Anna Deavere Smith, American actress, writer, and professor, explores racial conflicts and the nuances that contribute to dissonance and identity politics through her one- woman plays. Employing a journalistic dramatic format of her own, Smith interviews a panoply of people who play major and minor roles involving conflicts. She then brings these interviews to life on the stage. As a high English teacher, I incorporate Smith’s plays Fires in the Mirror and Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992 into my eleventh grade American literature class. In this paper, I explain why Smith’s plays help facilitate and nurture important conversations about race for my high school students. This paper explores how Anna Deavere Smith disrupts narratives and dualistic stereotypes of racial conflicts by dramatizing salient lines from her interviews. I argue for the Smith’s plays as powerful educational tools for reinforcing the relationship between knowledge and point of view and for promoting empathy.
","abstract_html":"<p>Anna Deavere Smith, American actress, writer, and professor, explores racial conflicts and the nuances that contribute to dissonance and identity politics through her one- woman plays. Employing a journalistic dramatic format of her own, Smith interviews a panoply of people who play major and minor roles involving conflicts. She then brings these interviews to life on the stage. As a high English teacher, I incorporate Smith’s plays <em>Fires in the Mirror </em>and <em>Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992 </em>into my eleventh grade American literature class. In this paper, I explain why Smith’s plays help facilitate and nurture important conversations about race for my high school students. This paper explores how Anna Deavere Smith disrupts narratives and dualistic stereotypes of racial conflicts by dramatizing salient lines from her interviews. I argue for the Smith’s plays as powerful educational tools for reinforcing the relationship between knowledge and point of view and for promoting empathy.</p>","abstract_has_math":false,"creators":["Hale, Amy"],"institution":null,"degree_name":"Master of Arts","degree_level":"Master's Thesis","degree_discipline":"Graduate Humanities","degree_department":null,"school":null,"contributors":["Judy Halebsky, PhD","Chase Clow, PhD"],"advisors":[],"committee_chairs":[],"committee_members":[],"year":2018,"date_issued":"2018-06-01T07:00:00Z","date_published":"2018-06-01T07:00:00Z","updated_at":"2026-07-24T02:04:51Z","subjects":["Anna Deavere Smith","Pedagogy","Institutional racism","representation","American Literature","Literature in English, North America"],"languages":[],"rights":[],"rights_urls":[],"identifier_entries":[]},"links":{"outbound_url":"https://scholar.dominican.edu/masters-theses/329","outbound_label":"Repository record","outbound_source":"dc:identifier"},"metadata_groups":[{"id":"people","label":"People","entries":[{"key":"dc:contributor","label":"Contributor","values":["Judy Halebsky, PhD","Chase Clow, PhD"]},{"key":"dc:creator","label":"Author","values":["Hale, Amy"]}]},{"id":"academic_context","label":"Academic Context","entries":[{"key":"dc:date.available","label":"Dc Date Available","values":["2018-05-10T07:00:00Z"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_discipline","label":"Discipline","values":["Graduate Humanities"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_level","label":"Degree Level","values":["Master's Thesis"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_name","label":"Degree Name","values":["Master of Arts"]}]},{"id":"subjects_keywords","label":"Subjects and Keywords","entries":[{"key":"dc:subject","label":"Dc Subject","values":["Anna Deavere Smith","Pedagogy","Institutional racism","representation","American Literature","Literature in English, North America"]}]},{"id":"identifiers","label":"Identifiers","entries":[{"key":"dc:identifier","label":"Identifier","values":["https://scholar.dominican.edu/masters-theses/329"]}]},{"id":"additional","label":"Additional Metadata","entries":[{"key":"dc:description.abstract","label":"Abstract","values":["Anna Deavere Smith, American actress, writer, and professor, explores racial conflicts and the nuances that contribute to dissonance and identity politics through her one- woman plays. Employing a journalistic dramatic format of her own, Smith interviews a panoply of people who play major and minor roles involving conflicts. She then brings these interviews to life on the stage. As a high English teacher, I incorporate Smith’s plays Fires in the Mirror and Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992 into my eleventh grade American literature class. In this paper, I explain why Smith’s plays help facilitate and nurture important conversations about race for my high school students. This paper explores how Anna Deavere Smith disrupts narratives and dualistic stereotypes of racial conflicts by dramatizing salient lines from her interviews. I argue for the Smith’s plays as powerful educational tools for reinforcing the relationship between knowledge and point of view and for promoting empathy.
"]},{"key":"dc:title","label":"Title","values":["Disrupting Narratives and Narrators: A Case for Anna Deavere Smith's Work in the High School Classroom"]}]}],"canonical_facts":{"dc:contributor":["Judy Halebsky, PhD","Chase Clow, PhD"],"dc:creator":["Hale, Amy"],"dc:date.available":["2018-05-10T07:00:00Z"],"dc:description.abstract":["Anna Deavere Smith, American actress, writer, and professor, explores racial conflicts and the nuances that contribute to dissonance and identity politics through her one- woman plays. Employing a journalistic dramatic format of her own, Smith interviews a panoply of people who play major and minor roles involving conflicts. She then brings these interviews to life on the stage. As a high English teacher, I incorporate Smith’s plays Fires in the Mirror and Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992 into my eleventh grade American literature class. In this paper, I explain why Smith’s plays help facilitate and nurture important conversations about race for my high school students. This paper explores how Anna Deavere Smith disrupts narratives and dualistic stereotypes of racial conflicts by dramatizing salient lines from her interviews. I argue for the Smith’s plays as powerful educational tools for reinforcing the relationship between knowledge and point of view and for promoting empathy.
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