ILP Graphic/Visual Creation

Because my ILP is American Sign Language, or ASL, I sort of found it difficult to create a visual for this. I know, it may seem a little weird, given the fact that ASL is based upon strictly using visuals. However, trying to put this onto a poster is difficult. I asked myself- What would be useful for the viewer to have on an ASL poster? The alphabet? No,  because to someone who is new to ASL it will just look like random hands on a piece of paper making random gestures. I then thought, “Well, I need to keep it simple then. Maybe just one sign on the poster and then when it was created and where it was created.”

This seemed like a good idea, so I went through with it. The site I was using to create this was Canva. The first thing I did was I chose a template, or a layout. Now, there were quite a few to choose from, so I simply picked one that stood out to me. After this I picked a background to use. This had quite a few options as well, but some of them cost $1 USD. Since this is my first time using this website, or doing anything like this, for that matter, I figured I should stick to something free to see how my poster turns out. I also wanted something that would stick out to the person viewing my poster.

Now, after the background was chosen I moved on to finding some letters. The choices for the fonts and arrangements of letters were enormous. So, yet again, I chose one that stuck out to me. This is where I chose to put the year ASL was established and where it was established. I thought this was a simple touch that gave the viewer some sort of information that could be understood without knowing anything about sign language.

After the font of the letters was chosen I noticed that it looked a little too boring. I mean, I wanted to keep it simple, but there was something missing. I then thought, “Maybe I should put something that will make the viewer think.” I decided I would put a piece of sign language in the poster so that the person looking at the poster would wonder what that meant and then he or she would be inclined to dig into ASL to figure it out. So, I searched ‘sign language’ in their database of pictures, and I found many pictures that would be great for my poster! However, all but one of them were ‘$1 USD’. I took the one that was free and placed it in the center of my poster. It was the centerfold of my creation. I chose this to be the centerfold because people would not recognized it and want to research into it.

I think this would be great to use in the classroom because it focuses on the students’ creativity. For me, it also hit on critical thinking because I had to create this poster with limited resources. I mean, I had many resources, but most of them cost money, so they were not an option for me.

I also believe presenting material in a visual or graphic style can be a great introduction. For this poster I attempted to use it as something that grabs someone’s attention and then forces them to dig into it beyond the poster. As I mentioned above, I put a piece of sign language on here so that the person viewing the poster would feel inclined to figure out what the sign meant; therefore, he or she would begin researching sign language.

This is how I came to create this poster below!