BLIND

BLIND

excerpt from Blind

Open Ended

Warm-Up

Identify the five senses

Poll

Which do you think is most important?

• Hearing

• Sight

• Smell

• Touch

• Taste

Introduction To Blind

Rachel DeWoskin’s novel Blind tells a story of Emma Silver, a teenage girl who loses her eyesight in a freak accident and is forced to adjust to a life without vision—in addition to dealing with the usual trials and tribulations of high school. Emma describes her life in the months and years after the accident, as she struggles to accept her disability and find normalcy amid the physical and emotional changes of adolescence. This excerpt revolves around Emma’s relationship with her therapist, Dr. Sassoman, who is there to help Emma deal with the pain and disillusionment of her sudden blindness.

Specific Vocabulary

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  Braille is a system of writing that uses raised dots on paper. It allows blind people to read using their fingers.

• A brailler is a machine for writing using the braille system. There are also computers that can be used to read and write braille.

Louis Braille

Louis Braille

 became blind when he was three years old because of an accident. When he was ten, he attended the National Institute for Blind Children in Paris, and later taught there. Braille devised his system of raised-dot patterns that could be used by the blind for writing and reading when he was fifteen. Today the system is called braille and is basically unchanged from the one created by Braille.

Did You Know

Blind persons often have heightened senses other than sight. Their sense of hearing, smell, and/or touch may be enhanced beyond what seeing people possess. Research suggests that the brain adapts to the loss of sight by “rewiring” itself so that areas normally used for handling sensations from the eyes process sensory information from other senses instead. The same is true for deaf persons, who may have heightened senses of vision or touch.

Open Ended

What do you know about blindness and the different tools or methods people use to navigate the world without sight.

List as many things that you can !!

Open Ended

Define the term Disability

Open Ended

How does society treat people with disabilities?

Things To Think About When Reading

• Who is the narrator and what happened to her?

• Who is Dr. Sassoman?

• How is Emma feeling about herself?

• What images help Emma to sleep at night?

• What does Dr. Sassoman have Emma do to feel better? Does it work?