This website was created for a Multigenre Inquiry project assigned by Dr. Joan Mitchell as part of an English Methods course. A Multigenre Inquiry project starts with a question that leads to a project that requires creative thinking to find answers. Students create a variety of responses that are both artistic and factual as they seek to find answers. Students are forced to think about audience, purpose, and genre as they look at the question through a variety of lenses. This project seeks to answer the question: how does humor help us process and cope with injustice and struggle? Trevor Noah's Born A Crime is a central text to find answers to this question. In his memoir, Born A Crime, Trevor Noah tells the story of his particularly difficult childhood and teenage years. Noah, born in South Africa during apartheid, is the son of a white father and a black mother, which was illegal at his birth. His childhood was plagued with the typical difficulties of childhood, including searching for belonging and identity, but those difficulties were amplified by his biracial identity that made it difficult for him to feel part of any group. Noah also writes about his childhood that included poverty, petty crime, friendships, romance, failed friendship, and failed romance. Despite the serious nature of the themes of this memoir, particularly of the pains caused by racism, Noah writes his memoir with wit and sarcasm. His memoir simultaneously makes the reader want to laugh and cry. The peculiar contrast between the humorous tone and serious story, allows for a rich and complex exploration of the purpose of humor.
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If you have any questions, contact Abby Scoresby at [email protected]