Introduction to Using Historical Fiction in the Classroom

Use historical fiction, reader's theater, book discussion groups and a plethora of interesting non-fiction titles to take a trip with your 4th and 5th graders through Americas Westward Expansion! We have book titles beginning with the Lewis & Clark Expedition, ending roughly with the building of the transcontinental railroads at the end of the 19th century, and with plenty of interesting stops in between!

In the state of Washington, and other states as well, Westward Expansion is part of the standard 4th or 5th grade curriculum. The purpose of this site is support those curriculum standards by providing teachers with a variety of resources to use in teaching their 4th and 5th grade Westward Expansion units. While we have focused on the idea of using historical fiction as part of these units, we have also provided lists of non-fiction books on the topics we covered and links to lesson plans available on the web.

Historical fiction takes historical events and historical settings, and creates stories about what might have happened in the past. Authors research the settings and types of people they are writing about. Some, such as The Captain's Dog, follow the course of real events and the lives of real people based on what we know about them from historical documents, and fill in the story around what we know from those records. For instance, The Captain's Dog, which tells the story of the Lewis and Clark expedition from the point of view of Meriweather Lewis' Newfoundland dog Seaman, uses entries from Lewis' actual journals and draws information about the expedition from the detailed journals that were kept by members of the expedition. Others, such as The Ballad of Lucy Whipple and Night of the Full Moon, tell fictional stories in historical settings, often based on an amalgam of experiences drawn from the historical record. In both cases, authors need to do plenty of research on what people were like, what they did, what they wore, what they ate, and so forth. We have also included Patty Reed's Doll which is a non-fiction book about the Donner Party in narrative form.

The great thing about historical fiction is the way it can bring history to life. Historical fiction can take what we know about a time period or series of historical events from journals, drawings, paintings, records, letters, and other documents, and weave a story around them. Part of what makes historical fiction so interesting is the portrayal of everyday details and events that are often left out of the history books. Historical fiction can help students to understand history. It can also provide students with a richness of experience that cannot be had from textbooks, immersing them in the events and settings they are learning about.

This Web Site Provides the Following Resources For Teaching Westward Expansion:

• Reader's Theater Scripts for using historical fiction in the classroom.
• Book Discussion Questions for using historical fiction in the classroom.
• Lists of historical fiction books for six core Westward Expansion topics: Lewis & Clark, Traveling Westward, The Gold Rush, Pioneer Life, Native Americans in the Period of Westward Expansion, and The Transcontinental Railroad.
• Lists of Non-Fiction titles covering the same six core topics.
• Links to Lesson Plans for these six core Westward Expansion topics, including lesson plans incorporating historical fiction.

This web site was produced by:

Anne Miller, Karen Andring, and Aurora Grey
Students at the University of Washington Information School

Send Comments to: auror42@earthlink.net