English Language and Literature Commons^™

Disrupting Narratives And Narrators: A Case For Anna Deavere Smith's Work In The High School Classroom, Amy Hale

Dissertations, Masters Theses, Capstones, and Culminating Projects

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 …