Why teach with historical fiction?
The nature of historical fiction automatically encourages critical thinking because the reader is constantly urged to question the veracity of the account of the past being read. Because the writing is fiction, the reader is always aware that it is an interpretation of the past and that “truth” needs to be found in a broader context. This contrasts with the basic history textbooks found in nearly all schools that promote the idea that everything in them is true and beyond question. The textbook is, by its essential makeup, antithetical to critical thinking because it presents itself as a problem solved. The fictional story is inherently unsettled and problematic. The good educationally useful novel presents multiple perspectives to stimulate speculation and “what ifs,” leaving students to think through dilemmas and decide for themselves.
What makes most historical fiction educationally useless?
It is often mistakenly said that historical fiction is useful because it brings the big movers and shapers of the past to life and shows them to be real people with real human emotions, weaknesses and passions. The problem with this claim is that there is no way of knowing accurately about the intimacies of past people and delving into that arena is not likely to be very “historical.” Also, this “peeking into windows” is not even educationally important since it is the public actions that count in the great scheme of things, not personal idiosyncrasies. And, once the author, or film director, begins to “make up” the details in the lives of real people the tendency to sensationalize in pursuit of more exciting or titillating entertainment is very real. Besides, it isn’t possible to create a fictional account of a real historic person. The two ideas are inherently incompatible. By definition fictionalizing creates a fabricated and false picture, and unfortunately one that will undoubtedly be accepted by many students as true. Educators must not do this. It is maddening today for teachers seeking useful fiction, either in print or on film, to see an important historical figure recreated and often terribly distorted to suit the whim of some author or to create a more compelling plot twist for some movie director, knowing that this will likely be the most impressionable image students will have. And further, the often heard author’s defense of creative license that while the details are all contrived somehow the resulting impression is “true” is patent nonsense.
In keeping with this caution, a corollary to it in much historical fiction is its too common tendency to use the past to promote a relevant contemporary moral theme and come to a closure for the historical period or person that validates the author’s perspective. In other words, the authors or directors try to be “politically correct” from the perspective of their own or their audience’s social conscience. This obviously undermines a book’s or movie’s objective usefulness in the classroom. The Julius Caesars and George Washingtons ought to be left to the historians and contemporary values not be foisted onto the past.
And finally, for the most part, engaging novels that are historically accurate and don’t succumb to these weaknesses, are either simply too long and tedious or they illuminate so small a segment of history as to not be practical in the classroom.
What are the keys to educationally useful historical fiction?
1. The story must parallel the basic textbook, touch on the same events that the course will cover and not slow the pace of the class.
2. The plot must be driven by the important historical social and political turning points that the teacher will be stressing and the characters offer stimulating insights about them. To do this, the novel must skillfully recreate a slice of the past and accurately put its players and plot directly into the path of actual seminal historical events. It must be more than entertaining; it must also be intellectually challenging and open doors for further study. In this fictional setting, the relevance of the actual history comes alive for the students who begin to understand the arena within which the historic events occurred and can thereby better find meaning in the myriad of discreet facts assailing them from other classroom sources. The novel brings the history to life and provides the skilled teacher with an arsenal of discussion starters and instructional supports.
3. The story can not “go over the top” and must be believable at the ordinary human level; historical accuracy can never be compromised to make the novel more outrageous or seem more compelling. Students must be captured by the actual nexus of the past and feel its power as the power of truth.
4. Language must be carefully constructed so as to mimic the tone of the historic period without becoming mired in arcane idiom and phraseology that would be burdensome for young readers. Students should have a sense of being transported back in time and feel themselves to be in a strange place. This essential air of authenticity that the novel must possess is built from countless bits of accurate period reality artfully woven into the prose.
5. The novel must stream its story around and between the real public figures and events of an historic era, but should not be directly about them. Its drama should focus on ordinary individuals whose lives are battered and buffeted by the colossal events of their time. The students will naturally identify with these people, who are men and women very much like them, their friends and families, and whose hopes, fears and dreams are no different from their own. They will root for some and dislike, even despise others and in this way the novel will add a rich human dimension to an otherwise painfully thin textbook timeline picture of the past. Through the fictional story the students see history in real human terms, as the stuff of common people confronted with extraordinary challenges.
6. The historical novel, like history itself, must remain an unfinished story reflecting the several perspectives and frames of reference that always complicate life. The only moral perspective in the novel must be that of its own time. The critical thinking benefits are potentially enormous. In the end, students will judge the ethical decisions of the characters they have encountered and begin to develop a sense of historical perspective, since, as they compare the events and decisions in the story to their own personal experiences, they will naturally ask “what would I have done?” This is the only meaningful way to make a connection to the present and help students to see the relevance of history. Effective critical thinking strategies require that students be allowed to do this for themselves. There must not be a “moral to the story.”