Words Left Unspoken

1. Words Left Unspoken By Leah Hager Cohen

2. Background • Leah Hager Cohen lived for much of her childhood at the Lexington School for the Deaf in Queens, New York. • Graduated from Columbia University School of Journalism • Instructor at Emerson College in Boston.

3. Thesis Statement • Impicit • His being deaf didn’t hold him back from forming relationships.

4. Dominant Impression

5. Sensory Language • “And he made sounds when he was eating, sounds that, originating from other quarters, would have drawn chiding or expulsion from the table. He smacked his lips and sucked his teeth’ his chewing was moist and percussive; he released deep hushed moans from the back of his throat, like a dreaming dog” (153).

6. Figurative language • “But his hands remained lithe, vital. As he teased and argued and chatted and joked, they were the instruments of his mind, the conduits of his thoughts” (154) • Personification

7. Detail • “”My grandmother and the rest of the family were walking a half block ahead; I hung back and made myself take my grandfather’s hand. We didn’t look at each other. His hand was warm and dry. His gait was uneven then, a long slow beat on the right, catch-up on the left. I measured my steps to his. It was dark except for the hazy pink cones of light cast by the streetlamps. I found his rhythm, and breathed it in” (155)

8. Objective Description • “As far as anyone knows, SamualKolominsky was born deaf (according to Lexington records, his parents ‘failed to take note until child was about one and a half years old’). His birthplace was Russia, somewhere near Kiev. Lexington records say he was born in 1908…” (155)

9. Subjective • “He died before I was really able to converse in sign. I have never seen his handwriting. I once saw his teeth, in a glass, on the bathroom windowsill. Now everything seems like a clue” (155)

10. Our Favorite Sentence • “I found his rhythm, and breathed in it. That was the longest conversation we ever had” (155)