Reflect on Your Practice

In this section, you will reflect on ways that you have conducted activities that integrate literature into your history classroom. Discuss the following questions with your colleagues or reflect on them in your journal. Use specific examples wherever possible.

1. When incorporating literature into your study of history, do you team with an English teacher from your school and have students do their related study in two classes, or do you include the literature as part of your own curriculum? What are some of the advantages and challenges of using each approach?
2. What do students gain by studying history through literature? What are the limits of learning history through this lens?
3. When time is a factor, how can you effectively use excerpts instead of the entire novel in the history classroom?
4. How much background should be supplied about an author before students engage with the literature in a history class? In the case of The Grapes of Wrath is it necessary and/or relevant to discuss Steinbeck's political background with students?
5. Compare the focus of an English teacher and a history teacher when using the same piece of literature. What are some types of questions each would ask students about the literature? What might be the focus of the study of the piece of literature in an English class? What would the primary focus be in a history class?