Tuesday, May 19, 2009

Meet Louis Braille

By James

Below is the second in a series of biographies from Mrs. Yollis' Class. Each student researched a person, wrote an informative report, and created a sculpture of the historic person.





This pictures shows Louis Braille's brilliant invention used at our school.

I created a beautiful biography about Louis Braille, who is famous for inventing raphigraphy. Raphigraphy is a raised dot system (also known as Braille) so the blind can feel it, and the people who aren’t blind can see it. To go with the biography, I made a dazzling scupture of this character. Please enjoy the surprisingfacts about Louis Braille.


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Meet Louis Braille

Do you know who invented raphigraphy? If you guesses Louis Braille, you are correct. Louis Braille was born on January 4, 1809, in Coupvray, France. Louis became blind by poking his eye with a dangerous tool. Eventually, in 1812, his eye became infected, and his infection to his other eye causing total blindness at the age of three.

Also in the early 1800s, France was at war with Russia. When Russia won, they invaded Coupvray and demanded to be housed and fed. Louis’s house now had Russian soldiers in it. As you can imagine living with soldiers was tough, considering young Louis can’t even see them.


In 1819 Louis was sent to live and learn at a blind institute. In this new school, Louis learned sonography, a raised dot system for soldiers so they didn’t need a lamp to read a message during war.
Later, in 1825, Louis and his friend invented the first blind writing board so the blind could write too. The writing board was like a 3-D array of squares to help form something similar to a letter. A year, in 1826, Mr. Braille became a teacher for the blind institute.

In 1839, Mr. Louis Braille invented raphigraphy. Raphigraphy is raised dots symbolizing letters so the blind can feel them and the people who aren’t blind could see them. Raphigraphy today is also known as Braille.
Unfortunately, Mr. Braille died on January 6, 1852, in Coupvray, France. Louis died from a horrible coughing disease called tuberculosis. Louis Braille was only 42 when he died and I wish he was still alive right now to see all of his success.

I enjoy learning about Mr. Braille’s system and I am happy it is still used today. Raphigraphy is even used here at my school. I think his six dot system, raphigaphy, changed the world because it made it easier for the blind to read and enjoy books as much as the people who aren’t blind.

Below is a presentation of my sculpture of Mr. Braille.



What do you think of James' report?
Do you have any questions for him?
Please comment!

9 comments:

  1. Dear James,

    I really enjoyed learning about Braille from your report. You really are an expert! I especially liked the photo you took of the Braille right here at our school! Louis would be so proud.

    You're an excellent writer! Keep up the great work!

    Sincerely,
    Mrs. Yollis

    ReplyDelete
  2. @ Mrs. Yollis

    Thank you for the wonderful comment. I would love to keep writing paragraphs like those in our biographies and our animal reports. I also think our classroom looked great for open house!
    Thank you Best Teacher Ever,
    James :)

    ReplyDelete
  3. Dear Sammy,
    I liked how you put the braille alphabet in the back of the sculpture. Your report was interesting, too.
    Sincerely,
    Jonah

    ReplyDelete
  4. Dear James,

    I loved reading your biography post. It was very educational. One of the many things I learned was that Louis was blinded by an eye infection at the age of THREE!

    Love,
    Bethany

    ReplyDelete
  5. Dear Bethany,

    Thank you for a wonderful comment. I loved to have another comment because I haven't gotten much lately. You comment a lot and I am happy, very happy, that you chose my post.
    James :)

    ReplyDelete
  6. Dear Jonah,
    Thank you for the high quality comment. I loved how you mentioned what you liked about my post. I hope you have a blog post on Andrew Carnagie. I love your writing and I think our viewers will too!

    James

    ReplyDelete
  7. Dear James,
    I liked how you put the braille alphabet in the back of the sculpture. Your report was interesting, too.
    Sincerely,
    Jonah

    ReplyDelete
  8. Dear James,
    What an informative biography. I can't help but think that if Louis Braille had been born today, antibiotics would most likely have saved his eyesight. Do you think he would have invented raphigraphy if he had never been blind himself? I sure hope so. It's amazing how a tragic circumstance can produce a such a great invention. Keep up the great work! Mrs. Kumar

    ReplyDelete
  9. @ Mrs. Kumar

    Your comment was so great. Thank you, and thank you to those who have contributed to commenting on this blog. The recent posts are really cool and if you want great writing you've landed in the RIGHT place. I think that Louis Braille probably would have not invented raphigarphy because he wouldn't have experience of what it was like being blind. But as you could probably conclude if he did he would've done a better job because he can SEE what he's doing.
    Thanks,
    James

    ReplyDelete

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