Teaching The Laramie Project in the Secondary English Classroom

• In Event: Teaching, Affirming, and Recognizing Trans and Gender-Creative Youth: A Queer Literacy Framework

Abstract

Objectives:
This paper offers a description of a research initiative developed in the fall of 2013 that addresses this reluctance by providing support for four secondary English teachers who purposefully engaged their students in a critique of gender norms by introducing units on the ethnographic play The Laramie Project for the first time. The script for The Laramie Project, developed by Moises Kaufman and members of the Tectonic Theatre Company, is a documentary-style account of the brutal attack on gay college student Mathew Shepard in Laramie, Wyoming, in 1998.

Perspectives:
Though schools have traditionally been places where queer and gender nonconforming youth are “institutionally ignored, silenced, and often targets of harassment” (Payne & Smith, 2011, p. 175), the classroom has the potential to become a site of inquiry regarding the politics of the body. Rather than creating classroom spaces that “reinscribe heteronormative and gendertypical realities,” (Author A., 2015, p. 39), teachers who ascribe to a Queer Literacy Framework (QLF) invite their students to critically question “uni-dimensional perspectives[s] of gender and sexuality” (p. 41).
In order to engage high school students in dialogues that problematize gender and sexuality, it is important to offer texts and assignments that provoke the level of self-reflexivity that produces thoughtful discussions. Students must learn to “recognize their internalized prejudices and [the] oppressions internalized through cultural messages” (Swartz, 2005, p. 143). The language arts classroom across all grade levels, when guided by a humanistic approach to making meaning can offer a space ripe for interrogating human expression through stories told in literature. However, English teachers are often reluctant to introduce texts that question stereotypic depictions of gender and sexuality because while they may believe in advocating for equity, they fear admonishment from administrators, parents, and their own students (Unger, 2007).

Methods/Data Sources:

The four public school teachers who participated in the project work in classrooms near a large southeastern U.S. city and range in teaching experience from five to 11 years. A primary question guiding the research was what would be the responses of students, administrators, parents, and other faculty to the introduction of a text that intentionally asks its readers/audience to consider issues of gender nonconformity and the expression of homosexual identities? To gather data to address this question, the teachers met bimonthly to plan their units, provide professional support, and write about their experiences in an online journal. They also collected the learning artifacts generated in teaching their units, including curriculum materials and students’ responses to assignments. At the conclusion of the project, the teachers participated in structured interviews to reflect on the process.

Results/Scholarly Significance:
In the first round of analysis, the teachers developed a script that summarized their responses to the project. They later presented the play at a professional conference and wrote further reflections. Weaving together snippets of conversations, personal accounts, excerpts from the high school students’ reflections, and examples of student work, the script served as a method of analyzing and drawing preliminary conclusions about the initiative.

Author

• Toby Emert, Agnes Scott College