Getting To Know Our Characters by Emily Owen

 

I recently went into a school to take a lesson.

I went to talk to the children about my forthcoming book, out next year, and to ask them to read it and feedback, so I could get some quotes. They all said yes, they would, which was nice - though I have to say they’d already been ‘said yes for’ by their teacher!

At the start of the lesson, before we did some reading/writing/discussion, I explained that I’m deaf, and that, in sign language, people don’t always spell every letter of every person’s name. People are assigned a ‘sign name’, based on their characteristics.

I have a few sign names, depending who I’m with, but the main one for me is – oh so originally – the sign for ‘tall’.

I asked the children what their own sign names would be.

(Do feel free to adopt the sign name technique, it really does make it easier to remember who is who, and is especially helpful when choosing someone to answer a question. I find it certainly beats ‘you over there, in the blue top’ (especially when all in the class are wearing blue tops).)

One girl decided her sign name would be the opposite of mine, because she is small (presumably in comparison to me, as she seemed fairly average height).

Before long, the children were helping each other out:

“Yours should be ‘clever’ because you’re really brainy.”

Nods all round.

“Yours should be ‘shhh’ because you talk a lot!”

Nods and giggles all round.

“Yours should be ‘book’ because you like reading.”

Nods all round (sadly, it was too late to claim ‘book’ for myself…).

 

What about the characters in my book? What sign names would I give them? What immediately sums up something of who they are?

Sign names helped me get to know the children, perhaps they’d help me get to know characters as I write. Worth a try?