Watch: The Danger of a Single Story: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Review: Answer the following review questions about the speaker's message.

1) What did the speaker realize when she began to read books written by African authors?

2) What did the speaker's mother tell them about their domestic help Fide? What did this do to her view of him and his family? What did she discover when she visited Fide’s family?

3) What was the “single story” that the speaker's roommate and college professor had of Africa? How did it affect how they interacted with the speaker?

4) How does the speaker say that single stories are created?

5) The speaker says, “The problem with stereotypes, is not that they are untrue, but they they are incomplete.” What does she mean?

Reflect: The speaker concludes her speech by saying, “When we reject the single story, when we realize that there is never a single story, about any place [or person] we regain a kind of paradise.” What does she mean? How can we reject single stories of people and places and “regain [this] kind of paradise?”