CHAT-Switched at Birth
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Slide 2-Production
Switched at Birth is produced by ABC Studios. It was created by Lizzy Weiss. Lizzy was inspired to write this series after she heard a true-life story similar to this one on the radio. She also took a American Sign Language theater class which helped her determine to add sign language to the story to make the show have even more of an edge.The show has an American Sign Language expert who helps make sure that the sign language used by the four fluent regulars (Katie Leclerc, Sean Berdy, Constance Marie, and Marlee Matlin) all employ a similar dialect. Lizzy likes to use deafness to add a special interest to the show as well as make it seem universal. An interesting fact about this is that a few of the cast members are actually deaf. Sean Brady, who plays Emmett in the show, is actually deaf in real life and has been deaf his entire life. He loves theater and has been acting for quite some time now. Katie Leclerc, who plays Daphane, is hard of hearing. She started losing her hearing in her teen years and has become fluent in Sign Language since then. Marlee Matlin, Ememett's mom, is also deaf in real life and is known for some of her other deaf roles. Having deaf people on the show does not really make things any harder because they are all amazing actors and there are interpreters on set that help with everything. (Interview with Lizzy Weiss from The Hollywood Reporter. January 24, 2012) http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/switched-at-birth-abc-family-lizzy-weiss-284405
Slide 3-Representation
Switched at Birth are hour long episodes that air once a week. Each episode is a written script by Lizzy Weiss. Some of the major themes in this show are love, friendship, betrayal, drama, and family. Many of the main characters develop a love interest in the show and you get to see their journey together. The love and betrayal is shown in many ways throughout the show. Daphane and Bay are the two main characters in this show that were in fact switched at birth. They often times have a hard time getting along. The show puts emphasis on the fact that this does happen occasionally but is rare. The fact that this can happen is a scary thought. Bay and Emmett have a romantic relationship with each other and they too have some trouble getting along at times because one is hearing and the other is Deaf. This is really cool to see how a deaf and hearing relationship works and how it can be hard at times. Many deaf people do not like associating a lot with hearing people because they feel that they do not understand their world. Deaf culture is a whole culture on its own, completely different from the hearing world. Other drama that goes on between the families is a lawsuit that the family has in suing the hospital for the switch up. Some may think that it may be hard to demonstrate these emotions through American Sign Language but this is not the case. Actually, people using sign language tend to demonstrate even more emotion than people who are just speaking. This is because people using sign language have to put more emotion into what they are signing to allow the other person receiving the message to have complete understanding of what they are trying to get across. Also, there are captions at the bottom of the screen that help people who do not know sign language be able to follow along. Switched at Birth is drama filled especially since it is about two babies that get switched at birth and grow up in the "wrong family". As the show carries on, more and more twists arise adding more excitement and anticipation to the show. (Wikipedia, January 31, 2012)
Slide 4-Distribution
ABC Family is the official distributor of Switched at Birth. It is an American television series. Switched at Birth targets teens and young adults, however, it is found that many adults also like this show and it can be a great family show. Also, the ABC Family website, www.abcfamily.com, gives a lot of information about the show and allows viewers to interact with each other and express their thoughts on the show. The website also allows you to view some of the past episodes in case you may have missed one. There are also surveys and polls that allow you to go more in depth with the show and really get involved with the show and other viewers watching it. (Wikipedia, January 31, 2012)
Slide 5-Reception
Many teens and young adults love watching Switched at Birth. It is a great show to watch for person recreation. Many people make sure they have enough time to watch this show because it is so addicting. Switched at Birth has the highest rated premiere for ABC Family for a series debut, drawing in 3.3 million viewers. The constant drama and exciting twists keeps the fans interested and always wanting more. This is also bringing in more and more fans to watch the show as well. (Wikipedia, January 31, 2012)
Slide 6-Socialization
Everyone is talking about the new hit series Switched at Birth. The series airs on ABC Family once a week for an hour long show. With all the excitement going on in the series, fans cannot get enough. All over the internet people are talking about the series and sharing their ideas of what they think about the show and also about what they think is going to happen next. The number of shows per series depends but usually ranges between 25-35 episodes. (Wikipedia, January 31, 2012)
Slide 7-Activity
Lizzy Weiss along with the rest of her helpers are busy coming up with storylines and dramatic situations that will interest the audience. They added variety to the cast to get different personalities and a diverse set of people. Some people in the show demonstrate more athletic skills while others demonstrate more artistic or music skills. Another way they and diversity to the show is having some of the cast members be deaf. American Sign Language is used on the show regularly along with English subtitles. This tends to draw in more people because it is something different that is not always on TV. Making the show diverse adds flavor and more excitement. You can now get the first season on DVD. The second season is in process now. (Wikipedia, January 31, 2012)
Slide 8-Ecology
The setting of this show is in Kansas City, Kansas but a majority of the show takes place in Mission Hills, Kansas where the family lives. The show also takes place at Carlton School for the Deaf and Buckner Hall which are the schools that the characters in the show attend. Carlton School for the Deaf is actually not a real school, however, it is what a typical deaf school might be like. Buckner Hall is also not a real school, however, they shoot the scenes at another high school in LA. Although the show is set in Kansas, it is filmed in Los Angeles, California.(Wikipedia, January 31, 2012)
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Hey Nicole! I’d like to start out by saying I think you chose a great topic for your CHAT map presentation. Although I have only seen a few episodes of Switched at Birth, I have heard great things about it from my friends that watch it so I can definitely tell it’s a popular show. I also know that it is different from any other shows that are currently on air, so it was interesting to learn more about it through your presentation. I absolutely love the design of your slides! The colors, font, and pictures all go very well together. The information on your slides is easy to read because of the font and color you selected which made going through your presentation very easy. I also like how you incorporated pictures that matched the message you were conveying in each of your slides. Its always nice to have a visual message to go along with typed information so that was definitely a nice touch. I also noticed that you added your descriptions directly under your slides; I thought that was great and you went into just enough detail. Your works cited page was also a great addition to your presentation. I also thought it was great how you didn’t put too much or too little information on your slides. If there is one suggestion that I could make it would be to adjust the URL links that go along to your pictures so that they take you to the direct site you got your pictures from. Overall, I really liked viewing your presentation and you did an awesome job!
Nicole—I really liked the first page it captured my eye because it was simple and yet unique it looked like a legit title for a TV show. The production slide was nice and simple and easy to read but the picture is a little distorted. The representation slide again was easy to read and straight to the point nice short sentences and a bold font to be able to read. The pictures though are a little distorted once again. I like how you wrote your summary after each slide to further more clarify what your slide is about. Over all I really enjoyed reading your CHAT map it was easy to understand and most people will recognize it because ABC family is well advertised on the television. I like how you had a reference page at the very end instead of trying to squeeze it into the slide. Maybe a little more color would of brought more life to it but overall it was a very well done slide!
Hey Nicole, I think you did a really good job and I really liked looking through all your slides. I loved the way you incorporated your images and text. It was very easy to read and the images were placed perfectly to where they weren’t too overbearing or covering any text. Your slides were put together really well and I liked how all of them were very colorful. The pictures you used, I feel were in the perfect spots and seemed to correlate with what you were saying and put more meaning into your words. Overall, I learned a lot from your slides, I’ve only seen Switched at Bitch a few times and reading your slides made me want to watch it more. You did very good research and didn’t put too many words on your slides but in contrast made it quick and straight to the point. In addition I also liked how you had the additional comments under each slide. This made your slides more understandable and to cleared up any outstanding questions the reader might have. The thing that I liked best about your presentation was the source page at the end of your slides. This is useful to us readers because all the citation information is conveniently in one spot and we can easily relook up any information we would like to. One recommendation I do have however, is to have in text citation. Meaning, I would have a citation on the slide itself. This would make it more clear to which information is being cited. Overall, I really enjoyed looking through your presentation and I learned alot! Good job!
Hey Nicole, I really liked youre slides for this project. They were visually appealing and sort of felt like an ABC commercial for the show. Very good way of doing that. I like how in the ecololgy slide you included where the tv show was filmed, i did the same for my project. I also liked how in the socialization slide you explained how its only once a week and should be watched with family. The only thing i would reccommend is to make youre cover page a little more interesting.
Matt
Nicole,
This CHAT map was done very well! Every slide contained enough information where it wasn’t too vague or too much information. Also, I liked how you included pictures from the television series and your pictures all helped with the understanding of each slide. You did a great job at including an explanation at the end of each slide. Also, you did a great job at citing your information on your slides as well as in your explanations. Additionally, your distribution slide does a good job at explaining that the targeted audience is teens and young adults. Your reception slide explains how the audience perceives the show because it is the highest rated premiere on ABC Family drawing in 3.3million viewers. You did a good job at citing where you got this information from as well. My advice to you would be to maybe adjust some of your pictures so that some of them aren’t as distorted, but otherwise I feel like you did a great job on the presentation of your slides and explaining the different aspects of the CHAT map. I have never seen this show but after reading your CHAT map I’m kind of interested! Great job!
**Housekeeping**
- Presentation Notes
- Use of Citation
I like the way you've cited each image with the URL. However, you'll want to make sure to link directly to the website from which the image came rather than the Google archive page.
The way you've referenced your sources for each paragraph makes it clear where you found which information. To make it just a bit easier for readers to visit your sources, you may want to use live links within the text, or perhaps a list of links for visitors to take a look at.
The interview with Lizzy Weiss is a very good source to cite - you'll want to find more sources like this in order to provide a multi-faceted understanding of the show. Although Wikipedia is a fairly reliable source, it's much better as a reference for other sources to visit - in doing your research, you'll want to go directly to the primary or secondary sources (like the interview) rather than primarily rely on Wikipedia.
**Production**
- Describing how it's produced
- Acknowledgement of creators
- Describing the research done by the authors
ASL: I really like the way you've addressed sign language in the show, both in terms of how Lizzie Weiss chose to incorporate it in the show and in terms of how an expert is brought in to double-check that the right dialect of ASL is being used. To go deeper into this, is might be good to talk about how this affects the production logistics. Are any of the show's actors deaf? If so, the interactions between these actors and the directors could pose unique challenges to the show and also some interesting artistic decisions.
Ecology of Location: One aspect you'll want to consider here is how they're able to film a Kansas setting in Los Angeles. In filming at the Carlton School for the Deaf, did they find an actual school for the deaf in order to add more realism in the filming? Or were they simply able to use a typical school setting to convey the same idea?
**Genre Conventions**
- Identifying the genre
- Describing the genre conventions
- Showing how these conventions are used.
You've shown us the major factors determining this show's genre (that's it's a drama, and that there are the one-hour episodes). To deepen our understanding of this, I would look at how ASL shifts our expectations of the show. Are there any aspects of love and betrayal which can't be shown in the same way on this show as they are on other shows?
**Social Activity**
- Describing social and physical distribution
- Discussing cultural reception
Your Representation section points out the major reasons for the show's fascination among fans, particularly in describing that the switch-at-birth situation heightens the drama. To build on this, you'll want to be more specific about the situation which create this drama. For example, you can describe which characters are the two who were switched, and how this affects the dynamics between the relationships. This, too, would be a good segue to your descriptions of audience.
Also, this show brings up two aspects of culture which are very rarely discussed - the isolation which occurs among those who are deaf and the fear of finding that children are raised with the "wrong" set of parents. Talking about how the show addresses these issues would give a nice opportunity to really get into how a television show can shift the discussions going on among ordinary people.
**Audience**
- Identifying the intended audience
- Discussing how genre coventions are used to attract that audience
- Indicating audience reception.
Your Reception slide does a good job showing just how popular the show is, especially in citing the 3.3 million viewers and its success as an ABC Family debut. Your Socialization and Activity sections do a good job building on this by talking about how these viewers have used the internet to show how much they like the show and how they respond to the inclusion of ASL. To build on this, you'll want to reference specific episodes which viewers particularly liked, and then post links to websites where fans describe their reasons for liking the show. This could also be an interesting area to examine for Distribution, especially if ABC uses online interactions in order to better target the teen and young adult audience.
Hey Nicole! You did a fantastic job on presentation. The slides were helpful and the pictures were a nice touch to each slide. You had just enough information on the slides to keep the slide show interesting. And, not to mention, your information following each slide made it easy to follow along if I had trouble understanding. The choice of pictures was great and the citations at the end were a good idea. Some constructive criticism for you, however, would have to be to switch up the slides. The black, white, and yellow color scheme on every slide in the same places was getting old towards the end. Maybe if you changed the color, position, or even the font every couple of slides would make a better presentation. On that note, maybe an appealing picture or background on the title slide would have been helpful to capture the audience. You had too great of a presentation for an attention getter with just plain text on it. Other than the attention getter and the repetitiveness of the writing, your presentation was easy to follow and captivating.
Nicole,
Great job on your chat map. I have never personally watch switched at birth and after going through your chat map it gave me a better sense of the story. Like Ryan Edel said, its very cool that sign language is used primarily. Based on your house keeping you did a really good job. All the slides are cited correctly and placed in a great spot so it doesnt interfere with the reader who is trying to absorb the facts on the slide. You kept all the slides simple which is great and had a great explanation of each one. All the explanations were very informative and caught my attention. Great job
Hey Nicole, I really like the topic you have chosen for your chat map. Although I have not been able to watch the show, whenever I see a commercial my eyes are immediately glued to the television, and there really isn’t any other shows on television that feature ASL in use. I actually took ASL for 3 years in high school and it’s a really cool language ones you get the hang of it. I like the physical aspects of your CHAT map a lot. The contrast between the black background and yellow words works really well together. I also liked the fact that you had bullet points that were straight to the point under your pictures as well as an in-depth summary under each slide as well. I learned a lot of things from your CHAT map specifically, that the show was based on accounts of a true story, that’s really cool. Focusing on your socialization slide, I thought it was a really good idea that you put your personal social experiences with the show. I also like that you took what others as well as the media has been saying about the show in account, and put it in your CHAT map. The only thing I think you could improve on is maybe say something more detailed about what your personally like about the show. Over all really good CHAT map!
Hey Nicole ,
Good CHAT map, i have never really looked into switched at birth so i was not familiar with it. after viewing your slides i had a better understanding of what was happening and everything. your slides were all nice and simple. you provided enough information so a person like me , would be able to follow along without watching the show. i am supposed to be doing audience but i did not see a slide for it, but no worries i understand the age of the audience and everything. you added a seperate slide for citations - so that was another plus. overall good job on your first CHAT map.
Hey Nicole,
Great presentation! It was very well-organized and easy to read. The slides were neat too which I appreciated. I think I’ve caught a few episodes of Switched at Birth acctually when I left ABC family up one night. I found it to be pretty interesting although I’ve never followed the story line, so I could see why you wanted to do your presentation on it. I’m glad that in your representation slide you gave a background on the television show so it was a lot easier for me to understand how the audience reception went. I can tell that this show is for sure aimed at the teenage population because the focus is on the kids in high school. But it has enough content to it that older adults will about to watch it with enjoyment also. You also mentioned how many people found this show to be ‘addicting’. I’ve definitely experienced that with some tv series in my life and that shows how good it must be. In addition to this, the show pulled in 3.3 million viewers which is the highest rated premiere for an abc family series debut. All in all, I can tell that this show has a very dedicated fan base and I think you did a great job on your powerpoint.
Sincerely,
Jenn.
Heya Nicole-
I have never seen or even heard about this television show. Judging by your presentation, however, this show seems to be pretty darn interesting! I liked your choice in photo. They fit the idea of your presentation, along with the ideas of each individual slide. I would maybe recommend just changing up the arrangement of the text/pictures between slides just so that your format doesn’t become repetitive. Your socialization slide sort of missed the idea of the socialization aspect of CHAT maps. Next time look at it as how it affects society internally, as opposed to just on the surface. (i.e. how diverse an individual’s life can be when faced with a hearing disability as opposed to one that is not.) Over all though, I thought that your presentation was great. Keep up the good work!
Sincerely, Pat
Hey Nicole! I really like your CHAT map. You did a great job on getting the point across of the show. I love the show and watch it every week. You did a good job of specifying what kind of an audience the show attracts and why it does. I completely agree with you that the show is easy to relate to. Your presentation was really well researched and even if I wasn't a viewer of the show I would be able to understand it. Your slides were perfect with how much information was on them. There wasnt too much and there wasnt too little. It was easy to follow and I commend you for that. Maybe if you changed the format of some of the slides it would be more appealing for the eye. But other than that Great Job!
Hi Nicole! I have never seen switched at birth before but I wanted to see it one day. Just by looking off of your production slide it makes me want to watch this TV series one day. I liked how you did something different to your slides instead of doing the original color in the background and words over it in a different color. Your slide was very informative. I liked how you did not have too much information on this slide and you had additional information about production up under the slide. You also included a citation up under this slide. I like how you included information like the author includes sign language in this show and that it is based on a true story. You included information on who were the primary fluent sign language people. When you said it was produced by ABC I thought that this show be a good show because they have produced many good shows before. Overall, you did very well. The font was big enough for you to see it and the pictures were good. You provided enough information for the readers to know what the show was about and who the author was.
Hey Nicole,
Interesting show for your topic, seems like a very unique show! I thought your presentation was quite good, I found some of it pretty neat! I'll address the audience part of your presentation since we have those requirements now. On the Reception slide, you do a good job of illustrating who likes the show, why they like the show, and how many people have watched the show each and every week its on. Now, to improve the slide and help with your audience part of the presentation....you could maybe use a quote or two from maybe a blog or from somewhere online to give us some examples of people actually saying how much they love the show or why they love it. Getting those kind of quotes would definitely enhance your presentation in the audience section and make your presentation even more reliable and informational. But overall, good presentation, I liked it a lot.
Nicole,
First of all I love this show and so glad people actually watch it! I love how simple and clean the presentation as a whole is. I love the colors of the font against the background because it makes it easy to read and focus on the information. You did a great job at including all the information on the grading sheet and included everything and more. I enjoyed reading your presentation and I learned a lot about the show that I had no idea about. You picked great pictures and I believe that your presentation will reel people in and get them as hooked as I am. The only thing I can think of you to change is your citations make sure you include the citations for all the photos in your presentation.
Hey Nicole!
You chose a great show for CHAT! It is not everyday we see shows that have sign language involved. It's good see it getting out there into the public eye! Your presentation was well organized. I like the fact you had main points and then below and more detail that would go into depth about the bullet points written. Every thing seems well put together and well thought. The appearance of the pictures do seem a little off, but seems as though it was a matter of space issue. But the all presentation was great! The pictures went along very well with the detail! Great Job! Again love the Show you chose! Shows a little diversity in television.
Production: First off, this CHAT map looks great. The consistant layout throughout the slides makes it very easy to read. The concise bullet points contain only the most important information and the images are good representations of the information provided on each slide. I have never seen Switched at Birth, but I have seen a few commercials for it. I did not know that American Sign Language was such a huge impact on the production of the show. This being said, I think it would have been interesting to know why it is such a big focus. Is there some sort of personal connection with a cast member or producer with a person who uses American Sign Langauge to communicate? Or was it just made a part of the show to set it apart from other TV series? That aside, I think that the use of sign language really does set this show apart. Being a special ed major, I appreciate seeing television series and movies that include all sorts of diversity. Overall, this CHAT map was very well constructed and it was interesting to learn about a different TV series!
Nicole, I love the layout and design of your chat map! It is so clean and put together and I love how you did everything! Everything is very eye catching and therefore you kept my attention all the way through your CHAT map. I like how you included that the creator got the idea off of a story she heard on the radio, its very unique and I thought it was interesting. I enjoyed all the information you included about the sign language and how the producers did their best to make it as beleivable as possible but I also thought that this could be included in the ecology slide. I feel as though you could of included more dates and airing times in your production slide as well. Other than that I think you did a great job. I have never seen the show but now I am interested and watching an episode or so!
Nicole,
I have never watched this show before, the only thing I know about it is what I see on previews between Secret Life and Pretty Little Liars. You did a great job explaining it through your slides and your picures helped give better understanding. You production page also gave a great deal of information that was helpful to not onle undestand what the show is about, but how it was created as well. For person who has not seen it I loved it and I think you did great!
Hi Nicole,
i want to start off by saying that the slide is looking good. The choice of movie is good. By the way switched at birth is my favorite movie. The pictures fit well with the movie and what you are trying to tell your audience. It was a good choice of movie. The picture is also really nice and it makes the background looks nice to watch. Every slide has a good amount of information on it which makes it more interesting to read and also easier to understand and interpret what is being said to the audience. As far as each slide is concern I want to say that each one looks we done. They are well organized with bullet points. It makes the presentation nice to look at and also it makes you want to read the things that are on each slide. The first couple of slides help us better understand the overall presentation and also the message that you are trying to give to your audience. As far as thing that you could strengthen would be if you write introduction on the first slide and also make a slide telling us how you like the movie. So it will not be like we are looking at a completely different slide. The overall presentation is looking good as well as the citation.
Nicole,
I liked the color scheme and pictures you used for your slide. It all fit really well together. You blended everything nicely. I'm going to have to agree with Pat you should have definitely made your slide more interesting. You had good representation for the show and provided enough information for us to look inside the meaning of the show. You did a great job explaining characters' motives. The atmosphere of the show was very appealing because I could relate to some aspects that were shown here in your slides. I can tell you watch this show and good job explaining it in detail.
ryanedel Level 2 Commenter 3 months ago
Thanks, Nicole! There aren't many shows with sign language as a primary component - I'm looking forward to learning more how that works with audiences.