Using Literature and Storytelling in the History/Social Studies Classroom

 

OPENING READING: Resources for Using Literature in the History/Social Studies Classroom   Choose Either Activity 1 or Activity 2   Activity 1: Contribute Historical Resources to Book Wiki Pages     Activity 2: Record Yourself Reading Aloud Using Radio Reading Strategies     OPTIONAL: Ideas for Designing a Comic Book or Graphic History Learning Plan      Assignment Due October 12 at 4:00 PM

 

 

 

READ: Resources for Using Literature in the History/Social Studies Classroom

 

An Exercise in Digital Storytelling, Edutopia (September 8, 2021)

 

• VIDEO: A Poetic Experiment: Walt Whitman Poem Interpreted by Three Animators

 

Inspiring Children's Books About Labor Rights

 

Books That Shaped America from the Library of Congress

Study: Let Kids Pick Their Own Books (May 20, 2015)

Bringing Great Historical Literature into the Classroom: An Annotated Bibliography, JFK Library

Lesson Plans for American History and Literature from the National Humanities Center

 

Book Bento Boxes

• Bento is a Japanese term of single serve take away meal that is served in a box – traditionally lacquered wood – with separate sections for different portions.

 

• Applying this structure to a literature response strategy results in Book Bento boxes

 

 

Planning to use fiction and nonfiction books, young adult literature, and/or picture books in history/social studies classes creates complex dilemmas for teachers.

 

• On the one hand, there is not enough time in the school week for students to read entire books.

 

• On the other hand, literature provides invaluable context and meaning for understanding historical events and people.

 

What most teachers do is use books to highlight historical material and focus on key themes. For example:

 

• Learning about Ancient Greece by integrating scenes from The Iliad and The Odyssey.

 

•  Exploring 20th Century Russian history and Stalin as an authoritarian dictator by connecting to One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Aleksander Solzhenitsyn.

 

• The study of the American War in Vietnam by using Tim O'Brien book In the Lake of the Woods. 

 

 

Activity 1: Contribute Historical Resources to Literature or Picture Book Wiki Pages

 

This first activity shows you how to construct wiki pages for key literature to use with middle and high school students to expand their understanding of history and its impacts on people and societies.

 

DIRECTIONS

• Choose 1 title from the following list of wiki pages devoted to U.S. History Literature, World History Literature or Picture Books & Trade Books. It can be title you know or a title that is new to you.

 

• Review at least 3 of the materials on the page, looking for video, audio, or interactive web resources that you could use in an in-person or virtual learning plan.

 

• Propose at least one new historical resource to the wiki page for the book you selected 
• Resources could include primary sources, secondary sources, timelines, biographical information, modern-day connections, or student learning materials.
• Emphasize video, audio, or interactive web resources from historically reliable sources (museums, history organizations, government sites). 
• For more, go to Examples of Where to Find Reliable Resources

 

• Add one paragraph on why you chose that resource(s) as well as what historical content it will help students learn.

 

United States History Literature

 

• 1984 and Animal Farm

• The Great Gatsby

• The Grapes of Wrath

• The Crucible

• Walden

• Fahrenheit 451

• The Jungle

• To Kill a Mockingbird 

• Uncle Tom's Cabin

• The Jungle

• The Handmaid's Tale

• In the Lake of the Woods 

 

World History Literature

 

• The Epic of Gilgamesh
• The Iliad and The Odyssey 
• Antigone by Sophocles
• Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare
• Don Quixote by Cervantes
• Machiavelli and The Prince
• The Tale of Genji
• All Quiet on the Western Front
• One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich
• Things Fall Apart
• The Heart of Darkness
• Dante and the Divine Comedy
• Chaucer and the Canterbury Tales
• Quotations from Chairman Mao 

 

 

Picture Books & Trade Books

 

Bull Run by Paul Fleischman 

 

Hugo Cabret and the Birth of Modern Cinema

 

The Red Pencil by Andrea Davis Pinkney

 

The Watsons Go To Birmingham, 1963

 

Who Came Down That Road? by George Ella Lyon 

 

 So Far From the Bamboo Grove by Yoko Kawashima Watkins 

 

Afrika by Collen Craig

 

Chain of Fire by Beverely Naidoo

 

The Peter Rabbit Books and Beatrix Potter, Natural Scientist

 

The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind

 

Ninth Ward by Jewel Parker Rhodes

 

Refugee by Alan Gratz

 

A Long Walk to Water

 

Year of Impossible Goodbyes

 

Activity 2: Record Yourself Reading Aloud Using Radio Reading

 

 

As we are using the term, Reading Aloud Using Radio Reading is a form of theatrical performance in which a reader uses vocal tones, body language, facial expressions and gestures to convey the emotion and excitement of a book or a document. Like an actor on a stage, the reader draws listeners into the reading by creating an engaging and dramatic experience.

 

Reading Aloud Using Radio Reading can be done with primary sources and historical events as shown in this video where an 8th grade class discusses the Boston Massacre.

 

Reading Aloud Using Radio Reading can also be done with literature, either adult fiction or nonfiction, young adult literature or picture books to capture audience attention and make learning memorable. 

 

 Here is an Radio Reading example of an young adult book: Kwame Alexander Reads on Extract from Booked

 

This activity offers you the opportunity to begin developing your read aloud and radio reading skills.

 

DIRECTIONS

 

1) REVIEW:  StoryLine Online

 

• Storyline Online® streams videos featuring celebrated actors reading children’s books alongside creatively produced illustrations. Readers include Oprah Winfrey, Chris Pine, Kristen Bell, Rita Moreno, Viola Davis, Jaime Camil, Kevin Costner, Lily Tomlin, Sarah Silverman, Betty White, Wanda Sykes and dozens more. 
• Watch 2 videos to see how these professional actors engage in radio reading. 

 

2) SELECT A BOOK From one of the following lists that relates to the History/Social Studies Content You Are or Will Be Teaching

 

Notable Social Studies Trade Books 2019 (National Council for the Social Studies)

 

Notable Social Studies Trade Books 2018 (National Council for the Social Studies)

 

Notable Social Studies Trade Books 2017 (National Council for the Social Studies)

 

 

3) Locate the book you selected on Amazon or from your Local Library

 

• Amazon offers Free Previews (called LOOK INSIDE) of the beginning pages from most new books

 

4) Record Yourself Reading Aloud the opening pages of the book you selected Using Radio Reading Strategies

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Activity 3: Design a Comic Book and Graphic History Learning Plan

 

Choose 2 of the Following Resources to READ

 

But This Book Has Pictures! The Case for Graphic Novels in an AP Classroom

 

Comic Books in the History Classroom from Teachinghistory.org

 

Using Superhero Comics to Teach English and History, Edutopia (April 13, 2014)

 

Why Teach with Comics? from Reading with Pictures

20 Ways to Use Comics in the Your Classroom

See also, No Flying No Tights, a blog about excellent graphic books for use in the classroom.

Comic Books as Journalism: 10 Masterpieces of Graphic Nonfiction, The Atlantic, August 10, 2011

A Graphic Literature Library, Time, November 2003.

Strange Fruit, Volume 1: Uncelebrated Narratives from Black History. Joel Christian Gill, 2014

 

 

Design a Comic Book/Graphic History Learning Plan

 

 

 

 

 

EXTRA

 

Writing Fiction and Nonfiction Stories, Bookcase for Young Writers

 

 

 

 

Reader's Theatre

 

The Trial of Anne Hutchinson, Huntington Library