NCTCA 2015 WRITING HISTORICAL FICTION ©Lois Donovan 2015

Senses / Sight / Sound / Touch/
Feel / Taste / Smell
NEWSPAPER
ARTICLE / Snow spread its soft white mantle over the ground / Shrieking of whistles. Clanging of bells / Frost put a tang in the air
TIME TRAVEL / Words blurred together
Coloured specks
Smeared my vision
Kaleidoscope of whirling colours / Rubbing my eyes
Every blood vessel in my head pulsed
Pounding drum beat
THE HOUSE/PARTY / Colourful quilt, narrow dresser, silver brush and comb set
Sparkling chandelier
Blue fog
Shiny satin gowns / Voices outside the door.
Voices grew louder
Laugh tinkling like crystal
Living room buzzed / Scrunched quilt between my fingers
Panic clenched my stomach
Tiredness pulled at my body / Stinky, smoky smell drifted into the room
Smoke grew stronger
No smoke lingered

SETTING CHART - Time Travel Scene of The Journal

SENSES / Sight / Sound / Touch / Taste / Smell
WEATHER
TERRAIN/
Environ-ment
CLOTHING
fashion
TRANSPORTATION
HOUSING/
buildings
MOOD
atmosphere

CREATE A FACEBOOK PAGE

For a historical character

Make a faux Facebook page for a historical person from a significant historical event.

Here are some ideas about what to include:

Photos

Friends – Who were his contemporaries? Create a list of people who may want to be “friends” on Facebook.

Timeline – Write 5 entries on the timeline. Each by a different person. Include responses by your character and also by others to each entry. What else was happening at this time in the world? Remember people can post on this site from anywhere in the world.

About – jobs, education, where he lives, family

Groups – Was he a member of some interesting groups?

More – dropdown menu under “more” on the Facebook page lists lots of categories. Use the ones that fit your historical character.

Eyewitness Account

Have you ever been witness to a situation and been asked to explain what happened? Was your retelling the same as other people’s? Here is an activity to test your student’s observation skills as they participate in this “Eye Witness” event.

Plan ahead to have someone come into your class. We’ll call this person Sam.

Give students an assignment (or quiet reading) to do at their desks. When Sam comes into the room he needs to do several things, such as:

Put a book on the teacher’s desk

Take a stapler from a table and put it in a bag

Put a magazine on the ledge of the whiteboard

Tack a notice to the bulletin board

Talk to someone

After Sam leaves the room, have the students write down all the things that happened. Once everyone has finished writing, find out what everyone remembers and what they did not.

What details do they remember? What did Sam wear? How long was Sam in the room? What book did Sam take? Who did Sam talk to? Etc.

Compare how everyone's memory was the same and different.

To make it more challenging, wait until later in the day to get the students to answer the questions. Or ask leading questions to influence the answers, such as What style of jacket did Sam wear (if Sam was not wearing a jacket.)

ASSIGNMENTS:

1. After comparing the various answers, have students write an eye witness account of a particular historic event from the point of view of two different characters.

2. Read a newspaper article to the class. Students imagine they are a bystander or an eyewitness at the event. Have them describe the scene using all of their senses, then tell what happened, exactly as they remember it. Then have them write about the same event from the perspective of the opposite sex, or an adult and a child. Does it make a difference to what they noticed?

HISTORICAL FICTION WRITING IDEAS

Play the What-If game with students. Students imagine, what-if a particular historical figure made a different decision? What impact would that have on the historical event? What would the result be for the present. What if Governor Lawrence had not deported the Acadians? What if Emily Murphy had not challenged the Supreme Court of Canada’s ruling about the rights of women? What if the provinces had not become one country?

Once students have discussed possible outcomes, have them write

a scene from the alternate reality.

Have students write a particular scene from a historical fiction novel from a different point of view.

Write a dialogue between two historic characters.

Create a radio broadcast about an historic event (regardless of whether or not radio was invented yet!)

Write a newspaper or magazine article about an historic event.

ARTEFACT STORY PROMPT

  • Each student brings an artifact from home. It should be small enough to carry in one hand and have some significance to the owner (e.g. gift, treasure, souvenir, symbol etc.)
  • Students share their artifact with the group, telling about its significance.
  • Each student brings an artefact from home. It should be small enough to carry in one hand and ideally, have some significance to the family (something that has been in the family for years or something that the student will pass down to future generarions because of its significance.)A photo would also work if the artefact is too valuable to bring to school.
  • Students share their artefact with a small group, telling about its significance.
  • Each student draws a picture of the artefact in the centre of a piece of paper, and then brainstorms words describing the artefact, which they add to the page. After a couple of minutes, have students hand their page to the person on their right.
  • Each student then adds descriptive words on his neighbours artefact page, moving the pages to the right every couple of minutes until all the pages have been passed around the group.**
  • Turn the page over and rotate papers around the group again for the ROLE the artefact might play in a story, or USES for the artefact.
  • Students write a historical fiction story in which the artefact plays a significant role. This will include a historical setting. For example, my Mi’kmaq quill box will involve the Mi’kmaq people pre-confederation rather than the story of how the quill box came to me, although that too would make an intriguing story. A special coin will fit into the coin’s time period. Or maybe it is a glass from the ’88 Olympics.

**The beauty of this approach is that after only a few minutes, every student has a page with several descriptive words/ideas on it.