Assistant Professor
Sam Briggs (she/her) is an educator, theatre maker, and creative facilitator passionate about the intersection of the arts, education, and social justice. Her research is interested in the use of the arts for promoting critical pedagogy and fostering civic engagement within schools and communities. Her scholarly projects often involve collaborations with local educators and community organizations, and combine arts education, drama pedagogy, teacher professional development, critical literacy, community-cultural development, participatory democracy, applied theatre, and more. Her current project focuses on the use of drama practices for promoting critical literacy in the secondary English classroom.
Sam received a BA in English Education with a Theatre Arts minor from Westfield State University, an MA in English Literature from Middlebury College’s Bread Loaf School of English, and an MFA in Theatre for Youth and Community from Arizona State University.
Before making the shift to academia, Sam spent 7 years teaching high school English and running a theatre program in a regional rural public high school in Central Massachusetts. Throughout her teaching career, she was highly involved in the National Writing Project, serving as the Co-Director of Outreach for the Western Massachusetts Writing Project (WMWP) from 2019-2024, and, as a WMWP teaching consultant, leading multiple teacher professional development workshops throughout Massachusetts. She has additionally worked as teaching artist and researcher for Childsplay in Tempe, AZ.
As an artist, Sam identifies as a director, diviser, and dramaturg. She has directed numerous plays and musicals in educational and community settings. Most recently, she won Best Director at ASU’s Fringe Festival for her work on two new plays, and served as dramaturg for ASU’s productions of Anthropocene and Detroit ‘67.