Historical Fiction Writing Through Literature Study of Culture
What I Did in My Classroom
1.
Brainstormed
Òwhat makes culture?Ó
2.
Allowed
students to choose the event or time period they wanted. I had three choices: Westward Movement, The Great Depression
Era and World War II in Europe.
3.
Once
in groups, they received a K-W-L chart to fill in
the K and W column about culture during that time. K Ð What do they know about the culture of that time? W Ð What would they like to know about
the culture of that time?
4.
Then
they were given fiction and nonfiction books on those topics. They were allowed plenty of time to
read, share books and information.
5.
Next,
they were given the assignment to examine the writing of the two different
types of books. How were the
stories made realistic, what did the author do? How is fiction writing
different from nonfiction? How did
fiction writers get culture across?
How is it done with nonfiction?
6.
After
examining the writing, as a class we filled in a Venn diagram comparing and
contrasting fiction and nonfiction writing. No matter the time period, the results were the same. Fiction writing has more adjectives,
shows culture with pictures sometimes, very descriptive. Nonfiction is basically just the facts
and usually uses pictures to relay cultural details.
7.
They
continued to read, making sure everyone saw each book and, as a group, filled
in L column of the K Ð W Ð L sheet.
8.
Individually,
after the sheet is filled in, the students did some nonfiction writing. Each student picks a piece of culture
from that time period that is particularly relevant. Example: Food during the Great Depression or
transportation during westward expansion.
Then they wrote a nonfiction paragraph of just the facts. They could use the books if they
wanted, but didnÕt need to. I would not let them just copy stuff out of books,
many wanted to.
9.
Finally
to the fiction writing! I gave
them three formats in which they could write. They were formats they had not written in before so I had
examples of each. The formats
were: monologue, vignette, and scene. They then wrote a part of a story in one of the formats with
a focus on the aspect of culture they just wrote the nonfiction paragraph
about. Many students had a problem
with this until they imagined a much bigger story and narrowed it down to a
moment, a crucial turning point or decision for a character. For those students that still had
trouble, I let them get a fiction picture book and had them chose a picture and
write a vignette of what that person was thinking or feeling at that moment.