Synthesis Blog #4

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

Teachers formed a study group to better understand disciplinary literacy. The group compared historical fiction and nonfiction text through several meetings using adobe connect. They started with fiction, discussing what they believed to be the best approach for introducing this text to students. Between each meeting, the teachers would reflect on their peer's viewpoints which surfaced connections and challenges. The teachers all agreed that they wanted their students to have historical empathy before reading because it would help them to see the perspective of people during whichever time the book’s setting was placed in. Halfway through the article, the researchers detail how the context of works of fiction are more understandable if students read nonfiction text before. This showed me the importance of these teachers collaborating because teachers of social studies and ELA will differ in their approach for instruction. From their meetings, they can see how to incorporate teaching methods from the other side to benefit their students. One of the challenges the teachers faced where they placed works of fiction primarily for ELA and nonfiction for social studies teachers has me questioning how teachers in working the same school would collaborate. Would they only discuss text to working on furthering each other’s understanding of the best teaching practices or align their instruction so that they're able to bring knowledge from another class? Overall, this article is useful for ELA teachers because it shows how providing historical background information around a piece of literature allows students to think critically. I believe social studies teachers benefit from this article because it shows why historical fiction should be seen as a valid argument for the past because it shows the perspectives of people during those times.
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