• Home
  • ABOUT
  • Knowledge Base
    • About Writing
    • Content-Area Literacy
    • Digital Learning
    • English Learners
    • Equity & Access
    • Leading Professional Learning
    • Program Design
    • Teacher as Writer
    • Teacher Inquiry
  • Blog
    • Events & Opportunities
    • NWP Radio
    • Marginal Syllabus
  • Books
  • Contact
  • NWP.org
  • Home
  • ABOUT
  • Knowledge Base
    • About Writing
    • Content-Area Literacy
    • Digital Learning
    • English Learners
    • Equity & Access
    • Leading Professional Learning
    • Program Design
    • Teacher as Writer
    • Teacher Inquiry
  • Blog
    • Events & Opportunities
    • NWP Radio
    • Marginal Syllabus
  • Books
  • Contact
  • NWP.org

Historical Fiction in English and Social Studies Classrooms: Is It a Natural Marriage?

193 views 0

Author: KaaVonia Hinton, Yonghee Suh, Lourdes Colón-Brown, and Maria O’Hearn

Summary: What happens when history and ELA teachers form a study group to develop understandings of disciplinary literacy and ways this new knowledge might affect each person’s practice? As members read and reflected together on historical fiction and nonfiction, they found that reading texts from both disciplines helped to more fully contextualize a historical period and promote historical empathy. This piece could generate ideas for forming similar study groups and provide an opportunity for teachers to delve into questions and issues related to disciplinary literacy within a professional development forum.

Original Date of Publication: January 2014


Excerpt

Download “Historical Fiction in English and Social Studies Classrooms: Is It a Natural Marriage?

We also found that when using historical fiction in their classrooms, teachers of both subject matters wish to promote another key habit of mind: historical empathy, which needs to be built upon contextualizing the historical period. In English, it has been suggested that young adult fiction ‘can offer a connection to alienated students, mirror the lives of young adults and provide a forum for adolescents to discuss what it means to come of age, including navigating difficult problems, accessing tools needed to become problem solvers, and fostering empathy’ (Bucher and Hinton 10; Stallworth). More specifically, historical details build empathy and help students understand why characters in historical novels make certain decisions, thus humanizing historical periods and events (Bucher and Hinton; Nawrot).


Related Resources

  • Disciplinary, Content-Area Literacy: An Annotated Bibliography
  • VoiceThread Ties Together Student Voices, Images, and Writing

Original Source: National Writing Project, https://www.nwp.org/cs/public/print/resource/4559

  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pocket (Opens in new window)
  • Click to print (Opens in new window)
  • Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window)
Tags:middle/high schoolcurriculumcross-disciplinaryhistoryreflective practiceliterature

Would you recommend this resource to others?

Yes  No
ABOUT

write.learn.lead. is a collection of resources, insights, and reflections from National Writing Project teacher-leaders. You can also find us at nwp.org and Educator Innovator.

SEARCH BY TAG
access advocacy art badge bibliography Building New Pathways to Leadership career technical coaching college/university community connected learning coronavirus cross-disciplinary dual language elementary environmental studies framework grammar/correctness immigrant journalism KB Feature key reading language acquisition math multimodal music online learning out of school literacies parent involvement partnership poetry reading reading/writing connection research revision school-year program social justice standards student samples teacher leadership technology testing urban video writing process
NWP Logo
NWP ON THE WEB
NWP.org
Educator Innovator
The Current
STAY CONNECTED WITH NWP
Get more great resources on teaching and writing delivered to your inbox every month by subscribing to our Write Now Newsletter.
  • © 2020 National Writing Project. All Rights Reserved. Privacy Policy | Terms of Use

 

Loading Comments...