The article “The Embodied Classroom: Deaf Gain in Multimodal Composition and Digital Studies” discusses the concept of body communication expressing more than just words or art. Leeann Hunter, a university professor, draws from her personal experiences of being raised with two deaf parents. Hunter reflects on how she was more in tune with using facial expressions and body language to communicate as a child, but her studies as an English major minimized this behavior focusing on speech and sound. A story of when her parents came to visit her classroom exemplified this point. Hunter asked her students to focus on nonverbal communication when giving their presentations to help engage her parents, but even this failed to keep her parents connected. From this experience, Hunter tells the lesson she learned. Nonverbal communication extends past captions and visual aids. “Nonverbal communication is the story we tell with our bodies.” (Hunter, 2015) Her parents further inform that nonverbal skits play a large role in American Sign Language (ASL) storytelling. Hunter’s experience expresses the importance of in person communication through body language rather than slide shows or other digital interfaces. Her understanding of sign language led her to make this discovery for nonverbal communication, thus creating the embodied classroom.
Hunter, Leeann. “The Embodied Classroom: Deaf Gain in Multimodal Composition and Digital Studies.” The Journal of Interactive Technology and Pedagogy, 17 Dec. 2015, https://jitp.commons.gc.cuny.edu/the-embodied-classroom-deaf-gain-in-multimodal-composition-and-digital-studies/.