The Use of Historical Fiction in the Language Classroom: A Pedagogical Proposal for Teachers of English (original) (raw)
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L2 Journal, 2012
The article addresses the didactic questions of what, why and how aspects of culture and history can be-and should be, it is argued-an integral part of all foreign and second language teaching and learning. In particular, it is argued that the study of literary fiction within tertiary foreign language education can function as a gateway for students to develop not only a stronger interest in and knowledge of cultural history, but also a better understanding of the complexity of historical representation, public memory and self-identity. Drawing on current theories of narrative discourse and historical representation, as well as the experience of having taught a foreign language course in Sweden dealing with fictional representations of culturally important periods in US history, the paper shows how a personal engagement with these "little narratives," to use Lyotard's term, can enhance foreign language students' understanding of, not only important historical events and periods in the shaping of contemporary American culture, but also of the importance of textual representation and cultural "grand narratives" in the shaping of collective identities and personal subjectivities.
2016
This investigation will analyze how the genre historical fiction, more specifically the novel Falling Angels (2001) written by Tracy Chevalier, can be used in the EFL (English as Foreign Language) classroom in upper secondary school in Sweden. It will argue that the different themes approached by the novel are interesting points of departure to be used in the classroom for both language learning and personal development, according to the requirements of the Swedish National Agency for Education. The investigation consists of an analysis of the novel using New Historicism as a theoretical framework and using as reference the Swedish national curriculum for upper secondary school, as well as the English and history syllabi. The genre historical fiction was chosen due to its popularity and possibility of discussing historical, social and cultural aspects of the countries where English is used. This particular novel was chosen for some reasons: the first is the narrative technique with ...
Introducing the ‘Linguistic Turn’ to History Education
Research studies aimed at exploring how secondary school students engage in doing history, develop historical reasoning and understanding often times neglected the theoretical frameworks that ahistorians of different orientations use to study the past. As a result of this oversight, some historical concepts are sometimes weakly defined, ambiguously used, or confused with other concepts. In order to contribute to the effort to provide students with rewarding and meaningful experiences in doing history, this article aims to enhance teacher educators' and teachers' understanding of different modes of historical writing by bringing into attention a recent school of historical thought's conceptual framework, methods, principal concepts, ideological positions, and pre-eminent practitioners. It also maps out the key debates, criticisms, and arguments that historians of different historical orientations engaged in.
Teaching World Literatures in English: Inside the US, Outside the Whale
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bell hooks insists that ideas are not "neutral" (50). Th e English professor of yore, however, purported to be an objective disseminator of knowledge. What happens when that professor is replaced by a West African man or a South Asian woman? Global migration has resulted not only in a changing student body but in a changing cohort of English professors, and this new demographic often teaches in a manner that "talks back" to cultural hegemony. How might students in the American academy respond when canonical British or American texts are taught by someone they perceive as outside of that lineage and without claim to the canon? Or when professors teach both canonical and postcolonial texts in their historical and political contexts without shying away from the dialectic between literature and history or literature and politics? Is the exposition of epistemic violence perceived as a political agenda? Literature classes provide, or should provide, students with the skills to read the world as text, both critically and in context. But whose text, whose context, which literature, and, indeed, whose world? An intersectional academic approach to literary texts that interrogates the positions of power from which writing and cultural expression originate can be seen by students as somehow contaminative or even threatening. As Gayatri Spivak notes, the historian and the teacher of literature "must critically 'interrupt' each other, bring each other to crisis" (Other Worlds 241). Th is article explores contesting cultural, structural, and subject positions within the classroom and the academy. It discusses the problematics of ownership over stories in contemporary United States classrooms and interrogates the consequences of a pedagogical approach that foregrounds historicist/political analysis of literary texts.
Século XXI: Revista de Relações Internacionais, 2023
This article explores the similarities between historical narrative and historical fiction. History as it is traditionally interpreted and reported may or may not be entirely accurate or reliable, but is generally accepted as "history". Historical fiction also shares these same properties and furthermore can give deeper insights into characters and events in a more engaging manner allowing the reader to connect and to relate more to these characters and events from the past than a history narrative would, thus forming a bridge between academic study and popular engagement with history. In this paper, I examine historiography and the historical novel and show through three examples that history can be studied and learned equally through reading a historical narrative or a historical-fictional account.
DESPITE NUMEROUS ATTEMPTS at reforming the teaching of history, high school students still rate it as the least exciting subject they study. 1 Yet recent research shows that interdisciplinary curricula, particularly in the humanities, can have positive benefits for students. These include increased student motivation, increased student performance, a better understanding of and ability to retain content, encouragement of multiple points of view and perspectives, increased critical and creative thinking, and a means of dealing with the postmodern problem of fragmented knowledge. 2 In addition , there are benefits particular to using literature in social studies classes. Using fiction may help break down artificial barriers between disciplines, engaging students in reading and thereby truly integrating literacy with social studies. Discussions of form and its impact on shaping the presentation of content are rarely clearer than they are when reading literature, and this can make students more aware of the ways content is represented in text books and primary source documents. Literature is also a powerful tool for integrating and highlighting voices from the past-especially those of children, minorities, women, and the poor-that may not be those generally heard or read by students in their historical studies. In this article, we offer a series of strategies to help teachers integrate
Expanding Representations for Historical Content in Literacy
Literacy Practice and Research, 2021
Literacy educators enrich their professional toolkits with a historical understanding of the field. In our argument for the need for an increased focus on history in the preparation of literacy educators, we look, perhaps unsurprisingly, back into history. Three decades ago, in an interview with Richard Robinson (1990), E. Jennifer Monaghan, one of the literacy field's most effective advocates for history, offered a case for the history of reading. Looking at the history of a subject gives us a perspective that no other approach can offer. It prevents us from falsifying the past, whether by romanticizing it or downgrading it unfairly. It also enables us to detect swings of the pendulum as well as identify fads. History makes one think, too. It's easier to see where things go wrong in contexts that are different from our own. Then you use those insights to analyze the present. (p. 151) Even though Monaghan's words are from 30 years ago, her argument for understanding the history of reading speaks to current needs in the field. Current literacy educators live amidst daily reminders for reexamining the past, particularly in regard to issues of race and equity. Literacy was and is instrumental in the unequal allocation of rights and goods (Stuckey, 1991; Lankshear & Lawler, 1987). Literacy educators also habitually face reductionist debates over the role of phonics in literacy education, currently labeled the Science of Reading. Understanding the historical nature of this psycholinguistic puzzle may provide new insight. In these two examples, the history of our professional field offers the potential to understand and to critically examine current issues that are at the heart of the field, rather than considering these issues as strictly contemporary phenomena.
History as Counter Discourse: Fictional Interventions in the Process of Remembering
South Asian Review, 2004
It has been asserted by postcolonial critics like Homi K. Bhabha that the discourse of national histories runs counter to fictional narratives. 1 Such an assertion, naturally, raises a host of questions: what is the nature of "history" and its relation to temporality-or to the physical reality and to the fictional construct? Further, if it is a counter discourse, what is it that it is opposing or questioning? History needs not necessarily be a discourse: it needs not be dialogic, nor does it become so merely through an act of reinterpretation. Multiple locations, multiple perspectives, and shifting power relations may lead to reinterpretations and different collocations of the events and acts remembered. The process of remembering itself may be influenced by a number of factors--conscious and unconscious. The nature of memory being what it is, a whole set of ideas, unformed once, may form themselves into various kinds of combinations as one tries to make sense of the event...
"I like […] different time periods:" elementary teachers' uses of historical fiction
Social Studies Research and Practice, 2019
Purpose-The purpose of this paper is to explore how and why teachers use historical fiction in their classroom (e.g. selection and instruction) through the lenses of their pedagogical content knowledge (Shulman, 1986) and pedagogical tools (Grossman et al., 1999). Design/methodology/approach-The authors explored the following questions: In what ways do elementary school teachers, more specifically fifth grade teachers responsible for early US history as part of their social studies curriculum, use historical fiction in their classrooms? and What factors do elementary school teachers consider when they select historical fiction to use in their classrooms? In order to explore these questions, the authors interviewed eight fifth grade teachers. The authors describe the ways in which these teachers use historical fiction as part of their social studies instruction by employing collective case study (Stake, 1994). Findings-This study has reified this notion that historical fiction is widely used by fifth grade teachers. The authors identified that these teachers are choosing texts that allow them to integrate their language arts and social studies instruction in effective and engaging ways. Many participants described choosing the texts purposefully to address social studies standards during their language arts time. Despite many of these teachers using prescribed curricula for language arts instruction and following state standards for social studies, the teachers in this study felt free to make curricular decisions related to integration. Most importantly, when given this freedom, they chose to integrate purposefully with quality texts. Research limitations/implications-The primary limitation of this research study is the small sample size (n ¼ 8). However among the eight teacher participants, there are two states are represented, varied teaching contexts (e.g. departmentalized, self-contained classrooms), and many years of classroom social studies teaching experience. Originality/value-The Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts (CCSS) (Council of Chief State School Officers and the National Governors Association, 2010) have prompted teachers to present both informational text and literature in equal balance in upper elementary grades. Little research has been done in the last decade about the ways in which historical fiction addresses these standards.