LA 92

This week in Literature of California we are kicking off our work with Anna Deveare Smith's Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992 by gathering a little bit of historical context. We are doing so by watching the documentary LA 92. While most of my students are likely familiar with some aspects of the 1992 uprising in Los Angeles following the Rodney King police verdicts, they hopefully are learning a lot more about the events leading up to it as well as the variety of experiences and multiple perspectives that must be understood in order to fully grasp the magnitude of this event.

For this week's blog post, I simply want students to write one to two paragraphs reflecting first on what you knew of the Los Angeles uprising of 1992 before starting to watch the film. Then, talk about what you have learned from LA 92 so far. Did watching the film change your understanding of the event? What questions do you have and what questions were answered? How do they see the events of 1992 playing out in your experiences today as California citizens?