HLN Biographies:

Helen Keller: The Light in the Darkness

The story of Helen Keller has been told again and again, and yet it still touches people. Her courageous life and her triumphs over adversity inspire, amaze, and captivate audiences new and old.

Helen Keller was born in Tuscumbia, Alabama, on June 27, 1880, as a healthy baby. Before her illness, she could walk, say a few words, and had a friendly, spirited personality. At the age of 19 months, she caught a fever and as a result of it lost her sight and hearing.

To compensate, Helen began to rely on her other senses, touching and smelling everything. She held the hands (touch) of other people to learn what they were doing and copied their movements when she could.

Helen was able to recognize her parents and their friends by feeling their faces and clothes. She could tell where she was outside by the fragrance of plants (smell).

Despite her missing senses, Helen was able to communicate with her family using signs she had invented to let them know what she wanted. For example, she would pretend to cut bread when she wanted to eat bread. However, the communication was one-sided. She wanted to communicate in the same way her family did but was unable to talk. Helen became extremely frustrated and angry, to the point that her family was unable to control her.

When Helen was seven years old, her family hired a private teacher named Anne Sullivan. Miss Sullivan was sight-impaired herself. She soon realized the cause of Helen's tantrums was frustration. She was able to gain control of Helen's discipline and began to teach Helen the manual alphabet (a sign language in which each letter is signed onto the hand of the deaf-blind person so that he or she can feel it).

In a famous historical moment, Miss Sullivan led Helen to the water-pump, pumped water onto her hand, and simultaneously spelled out the individual letters, W-A-T-E-R. After many repetitions of the word, Helen realized that the individual signs represented the letters that made up a word that was the name for the thing water, and that other things must also have a name.

Miss Sullivan taught Helen at home for a few years, teaching her to read and write in Braille, and to read people's lips by pressing her fingertips against them (a method called Tadoma, an extremely difficult skill that very few people master).

In 1888, when Helen was ready for formal schooling, Miss Sullivan went with her to the Perkins Institute for the Blind in Boston and in 1894 they moved to the Wright-Humason School for the Deaf in New York. Miss Sullivan attended classes with Helen, interpreting the lessons for her by tapping the teachers' words into her hand, and transcribing books into Braille.

Helen did very well in school and went on to graduate with honors from Radcliffe College in 1904. While in college she wrote The Story of My Life. After graduation, Helen Keller lectured throughout the country and traveled abroad, supporting causes and fighting for rights.

Helen Keller died shortly before her 88th birthday, on June 1, 1968.

Facts and Figures

• Helen Keller was born in Tuscumbia, Alabama, on June 27, 1880.
• At the age of 19 months, she lost her sight and hearing as a result of a fever.
• Helen proved to be a remarkable scholar, graduating with honors from Radcliffe College in 1904.
• In 1932 she became a vice-president of the Royal National Institute for the Blind in the United Kingdom.
• Her childhood education was depicted in William Gibson's play The Miracle Worker, which won a Pulitzer Prize in 1960.
• Helen Keller died on June 1, 1968.

Learn More!
General Resources about Helen Keller

• American Federation of the Blind A nonprofit organization founded in 1921 and recognized as Helen Keller's cause in the United States. AFB is a leading national resource for blind or visually impaired people, for the organizations that serve them, and for the general public.
• Helen Keller Foundation
  The Foundation promotes the message of courage and selflessness implied in Helen Keller's legacy as a message that is and always will be important to transmit to new generations-both for its own value, and as a means to promoting public understanding of vision and hearing research.
• A-Z to Deafblindness
  This very complete Web site is the work of James Gallagher, a citizen of the United Kingdom who is deaf-blind. Here you will find information about all aspects of deaf-blindness, including the deaf-blind manual alphabet, the various causes of deaf-blindness, contact information for support organizations, and dates and times of conferences.

Helen Keller's Publications:

• The Story of My Life, 1902.
  
• Optimism, 1903.
  
• The World I Live In, 1908.
  
• The Song of the Stone Wall,1910.
  
• Out of the Dark, 1913.
  
• My Religion, 1927.
  
• Peace at Eventide, 1932.
  
• Helen Keller in Scotland, 1933.
  
• Helen Keller's Journal, 1938.
  
• Let us Have Faith, 1941.
  
• Teacher: Anne Sullivan Macy, 1955.
  
• The Open Door, 1957.
  
• Helen Keller: Her Socialist Years, 1967.
  
• Midstream: My Later Life, 1968.

LESSON 1:
What Inspires You?

Concepts:
You will learn to inspire others through your writing.

Lesson:
After her education, Helen Keller became a prolific writer and activist, and is often quoted. Introduce your student to the inspiring thoughts and ideas of this remarkable woman by presenting the list of quotations from the Helen Keller Quotations worksheet.

Have the student choose one of the quotations and write a 3-5 paragraph essay on this worksheet relating why he or she chose that particular quote and how it pertains to his or her life.

Help your student prepare to write this essay by having him or her think about the following questions:

Why is this quote special to me?
How does it relate to me?
What experiences have I had in my life that substantiate this idea?
What does this quote make me think about?

The essay should be written in first person and should demonstrate why the quote affects the writer. The student should include specific examples supporting their point.

The essay the student writes should have the goal of inspiring readers just as the quote inspired the student.

Additional Resources:

• Creative Writing Tutorial - Essays
  Examples and advice on writing numerous types of essays can be found In this Creative Writing for Teens site.
• A Quotation a Day: Just What the Language Doctor Ordered! Many teachers have discovered the power of famous quotations. These quotations can be used to develop students' writing and critical thinking skills.

LESSON 2:
A Different Form of Communication

Concepts:
You will learn the alphabet and a few words using either a visual or a manual language.

Lesson:
Helen Keller was unable to communicate with the outside world until her teacher, Anne Sullivan, introduced her to the manual alphabet (used for deaf persons that are also blind). Deaf persons who are able to see use a visual alphabet (also called sign language) for communication.

These communication tools can be taught just like any other foreign language. Proficiency can be developed with years of study and practice or the languages can be taught for a short period of time, focusing on the alphabet, animals, or greetings, etc. The following Web sites provide instruction, information, and resources for students to learn the basics of these languages.

Manual Alphabets

Learn the Deafblind Manual Alphabet and/or finger spelling using the activites on this HLN worksheet. A chart of the Deafblind Manual Alphabet is provided by the A-Z to Deafblindness Web site. There is also a Finger Spelling Web site presented by In Search of Heros.

Visual Language

Continue practicing throughout the year with the HandSpeak Web site - an introduction to sign languages online. Signs are presented in video format. A new sign is added to the sign language dictionary daily. Categories of signs available at the site include animals, colors, education, food and drink, places, and sports.

Additional Resources

• The A-Z to Deafblindness Includes a chart of the Deafblind Manual Alphabet.
• Finger Spelling
• Handspeak Signs in video format.
• Riekehof, Lottie L. The Joy of Signing. Gospel Pub House, 1987. ISBN 0882435205.
• Butterworth, Rod R., Flodin, Mickey, and Twigg, Karen R. Signing Made Easy : A Complete Program for Learning Sign Language. Perigee, 1989. ISBN 0399514902.

LESSON 3:
Could Helen Keller Read Your Page?

Concepts:
You will learn the importance of keeping the viewer in mind when designing Web sites.

Lesson:

Many Web sites on the Internet are unavailable to blind users and a majority of the sites don't even know it! Students learning about the Internet and Web design should be taught to consider the factors required to make a site accessible.

Have students read the article "Could Helen Keller Read Your Page?". Then have a discussion about the Web designer's dilemma between designing a complicated or elaborate page for the majority of users versus simplifying the design to accommodate the smaller number of disabled users. Students studying Web design can focus on both technical and ethical issues, others could discuss only the ethical questions. Suggested items to include in discussion are:

Ethical

• Is the extra time required to plan accessibility into a Web site worthwhile?
• Should professional Web designers be required to learn the requirements of disabled users?
• Should certain Web sites (government, education, corporate) be required to be accessible to disabled users?
• What should be the "lowest common denominator?"

Technical

• Organizing with tables
• Adding

  "< B R >"

  tags
• Adding narrative descriptions
• Using Alt tags

Additional Resources

• Web Accessibility Initiative
  WAI, in coordination with organizations around the world, promotes accessibility of the Web through five primary areas of work: technology, guidelines, tools, education and outreach, and research and development.
• Accessible Web Page Design
  University of Washington provides links to page showing how to make Web pages more accessible to people with disabilities and telling why this should be done.

LESSON 4:
Teaching About Physical Disabilities

Concepts:
You will learn the structure of the senses of vision and hearing, and methods for accommodating related physical disabilities in others.

Lesson:
Use the story of Helen Keller as an opportunity to teach your student about disabilities. Discuss disabilities from several viewpoints-as a disabled person, as the friend of a disabled person, and as someone who has never met a disabled person, for example.

• Seeing Disabilities from a Different Perspective
  Take your student through these activities and simulations, reports about famous people and the effects and causes of disabilities. At the end, the student can take a quiz measuring what he or she has learned from the site. The site includes a glossary of terms used in the reports.
• What Causes Blindness and Deafness?
  Visit The Soundry and A Perception of Vision: Your Eyesite to learn the way these senses should work. Encourage your student to hypothesize what may not be working to cause blindness or deafness in a person.
• The Soundry
  This excellent Web site explains what sound is and how humans perceive it through the ear. Take an interactive journey through the human ear to see how the ear collects and interprets sound. Use the SoundScene applet to organize a scene to help you understand Auditory Scene Analysis. In the Sound Lab you can see and hear sounds and their effects!
• A Perception of Vision: Your Eyesite
  The human eye is the most important sensory organ. Our eyes play a dramatic role in our lives today. They contribute significantly to our emotions, our ability to learn, and our capability to function in this world. A Perception of Vision offers a complete interactive guide to the human eye. This site provides an entertaining approach to the eye, concentrating on anatomy, diseases and corrective measures.

• Special Collection: Books about Disabilities
  Find bibliographic information on a variety of books about disabilities from the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh.

LESSON 5:
TrustWalk (for 2 or more students)

Concepts:
You will learn the value in trusting another person, and how to be trustworthy.

Lesson:
IHave students read The Miracle Worker by William Gibson or watch a video of the movie.

After reading The Miracle Worker, have your students participate in a "TrustWalk." Be sure to discuss the rules and process thoroughly in advance, as the project can be dangerous and/or scary. Have students take turns being "blind" (with a bandana tied around the eyes). The sighted partner leads the person on a walk.

See the documentation and suggestions from a ninth grade class in California that not only did a blind TrustWalk, but also had 2 students do a blind and deaf TrustWalk.

Additional Resources:

• Trust Walk
• Gibson, William. The Miracle Worker. Bantam Books, 1984. ISBN 0553247786.

LESSON 6:
The Miracle Worker

Concepts:
You will learn more about Helen Keller's life, deafblindness in children, and techniques of writing.

Lesson:
The following collection of Web sites will guide your student through a variety of activities based on the play (or film), The Miracle Worker.

The Miracle Worker-A Writing Assignment
Students examine challenges they have faced before. Designed to be used before the student starts reading the play.

The Miracle Worker-A reading or viewing assignment
Have students read The Miracle Worker by William Gibson or watch a video of the movie, and then complete the following activities:

Captain Keller's Business Letter
Write a business letter to the Perkins Institute, requesting a teacher for Helen. This handout is a text file, ready to print out.

The Miracle Worker-Activities based on the 1962 film
A guide to the 1962 film version starring Anne Bancroft and Patty Duke. Page down to background, discussion questions, and bridges to reading.

The Miracle Worker-Communication and the Senses
Some teaching ideas, and suggestions for further reading.

Additional Resources:

• Drama Resources for The Miracle Worker This site offers several activity ideas as companion pieces to the reading of The Miracle Worker by William Gibson.
• Gibson, William. The Miracle Worker. Bantam Books, 1984. ISBN 0553247786.

Article by Nancy Ooki, HLN Curriculum Development
Article © Homeschool Learning Network, All Rights Reserved.