In Sharp Shooter, Jamie, an adventurous, imaginative, and determined 5th grade tomboy, inspired by Annie Oakley learns to understand her Dyslexia as a difference instead of a learning disability.
(click ^ for slideshow)
For my thesis project, Sharp Shooter, I am determined to show the struggles people with learning disabilities endure, the wonderful accomplishments they can achieve, and change the way people understand LD’s. At age 10, I was diagnosed with Dyslexia, ADD, and Audio Processing Disorder. While these titles were professionally presented to me, they became slapped on like permanent labels with floods of judgment to quickly follow. For years I could not understand or view my differences as anything but a disability. I focused solely on my overwhelming inadequacies, constantly failing to reach ‘normalcy,’ while accidentally ignoring the realms in which I have succeeded.
Over the years, I have developed certain mechanisms to cope with my LD's, I have learned to accept my LD's and try to keep in mind that I succeed and grow not despite, but because of my differences. While these positive bursts have really flourished in the past year or two, and I am so grateful that they have, I am often left thinking about how others deal with their LD's and how absolutely brilliantly wonderful it would be, how much more progress they would make, and more importantly, believe they could make, if they could come to the understanding of their true worth, value, and potential at a much younger age. This project could act as a tidal wave in changing the way people think, assess, and cope with learning disabilities by influencing viewers to see learning disabilities as learning differences.
We are extremely fortunate to have renowned Jazz guitarist, James Silberstein as Sharp Shooter's composer!
