
Statements:
Characters:
Owns a dog
Dorn
Likes the Beatles
Mr. Potts
Cece hears her going to the bathroom Tries to give Cece a makeover
Martha Ginny
Accidentally breaks Cece’s microphone
Mike Miller
Buys Cece a Hostess cherry pie
Mrs. Lufton
Feels guilty when Cece hurts her eye Looks like Snow White
Mom Laura
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4-6 Activity
MAKE YOUR OWN GRAPHIC NOVEL! Cece Bell specifically chose to write El Deafo as a graphic novel so that she could show clearly to her readers what Cece could or could not hear. With this medium Cece Bell is able to paint a very clear picture of how Cece felt in each scene without directly telling them. Take a story from your own life where you very clearly remember how you felt and write and draw your own scene in the form of a graphic novel in the boxes below. Try to show your feelings to your readers rather than telling them.
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El Deafo Study Guide Sources: https://cecebell.wordpress.com/ https://www.theguardian.com/childrens-books-site/ gallery/2015/aug/04/cece-bell-el-deafo-in-pictures http://cbldf.org/2015/06/using-graphic-novels-in-educationel-deafo/ https://www.filepicker.io/api/file/BUi1mguoTjimZRD2zhbI
Additional Resources
For more information on Deaf Culture take a look! http://www.lifeprint.com/asl101/pages-layout/culturestudyguide.htm https://www.nad.org/ http://wsad.org/ http://deafchildren.org/
Book-It Repertory Theatre would like to thank the following Arts & Education Program Supporters
Norcliffe Foundation
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