Disrupting Narratives and Narrators: A Case for Anna Deavere Smith's Work in the High School Classroom

<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>

Name thesis:degree_name

Master of Arts

Level thesis:degree_level

Master's Thesis

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Graduate Humanities

Year dc:date.available

2018

Author dc:creator

• Hale, Amy

Contributors dc:contributor

• Judy Halebsky, PhD
• Chase Clow, PhD

• Anna Deavere Smith
• Pedagogy
• Institutional racism
• representation
• American Literature
• Literature in English, North America

Repository record dc:identifier

https://scholar.dominican.edu/masters-theses/329

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:scholar.dominican.edu:masters-theses-1349