Two years ago I was looking for a way to extend my sophomore Things Fall Apart unit. Students were going to write a literary analysis paper. But there was too much time left for the paper to be our entire focus. Yet there wasn’t enough time to start a new unit. So I knew I wanted to find additional texts focused on the relationships between narrative, power, prejudice, integrity, and courage.
While I was searching, I clicked “The Danger of a Single Story” by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. I don’t even remember how I came across this Ted talk. But it has become an absolute favorite. If you’ve never watched, stop reading, click the link, and prepare to have your worldview challenged in the best way. Adichie’s argument is wide ranging in its implications. It touches on power, economic coercion, individual integrity, group think, classism, feminism, prejudice, rhetoric, propaganda, and courage.
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Starting with the Single Story
At the center of Adichie’s talk is the idea of a single story: a narrative that only focuses on or only “tells” one part of an individual or group’s experience. In the case of a single story, the person or group the story is about is not the person or group telling the story. The single story becomes a way to deprive an individual or a group of their agency.
My students and I talk a lot about the idea of agency. A lot of narratives come down to agency: who has it, who wants it, and how the struggle for agency can be damaging or affirming. Think about it: Daisy Buchanan feigns agency, Okonkwo takes it, Julius Caesar loses it, and Elizabeth Bennet refuses to let anyone take hers.
Furthermore, when students understand the social constructs fighting for Daisy and Elizabeth’s agencies, students can see those same forces at work in their lives. They appear in social norms, in etiquette, in political correctness, in advertising, on Twitter. They can also see how they apply (or feel the application of) constraints to their lives and to the way they view and treat others. As a text, “The Danger of a Single Story” offers every viewer an opportunity for introspection and reflection. I’ve probably watched it a dozen times. And every time I learn something new.
Advantages of this Ted Talk
This Ted Talk is a great tool for teaching for social justice. It’s also a great tool for teaching different ELA skills.
- Consider Adichie’s role as a speaker and what creates her ethos
- Determine Adichie’s purpose as a speaker and writer
- Evaluate Adichie’s efficacy as a speaker
- Consider how Adichie uses rhetoric
- Summarize her argument
- Determine Adichie’s tone
Questioning the Single Story
After watching and reading “The Danger of a Single Story,” I ask students a few key questions:
- How does the single story affect your life?
- How have you used single stories?
- And now that you know about single stories, what can you do about them?
My students are sometimes stymied by the last question. As teenagers, they sometimes feel powerless. What can they do in the face of dangerous single stories?
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie offers some critical advice. Telling alternative or additional stories is an essential means of combating dangerous narratives. In an ELA classroom, all students are storytellers. As ELA teachers, we help students develop the skills necessary to tell and retell compelling stories. We don’t tell them what stories to tell. But we do help them acquire the tools to re-envision their world and, hopefully, leave it a better place.
