Use these questions or activities to help gauge students’ familiarity with and spark their interest in the context of the work, giving them an entry point into the text itself.

Short Answer

1. What methods and strategies do individuals use to build relationships and connections with one another? What obstacles might prevent individuals from building close relationships?

Teaching Suggestion: These opening questions on interpersonal relationships might be helpful in introducing the overlying situations and conflicts in the novel. Iris is a person who is Deaf but attends a hearing school where students and teachers do not understand the way she communicates. Iris’s frustrations at school are exacerbated when a student who knows very little sign language pretends to know more than she does. Iris feels increasingly isolated from her teachers and peers because she is unable to communicate with them. Consider discussing the role of communication in building relationships and how people in the Deaf community may communicate differently than those in the hearing community. Students might extend the discussion to include other situations in which differences in communication might pose problems. These and similar resources might offer ideas and language for discussing the value of friendship and healthy communication.

• This 12-minute video suggests how individuals can make friends and foster friendships.