Deaf Jam traces the journey of a group of New York City Deaf teens as they discover and explore American Sign Language poetry with some of this nation’s most acclaimed ASL poets including Peter Cook, Manny Hernandez, and Terrylene Sacchetti. The participants eventually bring their poetry to their hearing peers at youth poetry slams and other spoken word events sponsored by UrbanWord NYC. (UrbanWord stands at the forefront of the youth spoken word movement and serves as the hub of NYC’s youth poetry community.)

Characters come and go throughout the film as they discover and define their deaf identity through poetry.

Most of the group activity and performances have been shot by a two-camera crew including Claudia Raschke-Robinson, Melissa Donovan, and Martina Radwan. Scenes outside of school have been shot with a single camera by either the film crew or by the students themselves.