Famous Deaf People and
Career Choices
What can I do when I graduate?
For Middle School Students
by Michele Wendling
Unit Design Process using
Understanding By Design
Stage 1: Identify unit outcomes based
upon authentic student needs and
external standards.
Stage 2: Identify assessment activities
across the six facets that will ensure
understanding of unit outcomes.
Stage 3: Develop teaching lessons and
activities that lead to success of the six
facets and therefore, achievement of
unit outcomes.
Stage 1: Identifying authentic
student needs
Students in middle school need to begin identifying career
interests that will lead to realistic and authentic career
choices during high school
D/HH students often lack appropriate D/HH role models,
and information about how D/HH individuals have made
career choices in their lives. This includes how D/HH
individuals have learned to overcome obstacles in their
lives.
Students need experiences in learning to set goals, and
develop realistic plans that will lead to accomplishment of
these goals.
This class knew PowerPoint and enjoyed using it, so the unit
extended this knowledge by asking them to summarize
unit learnings and information into a PowerPoint
presentation.
Stage 1: using the Ohio Dept
of Education middle school
standards
Research/Reading
Develop a plan for gathering information
Locate and summarize important information from multiple sources
Organize information in a systematic way
Communicate findings orally, visually and in writing or through
multimedia
Writing Process
Clarify ideas for writing assignments by using graphics or other
organizers
Prepare writing for publication that is legible, follows an appropriate
format and uses techniques such as electronic resources and graphics
Writing Applications
Produce letters (i.e. business, letters to the editor, job applications) that
address audience needs, stated purpose and context in a clear and
efficient manner
ODE Standards continued
Writing Conventions
Use correct spelling conventions
Use conventions of punctuation and capitalization in written work
Use grammatical structures to effectively communicate ideas in writing
Communication: Oral and Visual
Give presentations using a variety of delivery methods, visual materials and
technology
Present ideas in a logical sequence and use effective introductions and
conclusions that guide and inform a listener’s understanding of key ideas
Social Studies
Interpret relationships between events shown on multiple-tier time lines
Compare cultural practices, products and perspectives of past civilizations
in order to
understand commonality and diversity of cultures.
Stage 2: Identifying unit assessments
across the six facets
Activity
Desired Outcomes
Facet 1 Explanation
Present information on
their famous Deaf person
to their classmates.
Explain how they are the
same and how they are
different from their
famous Deaf person.
Complete a power point presentation
containing no less than 6 slides that will
describe the famous Deaf person’s
career, their life growing up, what made
him/her select the career they chose,
what they had to do to accomplish their
goal, what made him/her famous, and
what the student will have to do in their
future to have the same career as this
person. Also complete a Venn diagram
to show similarities and differences
between the student and the person they
researched. This can include hardships
they both faced growing up (different or
the same), things that were easier for
each, family traits, school they attended
etc.
Facet 2 Interpretation
Set future goals for
themselves and
understand why setting a
goal is important.
Set no less than 3 future goals
and a step-by-step plan to
reach these goals—must
include at least 3 steps for
each goal.
Stage 2: Facets continued
Facet 3 Application
Use the classified ads to
write a resume and
cover letter.
Students will look through the
classified ads of the newspaper and
identify at least 1 position they could
see themselves applying for in the
future. For this, they will need to
develop a cover letter stating the job
of interest, why interested, why they
would be good for the job, and then a
closing statement. Resume must
include name, address, phone,
Educational experience (fictional—
what would be required for the
position), and prior related job
experience/qualifications (fictional)
Facet 4 Perspective
What was easy/difficult
for the famous Deaf
person? What events
did their famous Deaf
person live through?
Students must create a timeline
to show what events took place
in the life span of their famous
Deaf person and describe what
was easy or difficult from the
person’s perspective for each
event.
Stage 2: Facets continued
Facet 5 Empathy
Understand what was
difficult for the person
when they were growing
up and what may have
been easier and relate it to
their own lives.
Identify how barriers or
problems resulted in
struggles in attaining goals
and how the famous deaf
person felt.
Facet 6 SelfKnowledge
Use the problemsolving model
(pros/cons/unknown)
to evaluate goals set
for themselves.
With a class-developed
rubric to compare
successful goal setting,
students must create a
pros/cons/unknown list on
accomplishing the goals
they’ve set for themselves.
For example, will steps 1 2
and 3 aid me in
accomplishing my goal?
Stage 3: Planning lessons and
activities
Use facets to develop lessons that
lead to successful facet evaluations
for students
Use local D/HH persons, or websites
and links to successful D/HH
individuals in a variety of jobs (e.g.,
www.deaflibrary.org or DeafZone:
www.deafzone.com/welcome/index.html)
Stage 3: Materials Needed
for Unit
Due dates set up by the teacher
Caption Media videos for stations, computer with program for goal setting/planning
so that students can create future goals; college catalogs, trade school information,
websites to explore to retrieve more information on career choices and colleges as
well as BVR and MRDD
If applicable, rubrics created by the class for each project
Dialogue journals/journals to keep records and important information
LCD Projector to show PowerPoint presentations (if available)/and /or computer
Research materials (journals, encyclopedias, internet websites etc.)
Highlighters for each student
Library presentation
Classifieds from local paper
Resume paper/envelopes
PowerPoint program
Worksheet of 6 communication tools
Poster board
Box of props
Stop watch
Video camera
Lesson Plan 1:
Introduction to the Unit
Behavioral Objective: 1. Each student will make a list of at least 5 things that they
do well. 2. Each student will give at least one logical reason why a D/HH person
either would or would not be qualified for a particular job.
Procedure: Students will enter the classroom to 5 stations and the sentence
“What Things Do You Do Well?” written on the board.
5 stations include: video library of many different career choices students can
watch and learn about(ordered from Caption Media—all videos are captioned);
different books/videos on famous deaf people; computer with program for goal
setting/planning so that students can create future goals; college catalogs,
trade school information, websites to explore to retrieve more information on
career choices and colleges as well as BVR and MRDD and how they can help
students reach their goals; personality tests students can take to see what
careers they may do well at in case they’ve never thought about it.
From the question “What Things Do You Do Well?”, students will make a list of
these things in their dialogue journals—they can share with the class if they feel
comfortable
Pose a second question: “Can You Be Deaf and Have a Career?”. Explain the
difference between a career and a job (i.e. , a career involves planning and
purpose, and may be a life calling, something they may have to have schooling
to achieve. A job often doesn’t—it’s what “happened”)
Lesson Plan 1 Continued
Play devil’s advocate in order to turn this question into a debate among
the students by saying this such as “some people don’t believe deaf
people can have a career….go to college etc.”.
Let the students debate the issue of whether deaf people “can” or “can’t)
while you act as facilitator—guide the discussion with questions or
statements to probe for reasons (some jobs that require hearing may not
be available and can’t be accommodated by technology; but many
can). Encourage students to question each other and their reasons.
Project work: Students will use the list of the things they have constructed
to find careers that match these traits; they should ask their parents and
family for ideas and suggestions, they must research on the internet
(using list of jobs and/or deaf job sites), and use the resources within the
stations and in the classroom and school.
Lesson Plan 2
•
•
Behavioral Objectives: 1. Students will highlight important facts from the readings 3 out of
5 facts correctly identified. 2. In groups of 2-3 students, students will use the highlighted
statements to create chapter summaries that are divided into topical paragraphs 2/3
paragraphs forming a consistent topic.
Materials: Encyclopedia, journal, newspaper, magazine, websites; highlighters (one for
each student)
Vocabulary: Summarizing
Prerequisite skills: students must know that highlighting is a way to make important
information stand out. They must also know that there are many different types of
research materials even if they’ve never used them before.
Teacher will bring in encyclopedias, journals, newspapers, and magazines. Information will
be authentic and interesting such as the sports page in the newspaper, articles on famous
people in the magazine, journals on space travel, and encyclopedia page on a famous
astronaut. Teacher will begin the lesson by asking who’s seen these style of books before.
The students will have to explain which books they’ve seen before and how they’ve used
them in the past.
Teacher will talk about how he/she really want to learn about something but sometimes
when they read, they forget what they’ve read or it doesn’t sink in. Teacher will ask the
students what good readers do when they forget what they’ve read. The answer you’re
looking for is “go back and reread”. But because rereading is a waste of time, we can
summarize information in our minds while we read, highlighting information as we go to
help us remember. Teacher will explain that these strategies make he/she happy because
he/she can remember information better, learn important information, and not waste time
reading over and over again.
Teacher will break the class into partners and explain that they’ll be working together to
read through important information.
Lesson Plan 2 Continued
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
We will take turns reading the information as a class. Teacher will begin by reading the first
paragraph and as he/she reads he/she will think out loud—oh, that sounds very important,
I better highlight that. And when he/she comes to information that’s not important, he/she
needs to also think out loud and say that’s not very important. That sentence doesn’t tell
me much of anything, so I’m just going to skip over that.—Explain why the information is
important and why the information isn’t important.
Teacher will explain that they will need to do the same thing when it’s their turn to read, so
they should have their highlighters ready. Teacher will also explain that they will need to
tell he/she why they’ve highlighted it or not.
We will do this once as a class and then they will do it independently with their partners.
Once teacher has visited each group and feels that they have a grasp on how to
highlight, teacher will ask each group to read aloud to the class just the information
they’ve highlighted. They will read theirs one group at a time.
After the first reading, teacher will ask the class questions such as did it make sense?, do
we need all those other words that weren’t read to understand the information?, can you
see why it’s important to highlight only the important information?
After the second reading, teacher will ask students to then summarize what they just
heard. They can take turns coming up to the board and writing important information
they remember. Teacher will explain to them that even though you’ve highlighted the
most important information, it’s difficult still to remember every word that was read. And if
someone asks you what the story was about, you may only remember 5 important points,
but it still gets the idea across, and that’s what’s important.
For homework, students will need to highlight only the important information in the copies
teacher gives them of the encyclopedia pages. They will turn this in the next day so that
he/she can see if they really understand how to sift through expository text.
Lesson Plan 3
NOTE: This lesson involves a trip to the library that will need to be set up ahead of time so the
librarian can prepare a presentation. Behavioral Objective: Each student will identify a deaf
person who shares their same career interest, and collect key facts about their life.
Now it’s time for students to share the careers that match their traits of things they do well.
Teacher will take notes on each student while each student shares with the class what
careers were a match for them.
After students are finished sharing, the teacher will explain that in the next few weeks, they
will be researching information on a famous Deaf person who had the same career that
each student is interested in. If students had more than one career as a match, they must
choose one to research.
Teacher will also explain that he/she has information they may use in station 2 to research this
information, a website www.deaflibrary.org (a virtual library with resources about deaf
culture and famous deaf people), but that doesn’t mean they will find all the information
they are looking for in those places, so they will be taking a trip to the library to learn how to
use reference books etc.
Students will then take a trip to the library where the librarian will give a presentation on the
Dewey decimal system and how to look up information as well as how to find it.
Once the presentation is finished, the teacher will explain to them that they have (amount of
time teacher allots) to research their famous deaf person and find information about
struggles the famous person had in obtaining his/her career or meeting his/her goals; they will
also need to think about their own lives and how it will be easier or more difficult to obtain
the same career the famous person had (will need to include what steps they’ll have to take
to obtain that career I.e. go to college etc.)
Teacher will also remind students to use their skills they practiced the day before to pull out
the important information needed to answer the questions. He/she will also explain that they
need to keep the information they find in their journals so that they can include it in the
PowerPoint presentation they will complete later. Let the students know that you will explain
this at a later time.
Lesson Plan 4
Behavioral Objectives: Students will set 3 future goals and will develop a
step-by-step plan to reach these goals—this plan must include at least 3
steps per goal.
After reading information on their famous Deaf person and how he/she
was able to accomplish their career goals I.e. saving money to buy an
airplane etc., students must create 3 goals to help them attain their own
career in the future.
These goals will also have at least 3 steps attached to each goal.
Teacher will demonstrate a goal of his/her own (I.e. how you obtained
your teaching job) and write at least 3 steps so that students understand.
Students use class time to do this.
Once students are well on their way to finishing, teacher will explain the
Problem-solving model=Pros/cons/unknown. Students will have to
evaluate their own goals by asking themselves the pros/cons or
unknowns about whether steps 1, 2, and 3 will aid them in accomplishing
their goals. This can be homework and all will be turned in with the end
project
Lesson Plan 5
•
•
•
•
Behavioral Objectives: 1. Students should be able to create a timeline of at least 7
events that occurred during the life of their famous Deaf person. 2. Students should
include at least 3 sentences to explain the event that occurred.
Materials and Key Vocabulary: Internet, Research Materials, Poster board, Vocabulary:
Timeline
Prerequisite skills, knowledge, and experiences: The students must understand that there
is a future and a past and must know the difference of both. They must know that events
occurred even before they were born or even a thought in their parents head and so
forth.
Teacher will begin this lesson by asking the students about their famous deaf person
because by this point, they should know who they are researching as well as have done
some research already. Teacher will ask them if they like their person and if they feel they
can relate to their person.
Teacher will ask them if they realize that many events took place during their deaf
person’s life. Teacher will give them an example of a deaf person who no one has and
after doing some research themselves, will talk about some events that happened during
this person’s life. For example, the person may have lived during World War II etc.
Teacher will then pass out poster board to every student and explain to them that they
will need to include pictures or artwork as well as detail about the event that occurred.
Teacher will emphasize that this is a time to be very creative.
Once everyone has their poster board and you’ve answered any questions they may
have, teacher will pose the question who knows what a timeline is. And then will ask them
to write their ideas down on paper—they can work in pairs if they feel it will help them.
Lesson Plan 5 Continued
•
Teacher will write on the board examples of a timeline in one column and
nonexamples of a timeline in the other column. Students will need to write down
one example and one nonexample of a timeline under the appropriate
columns. They will raise their hand to volunteer and come up one at a time to
do so.
Once everyone understands what a timeline is, using their own explanations as
well as teacher’s explanations—most important points they should know: 1.
dates and their matching events are displayed in order, 2. dates are displayed in
a line with tick marks, 3. dates are within the span of their deaf person’s life—
teacher will tell them that their timeline will be due the same day as their
presentations
The students’ homework is to create a timeline that matches the life of their
famous deaf person. They should be as creative as they want. They will have
until the end of the project to complete it. It will be due the same day as their
presentation.
Lesson Plan 6
•
•
•
•
Behavioral Objectives: Students will tell the class a story where they will speak for 2-3 minutes
(on a topic they know), and they must demonstrate 4 out of the 6 steps of the communication
process.
Materials and Key Vocabulary: Box of props, Stop watch, Video camera, Worksheet with list of
6 communication steps
Prerequisite skills, knowledge, and experiences: Students need to understand that from time
to time they may have to communicate in front of people who may be evaluating them
either for a grade or for a job.
Teacher will ask the question, who gets nervous when they have to speak in front of a group of
people? And then he/she will ask the question who gets nervous when they have to speak in
a serious situation even if it’s only to one person.
Once everyone has answered and discussed why they feel nervous etc., Teacher will pose the
question, do you think you could feel less nervous if you felt more prepared?
Then he/she will say, well, I’m here to make you feel prepared. Who knows what the 6 steps of
effective communication are? You can take the time to think about it, brainstorm with a
partner and make a list of what you think they are.
Once their brainstorming session is over, teacher will make her/his list on the board and see if
their lists match. Some may have ideas that we all feel should be on the list, so I will play this
by ear.
i.
Know your audience and get them involved if possible
ii.
Make eye contact
iii.
Time yourself and practice, practice, practice in front of the mirror
iv.
Know your topic inside and out
v.
Use visual aids
vi. Maintain good pace and posture
Lesson Plan 6 continued
•
•
•
•
•
•
Teacher will then demonstrate communication using all 6 steps (one good
example) and will demonstrate one bad example so students can see the
difference. Teacher will use a prop from the prop box as my visual aid. Teacher
also will explain that he/she uses note cards to cue herself/himself so they’re not
reading to the audience.
Teacher will also ask the question, what reasons are there to communicate?
You’re looking for the answers to persuade, to inform, to debate, and to blame.
If time allows, teacher will show them examples of all of these types of
communication.
Now, it’s time for the students to demonstrate their communication skills. Teacher
will pass out a worksheet that has all 6 steps on it so the students have it right in
front of them.
They will get 20 minutes to practice a story that is familiar to them (can be
anything that happened to them or to someone they know, or it can be a book
they’ve read over and over).
Teacher will then videotape each and every one of them giving their speech. At
a later time, teacher will watch the clips one on one with each student and
together will come up with 3 strengths and 3 weaknesses.
Each student will write goals and objectives to improve their 3 weaknesses for
homework.
Lesson Plan 7
•
•
•
•
•
Behavioral Objectives: Students will demonstrate their knowledge of business letter skills by
including 1. The date, 2. The person’s name/title and address, 3. Greeting line, 4. 3
paragraphs, 5. closing, and 6. signature line in their final product.
Materials and Key Vocabulary: Computer (word processing), Business letter paper and
envelope, Local newspaper’s classified page, Key Vocabulary=Cover Letter,
Resume
Prerequisite skills, knowledge, and experiences: Even if the students have never written a
business letter before, they need to understand that there are different types of letter writing
to meet different purposes.
Teacher will ask the question who knows how to apply for a job? If you get some hands
raised, then ask the students to tell you how they would go about applying for a job.
Then, pull out the classified ads in the local paper and tell the students that they are going to
get the chance to apply for their own job. Teacher will make sure they understand that this is
for pretend and practice for their future career.
Teacher will remind the students that the list they made of things they do well will need to be
pulled back out. While one group of students will look through the classifieds to find a job they
want to apply for, (no one can apply for the same job) the other group will sit at their desks
and create sentences from their list of things I do well.
When the students have chosen a job they want to apply for, teacher will blow up a copy of
their ad for them to attach to their business letter. (This may have to be after class, not during)
Now ask the class how they think a business letter is different from a friendly letter. You will
make a list of examples and nonexamples on the board in which either the students will write
their own idea, or they will say the idea and teacher will write it. I.e. professional words
compared to what’s up!
Teacher will then explain the 6 items that must be included to create a business letter.
Teacher will show them examples of business letters and we will make a template on the
board.
Lesson Plan 7 continued
•
•
•
Teacher will then explain that applying for a job is very competitive and that
although he/she didn’t allow two students to apply for the same job, in the real
world, there may be 50 or more people applying for the same job. And that’s
why a cover letter is so important because this is their time to sell themselves and
make themselves look better than their competition.
Teacher will explain that it’s important to do research on the company they are
applying to and include that information in their cover letter. Show example
sentences of what you mean, such as relating your experience/characteristics to
that of the job they’re applying for.
Teacher will show examples of what an envelope looks like that the letter will go
into.
Students must create a business cover letter along with the envelope to be
handed in along with their presentations and timelines.
Conclusion and Desired
Project Product
Students will present their PowerPoint to the class to include:
no less than 6 slides that will describe
the famous Deaf person’s career,
their life growing up,
what made him/her select the career they chose,
what they had to do to accomplish their goal,
what made him/her famous, and
What the students will have to do in their future to have the same career as
this person.
Include a Venn diagram to show similarities and differences between the
student and the deaf person they researched. This can include:
hardships they both faced growing up (different or the same),
things that were easier for each,
family traits,
school they attended.