Lesson 1.6

HISTORICAL FICTION

LESSON OBJECTIVES

By the end of the lesson, students will be able to…

1. describe the general story and characters of a Historical Fiction novel excerpt
2. find genre elements present in Historical Fiction novels
3. discuss cultural aspects present in the Historical Fiction novel excerpts

PREPARATION AND BACKGROUND

• Ideally, read each of the novels. At the very least, read the excerpts for each of the novels and be familiar with the overall plot, themes, and historical contexts of each novel.

MATERIALS

• "Homework: Reading Questions"
• The excerpts for this Historical Fiction lesson are listed below in order from easiest to more difficult. Click on the titles to open the link to the pdf. The starred (*) selections may be above the reading level of high-intermediate ESL students and are supplementary.

HISTORICAL FICTION (9,000-10,000)
Title	Author	Flesch-Kincaid Reading Ease	Average Grade Level (Native Speaker)
The Grapes of Wrath	John Steinbeck	90.8	4.8
Beloved	Toni Morrison	87.3	5.4
Cold Mountain	Charles Frazier	79.6	7.2
Gone with the Wind	Margaret Mitchell	77	7

LESSON PLAN

A. Teacher greeting and introduction (whole class) (3 min)

B. Discussion on Assigned Reading (small groups) (10 min)

**NOTE: Students who read the same excerpt should be in the same group together. (The group size will depend on how many students are in your class.)**

Students should get into groups to discuss the "Homework: Reading Questions" handout. Encourage students to be prepared to discuss any cultural insights or questions they have from the reading. Encourage students to be prepared to share the plot and characters later in class.

C. Context Discussion (whole class) (10 minutes)

Discuss as a class how the readings they read this time relate to American culture. Briefly discuss any social or historical significance. (They will do the research later, so there is no need to go into too much detail here.) Ask students if they have seen any of the movies based on these novels. Tell them that all of the books actually have movies based on them and the movie is one interpretation of the book.

D. Jigsaw Discussion (small groups) (15 min)

Arrange students so that students who read different excerpts are in a group together (i.e., each excerpt should be represented by one student in each group).

Instruct students to share the plot so far and the characters in their stories. Encourage students to ask each other questions about the books.

E. Finding Genre Characteristics through Similarities (same small groups as Part D) (10 min)

Students should try to figure out similarities between their stories. Students should discuss the general genre characteristics that they found through sharing the stories and how close they are to what they learned about the genre in the first lesson.

F. Wrap-up (2 min)

Homework: Tell students to choose one novel of all the novels that they have discussed to read in its entirety throughout the course. This novel can be one of the excerpts they have read or an excerpt that a classmate told them about.