Both Dr. Lewis and the graduate, as women, understood the predicament of isolation and alienation that women of color face in dissertation writing in academia. Without their assistance, undoubtedly the project would have gone into oblivion. . . more

Plaatjies has taught at several schools and universities, including Howard University and Long Island University at Southampton. For two years, at Long Island University, she was a Visiting Professor in the Friends World Program, an interdisciplinary program with an emphasis on theory and praxis in a global context. She taught seminars on storytelling in African and African American Literature, Film and Music and courses such as "Women Voices and Cultural Politics" and "African Oral Epic in African Literature and Cinema." At various language schools in the Metropolitan Washington Area, she has taught isiXhosa and Afrikaans languages.

Plaatjies was born into the oral culture of ubuntu in which ukubonga (praise and criticism) and ukubalisi-ntsomi (storytelling) formed part of the creative media of the Nguni-speaking people of South Africa. She was born and grew up in Saldanha, South Africa and spent her childhood and part of her adult life living under apartheid. Plaatjies worked in various sectors of the economy in Saldanha and Cape Town, including as a full-time domestic worker, a conveyor belt factory worker and a tea girl/cleaner. She obtained most of her education as an adult, returning to school in 1971 to pursue a high school diploma on a part-time basis.

Plaatjies' current scholarship consists of exploring the scope, rich textures of orality and gender representation in the creative works of Black South African male and female literary and film practitioners. Her critical approach to literature includes the rereading of contemporary Black South African children's literature.