Explore the growing digital archive of deaf history in Australia.
Learning Sequence: James Smith
Learning Area: Auslan (L1 pathway)
Year Level(s): 10, 9
Overview

Socialising: Describe activities and experiences and share and respond to ideas and feelings
about people they know, their daily lives, social worlds and school community
Creating: Create or adapt imaginative texts and live or filmed expressive performances that
involve imagined experiences and feature different characters, amusing experiences or
special effects

Suggested Activities
Describing The Escapee

Students work in pairs, using James Smith’s Certificate of Freedom to develop a police identikit so that they can catch James Smith, who has absconded (again!). Click “download activity” to get the full instructions and printable handout.

Outcomes:

Sstudents will use SASS depicting signs in meaningful ways, to describe physical characteristics such as the scars and tattoos of a historical deaf person
students will use spatial location appropriately when describing marks on a human body

Key Concepts/Vocabulary:
  • convict
  • tattoo
  • scar
  • SASS and spatial location
  • Whatever Happened To James?

    Students work together to create descriptive scenes showing how James got his many scars, injuries, and tattoos. Click “download activity” to get the full instructions and printable handout.

    Outcomes:

    Students will practice and demonstrate ‘visual vernacular’ techniques to describe fights, accidents, or actions such as tattooing
    students will use constructed action to describe the behaviours and movements of imagined characters in a historical context

    Key Concepts/Vocabulary:
  • convict
  • tattoo
  • scar
  • visual vernacular and constructed action
  • Download Checked Items

    Welcome to the Deaf History Collections

    We acknowledge the traditional custodians of Country throughout Australia and pay our respects to Elders past and present. We extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander visitors to our site, recognising the long, rich, complex and unjustly disregarded histories of First Nations peoples in Australia.
    Continue to the website

    Feedback

    If you have feedback, information to add, or see an error that needs to be fixed on this page, use this form. There are two ways: write a message or send us a video message.
    Write a message
    Send us a video message
    Close Button