Arizona Theatre Matters Education · Study Guide
The Art of Accessible Sound Study Guide
Listen closely. Sound can tell us where we are, what is happening, how something feels, and what might happen next.
At a Glance
- Work: The Art of Accessible Sound
- Form: Educational video and digital learning experience
- Primary audience: Grade 2 learners
- Designed for: Classrooms, inclusive and Special Education settings, libraries, families, and community groups
- Central question: How can sound tell a story—and how can different ways of participating become part of the experience?
Start Here
Experience the video before or after using this guide. Learners may listen, watch, move, point, draw, pause, repeat, or take breaks.
There is no single correct way to participate. Accessibility is not an extra activity. It is part of how the work is experienced.
About the Work
The Art of Accessible Sound is a playful educational video about how sound helps tell stories and how accessibility helps everyone join in. It invites learners to notice sound not as decoration, but as one of the materials from which a story can be made.
A voice, a rhythm, a pause, a repeated noise, or a sudden silence can suggest a place, introduce a character, change a feeling, or move an event forward. The work encourages curiosity: What did you hear? What did it make you imagine? What changed when the sound changed?
Big Ideas to Listen For
Sound Carries Information
Sound can tell us who or what is present, where an action may be happening, and when something changes.
Sound Creates Feeling
Tempo, volume, pitch, repetition, music, voice, and silence can change the emotional life of a story.
Participation Can Take Many Forms
Listening is not the only way to engage. Movement, images, gesture, language, drawing, vibration, repetition, and choice can all support meaning.
How Sound Helps Tell a Story
- Beginning: A sound can introduce a place, character, mood, or question.
- Middle: Sounds can repeat, change, collide, grow louder, become quieter, or create a problem.
- End: A sound can resolve, disappear, return differently, or leave the listener wondering.
- Silence: The absence of sound can create attention, suspense, rest, space, or surprise.
- Pattern: Repeated sounds help listeners recognize relationships and anticipate what may come next.
Accessibility Is Part of the Experience
People encounter sound differently. Some listen through hearing. Some notice rhythm or vibration. Some benefit from captions, images, gesture, repetition, simplified choices, description, movement, or extra time.
An accessible experience does not require everyone to participate in the same way. It creates several ways to notice, respond, imagine, and communicate.
Ask not, “Can everyone do this one activity?” Ask, “How many ways can this idea be entered?”
Questions for Reflection and Conversation
- What was the first sound you noticed?
- What did that sound make you imagine?
- Did any sound make you feel calm, excited, curious, surprised, or uncomfortable?
- How did the story change when a sound changed?
- What can silence do in a story?
- Can two people hear or experience the same sound differently?
- How could you share a sound-based idea with someone who experiences sound differently from you?
- What choices helped you participate?
Vocabulary
- Sound: Something that can be heard or experienced through vibration.
- Volume: How loud or quiet a sound is.
- Pitch: How high or low a sound seems.
- Tempo: How fast or slowly a sound or pattern moves.
- Rhythm: A pattern of sounds, beats, or movement.
- Sound effect: A created or recorded sound used to suggest an action, object, place, or event.
- Silence: A pause or absence of sound that can also carry meaning.
- Accessibility: Creating ways for people with different bodies, senses, languages, and needs to participate.
Before You Begin
- Invite learners to notice three sounds in the room.
- Ask what each sound tells them.
- Offer several response choices: speaking, pointing, drawing, moving, selecting an image, or making a sound.
- Let learners know that pausing, repeating, or taking a break is welcome.
After the Experience
- Choose one sound and describe what it did in the story.
- Change one sound. What else changes?
- Create a three-part sound story: beginning, middle, and end.
- Identify another way the story could be shared.
Continue Exploring
The companion Toolkit carries these ideas into practice through activities, adaptations, classroom resources, and multiple pathways for participation.
About Arizona Theatre Matters
Arizona Theatre Matters creates theatre where access is part of the art. Through performance, education, sound, history, and inquiry, ATM creates free resources that invite many ways of experiencing and participating.
The Art of Accessible Sound video and digital resources were made possible with support from Salt River Project (SRP). ATM thanks Shakespeare in American Communities and SRP for supporting accessible arts education.