Historical Fiction Through Fifth Graders’ Eyes
REBECCA BARONE, BETHANY OSWALT, & DIANE BARONE
Abstract
Historical fiction is a complex genre as it includes both fiction and nonfiction. We
explored fifth grade students’ understandings of historical fiction by examining their
written comments during their reading. We discovered that the students focused most
noticeably on the narrative. The Fact Finder job led students to consider the history
surrounding the story. We observed slight changes over time where students began to
describe vocabulary and historical events and how they connected to the narrative.
Introduction
Historical fiction is a genre that includes both fiction and fact. Apol, Sakuma,
Reynolds, and Rop (2002) write, “historical fiction is situated at the intersection between
two artificial and often problematic ways of managing the world of literature for children;
balanced on the cusp of the fiction/nonfiction divide, historical fiction is neither, and it is
both” (p. 430). It is just this balance that intrigued us. Although adult readers understand
this complexity within historical fiction, we were not sure that fifth grade students
grasped the duality of historical fiction. We explored what these students focused upon
when reading historical fiction – was it the story or the facts about a time period or both?
Fifth grade teachers, Becky and Bethany, and Diane, a university professor, have
been exploring students’ understandings of a variety of genres. Through these
explorations, we wanted to move beyond a single focus on comprehension and
comprehension strategies to discover the nuances of comprehension coupled with specific
genres.
The genre of historical fiction is defined as fiction based on historical fact (Apol,
Sakuma, Reynolds, & Rop, 2002). To be considered a quality book in this genre, the
author must share accurate details of the time period, including artifacts and beliefs about
the world at that time. He or she must have realistic characters that behave and speak as
though they lived during that time. The writing expectations for historical fiction are huge
in that the author must craft a believable story that accurately reflects the time period in
thoughts, actions, beliefs, artifacts, and language (Barone, 2011; Berghoff, 2004;
McTigue, Thornton, & Wiese, 2013).
Historical fiction is frequently used in fourth, fifth, and sixth grade classrooms as
it bridges social studies content and literacy (Freeman & Levstik, 1988). Teachers utilize
historical fiction so that students can experience an event through the eyes of a child,
most often a child close in age to the reader, and appreciate the ways the character
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exhibited bravery or perseverance (Berghoff, 2004; Damico, Baildon, & Greenstone,
2010). Teachers also see it as a vehicle to make a fact-driven textbook come alive with
the stories of individuals who experienced an event or time (Beck, Nelson-Faulkner, &
Pierce, 2000).
Rycik and Rosier (2009) and Youngs (2012) discovered that many awards like the
Newbery have been awarded to historical fiction since 1986. Books such as Elijah of
Buxton (Curtis, 2007) and The Invention of Hugo Cabret (Selznick, 2007) have won these
prestigious awards. Thus, this genre is readily available to teachers as award books most
frequently find their way to school and classroom libraries.
Through the use of a variety of approaches and strategies, teachers are bringing
historical fiction to their classrooms for focused instruction and also for students’
independent reading. Because this genre is complex, through its intersection of nonfiction
and fiction, we were curious about how students interpreted their reading. Our study fills
the gap about how students interpret historical fiction, a genre that has not been explored
through students’ ways of understanding. We asked: What is the focus of students’
responses to historical fiction?
Method
We used qualitative methodology to explore students’ understandings of historical
fiction (Merriam, 1988) through their responses to the literature. We engaged all of the
fifth grade students from two classrooms in a large, urban public elementary school to
learn about student response.
Researcher Backgrounds
Three of us engaged in this research endeavor. The teachers, Becky and Bethany,
participated daily. They kept records of their instruction during an exploration of
historical fiction. They organized students into groups so they could participate in the
reading, writing, and talking about a single book. They asked students to participate in
certain responsibilities during reading such as historical fact finder, summarizer, and so
on (Daniels, 2002).
Becky has taught a multi-aged classroom of intermediate students, fourth grade
for two years, fifth grade for two years, and she has been a fifth grade writing coach.
Bethany has taught fifth grade for nine years. She has served as a professional
development provider for the school district in science and technology. Both teachers are
known as exemplary teachers whose students demonstrate exceptional academic growth
in reading. The third researcher, Diane, is a professor who researches literacy practices
in schools in collaboration with teachers. She visited the school at the beginning of the
year for foundation data collection, and then visited the school several times during the
historical fiction exploration.
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Participants
All 55 fifth grade students participated in the study. There was an almost even
distribution of boys and girls between the classrooms with just a few more boys. Among
this group there were struggling readers and above grade level readers. Some students
were very motivated to read and others not as much. The teachers identified student
motivation through observing during independent reading (both teachers) and through
scanning independent reading logs where the students recorded the books they read
independently (Becky’s class). The students all attended a large elementary school, with
approximately 1000 students from kindergarten to fifth grade. The socioeconomic
background of the parents was varied with some being considered wealthy and others
struggling to provide for their families.
Library Support
Both classrooms had extensive libraries to support the materials in the school
library. Each teacher organized her classroom library by genre, so historical fiction would
be easy for students to find. The school had an expansive library with many current titles
in each genre and students visited it regularly. Students also brought books from their
own personal libraries to school.
Direct Instruction
At the beginning of the year, both teachers went over genres of literature with
their students. This introduction was brief, as each genre was to be explored in detail
throughout the year. They basically provided a few key elements for each genre, such as,
fantasy includes magic or time travel, nonfiction is centered on facts and information, and
historical fiction includes accurate history and a narrative.
Literature Circles
Students participated in literature circle instruction routinely in both classrooms,
although there were differences in how the two teachers interacted with their literature
circle groups. Becky met with groups daily and wrote written responses to each student’s
job. Bethany moved around the room, listened to what students were discussing, engaged
students in conversations, but did not respond in writing to their jobs.
During their exploration of historical fiction, the literature circle jobs changed to
reflect the genre. The jobs entailed: director (a person who created questions to guide
discussion); fact finder (a person who researched historical facts); summarizer (a person
who summarized the day’s reading); travel tracer (a person who focused on setting or
scenes); investigator (a person who researched interesting details, including interesting
vocabulary); and connector (a person who made personal connections to the text).
Students maintained the same jobs throughout the reading of their books. Students met in
class daily for literature circles (approximately one half hour) and read at home where
they completed their job to share with peers the following day.
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Students in Bethany’s class read the following books: Elijah of Buxton (Curtis,
2007); The Watsons Go to Birmingham - 1963 (Curtis, 2000); The Witch of Blackbird
Pond (Speare, 1972); Esperanza Rising (Ryan, 2002), Number the Stars (Lowry, 1989),
and I Survived the San Francisco Earthquake, 1906 (Tarshis, 2012). She selected these
books from her book collection, as ones she thought were strong exemplars of historical
fiction. Students in this class participated in the historical fiction literature circle for about
one month.
Students in Becky’s class participated in historical fiction literature circle groups
where they read Elijah of Buxton (Curtis, 2007), The Watsons Go to Birmingham (Curtis,
2000), and Bud, Not Buddy (Curtis, 2004). She chose these books as they are known to be
quality representations of historical fiction and they are by a single author. The literature
circles took about one month to complete. Unlike Bethany’s focus on genre for literature
circles, Becky had students read books by a similar author and by genre. For instance,
they read books by Roald Dahl in January and February. They also independently read
throughout the day during transitions and at other designated times. See Table 1 for an
overview of books, instruction, and independent reading.
Table 1: Overview of Becky and Bethany’s instruction, historical fiction book selections,
and independent reading
Becky’s class
Instruction
• Brief introduction of genres
• Literature circles
• Written comments to each student
daily
• Oral sharing of historical fiction
discoveries
Bethany’s class
Instruction
• Brief introduction of genres
• Literature circles
• Oral comments to literature circle
groups
• Constructed response
• Poster project
Books
• Elijah of Buxton
• The Watsons Go to Birmingham
• Bud, Not Buddy
Books
•
•
•
•
•
•
Independent Reading
• Extensive independent reading
Journal of Classroom Research in Literacy
Elijah of Buxton
The Watsons Go to Birmingham
The Witch of Blackbird Pond
I Survived the San Francisco
Earthquake
Esperanza Rising
Number the Stars
Independent Reading
• Moderate independent reading
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•
•
Student choice
Students kept logs with lists of
books they read (logs were
collected at the end of the school
year)
•
•
Student choice within a genre
(genres changed by month as
directed by teacher)
Students shared the expected genre
reading with teacher
Data Collection
The primary data was collected from students’ written responses. Teachers
retrospectively documented the comments from students during their observations and
therefore, this oral data served as a backdrop to more fully understand the students’
written responses.
No attempt was made to change the teachers’ instruction or to insure that both
teachers approached historical fiction in exactly the same manner. This decision was
purposeful for without an understanding of how students responded, we felt unprepared
to describe optimal instructional suggestions. Rather, we looked at how students
understood historical fiction and their instructional contexts served as a basis for later
reflection on instructional supports.
Initial perceptions of historical fiction. During the second week of school, each
student wrote a response to the question “What is historical fiction?” We explored what
students already knew about historical fiction before we described their writing about
specific historical fiction books.
Literature circles – written and oral responses. As a data source, we collected all
written responses, sorted by date. Teachers took retrospective notes about what students
said within their literature circles.
Free response. One day each week, the students shifted from their jobs and freely
wrote about what they read. The teachers simply asked students to write about their
reading. This shift was difficult for, as educators, we wanted to provide more direction.
However, as researchers, we wanted to discover what students wrote about the book they
were reading without any specific structure.
Constructed response. Students in Bethany’s class also completed a constructed
response at the end of their reading of historical fiction. She asked students to respond to
this prompt: “Choose one historical event that took place in your historical fiction book
and explain why that event was significant to the story. Use evidence from the book to
support your answer.”
Data Analysis
All three researchers classified student responses. We first considered the Initial
Perceptions of Historical Fiction writing to determine the background knowledge of
students about historical fiction. We used these responses to determine their
understandings or misconceptions about this genre.
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We collected and grouped all students’ written responses by activity (e.g.,
literature circle responses, free responses, and constructed responses). We were interested
in all responses and in particular, the weekly, free responses of students. We wondered
how students would respond to this freedom in response. Initially, we grouped the
responses from each activity into two categories. We wanted to know if students
responded to the history or the story. Once these distinctions were analyzed, we moved to
further understanding each category by identifying the kinds of responses that the
students wrote. For instance, did they explore a character’s feelings or did they take a
stance about the circumstances a character experienced? We also further analyzed the
history or factual responses to better understand what aspects of historical fiction the
students attended to. Finally, we examined responses by date to see if there were
differences from the beginning to the end of each book.
Results
Initial Perceptions of Historical Fiction
Of the 55 students who initially wrote in response to “What is historical fiction?”,
47 students demonstrated by their answers that they understood it contained both fiction
and fact. The following is an example representing the initial understandings of the
students: “Historical fiction sets a place in true time in history, but everything else is
made up. The main character is not real. Some people think historical fiction is all true,
but that would be nonfiction.”
Eight students shared misconceptions about historical fiction. One student wrote,
“It could happen but probably won’t.” This student knew that historical fiction included
information about an event, but implied that the event wouldn’t happen, rather than
explaining that the event had already happened.
Focus of Written Responses
We gathered a total of 465 literature circle responses and free responses.
Additionally, there were 25 constructed responses from Bethany’s class. Responses
varied most notably by the expectations outlined by the literature circle jobs. For instance,
the jobs of investigator and fact finder led students to consider the history surrounding the
book and its vocabulary. In the free responses, students tended to write a summary of the
story. Moreover we detected subtle changes in students’ responses from the beginning to
the end of the books.
For each sample, organized by date, we noted that 90% to 95% of the responses
focused on story. These results could be explained by the jobs students held, as these
would have guided their responses. However, they also indicated the students’ preference
to respond to the narrative aspect of the historical fiction. Moreover, each job allowed for
a focus on the history part of the story. For instance, the director could frame questions
targeting the history, and the connector could make a connection to the history or to a
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nonfiction book that shared the historical time period or event. While these choices were
available, students preferred to focus on the narrative as indicated in their oral and written
responses.
We grouped the results by writing expectation so that variation in what students
wrote could be explored across activities.
Relationships Between Literature Circle Job Responsibilities and Responses
Each literature circle job resulted in a different focus on the historical fiction book.
Some jobs helped students focus on the story while others led somewhat to a focus on the
historical period.
A story focus and the director and travel tracer roles. Most of the literature circle
job responsibilities led students to focus on the story. For instance, when the director
created questions for the group, they most often focused on the story, although they could
have asked historical questions. For example, one director wanted other students to
consider the main character’s qualities. She wrote, “Throughout the book Elijah keeps
thinking he is a fragile boy? Describe some events where he is fragile?” Another director
asked group readers to consider the author’s tone. He wrote, “What is the author’s tone
when Elijah was reading the note?”
Similarly, students who were travel tracers wrote about a specific scene. They
stepped into the author’s shoes to determine why a scene was important to the story. In
the following example, one student shared how the scene helped in understanding a
character better:
This scene is important because Bud is about to know what he and the
gang are doing with the rocks. The author included this because he is
trying to show the reader that Bud might face a change in his life or he
might not face a change. If he changes, he will most likely be evil because
he is a nice kid. Do you think Bud will stay the same or different? Why or
why not?
When writing about the setting, most students identified or described it. For
instance, one student wrote, “I chose the scene in the book when Kenny and Byron
needed to share a bed and when they didn’t even use a sheet. I think the author included it
because it tells us how hot it is in Birmingham. I think it is important because it tells how
hot the characters were.”
Overall, the comments demonstrated a focus on the narrative and how students
comprehended the story. These responses showcased sophisticated understandings of the
narrative. For instance, students asked other students to consider the tone of the writer or
to step into the writer’s shoes and ponder why a specific scene was included. We did not
consider the responses as deficient simply because they did not focus on the historical
aspects of the text.
A vocabulary focus and the investigator role. Throughout their reading, most
students focused on plot and characters’ feelings. The investigator role allowed a student
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to move beyond the text to research the events or the language shared in the book. While
investigators were free to explore, they spent more time considering the vocabulary
unique to the time period. Through these responses, we saw that students targeted the
differences in language between the historical time period and current time. For example,
one student chose, “I knowed it”, “I caint” and “afore” as words that stood out as
different from today. She wrote, “This example is historical fiction because we have
proper grammar and don’t talk like how they used to. Caint and afore are words we don’t
use, and they didn’t need to go to school. They talk their own way.”
A few students began to connect vocabulary to the historical period as they
moved to the end of their books. For instance, one student wrote about alcohol and its
relationship to the Depression:
In the 1930s sometime in the Great Depression, alcohol was illegal.
People found ways to get alcohol by making it themselves. People got
violent for alcohol sales but the store soon shut down because it was
illegal. It supports the time period because a lot of people went to jail
because they got caught drinking alcohol.
What is interesting about this exemplar response is that this student really didn’t define
the chosen word. Rather, he noticed how it contributed to the sense of time period within
the book.
A historical focus and the fact finder role. The fact finder was the job that led
directly to students exploring historical facts and often providing comparisons to today.
For example, one student wrote about segregated bathrooms:
Fact – Back in 1963 there were different things for different races. Two
bathrooms, one for white and one for colored.
How it supports the historical period – In the book it says stuff about
colored bathrooms. It supports the time period because in 1963 there
actually was a time when that happened. But in Flint, where the book
takes place, it really didn’t.
A few students targeted an interesting person for their investigation. One student
wanted to know more about Pretty Boy Floyd. He wrote, “He was an American bank
robber. He supports the time period because in 1904 to 1934 there were lots of crimes
because money was hard to get.”
A few students integrated an interesting historical fact with the story. We
particularly resonated with these responses as they replicated the qualities of historical
fiction with an intersection of history and narrative. As an example, one student wrote
about payday:
One fact I found throughout the book is that people could sign up for food
and not pay until “Pay day.” In this chapter, Byron was taking advantage
of the system they used, which implied to Bryon as “Free food.” He didn’t
tell his parents anything that’s happening. A law passed that everyone has
to pay for what they buy at the time they buy it. That law changed because
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a man got sued for paying late, after that, many people did it and many
stores got shut down because of the lack of money.
A few students also shared misconceptions in their historical investigations. Some
of the fact finders mistakenly indicated that an event happened in the past and does not
occur today. For instance, one student wrote, “Foster homes support the time period
because we don’t really have foster homes for kids who are homeless.” For this student,
her current life experiences did not include the knowledge of foster homes and so she
classified them as historic.
Free Response
Each week students moved away from their literature circle responsibilities and
wrote freely about their reading. The only prompt they had was, “Write about your
reading”. This prompt did not lead students to consider the history in which the book was
grounded. Rather, students retold or summarized the plots from their reading. The
following is an example, taken from a student’s summary:
In Esperanza Rising so far Esperanza is happy and everything is normal.
She cuts grapes and later on her father died. Sine he was dead, Tio Luis
considered a proposal to Ramona (Esperanza’s mom). She refused and
Luis said that he will make her life harder. Then he walked away. Ramona
started crying and Esperanza tried to cheer her up………
We thought we might see changes in free responses as the students progressed
through their books, with the first responses close to the text and later ones more
reflective of the historical significance. This expectation was not documented in the
students’ free responses. Rather, students continued to summarize the characters’ actions
and retold particular sections of the story.
Constructed Responses
For the constructed responses, students were queried to share a historical event
and why it was significant. This activity led students to consider the historical event with
text support and moved students away from a narrative focus. The following is an
example that showcased this historical perspective with a focus on slavery and its
connections to the Underground Railroad:
One important event in Elijah of Buxton was slavery. That was the main
reason this book was written. One reason slavery was important in Elijah
of Buxton was because a lot of people in Buxton had been slaves. Another
reason slavery is important is because of the Underground Railroad. The
Underground Railroad was a big part of the book because it was where
slaves escaped.
However, even with the structure of the constructed response and its focus on
history, a few students were still confused as to what might be an important historical
event. Rather, they selected an important event in the story. For instance, in Esperanza
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Rising, a student selected the triggering event for immigration, the fire: “The main event
in Esperanza Rising was the fire. During the fire Esperanza’s grandmother twisted her
ankle that’s why she couldn’t come with them to America.” This student shared an
important event, however, the event was important to the plot, not the history.
With the constructed responses, we considered the main historical focus by book
to determine what students considered important historically. We observed consistency
in the responses written by the students. Some books, like Elijah of Buxton and The
Watsons Go to Birmingham, supported a consideration of the historical aspects. Other
books like Number the Stars, Esperanza Rising, and The Witch of Blackbird Pond left
students mentioning a historical aspect. While book choice was not the center of our
investigation, rather genre was, book choice is a topic that should be explored within an
exploration of historical fiction. Perhaps, certain books lead students to consider
historical aspects more than others.
Changes over Time
In Becky’s class, students responded to their books 15 times. During their 11th
through 15th responses, we noticed one major change and one minor shift. The major
change occurred in vocabulary where students gradually moved from describing an
interesting word to describing it within its historical context. In the following example,
the student described the Underground Railroad, shared a potential confusion, and then
offered why the Underground Railroad was important. He wrote:
The Underground Railroad supports the historical time period because we
don’t use underground railroads now. We don’t because America doesn’t
have slaves. You might get confused though because you might count
having a subway, that’s an underground railroad. But the Underground
Railroad was used to help slaves escape from slavery. So the Underground
Railroad supports the time period because it helped slaves escape.
We noticed the minor shift in the extensive research on an important historical
event completed by the fact finders. Students began to deeply explore a historical event
and its implications to their stories. Their responses became much longer and showcased
the research they did to more fully understand an event. Rather than identifying an event
and providing a brief description, students started to describe the event and then pondered
its historical significance and the reasons behind the author including it in his or her book.
They conducted research to better understand the importance of an event historically or to
develop their own background knowledge, not just as a way to better understand the
narrative.
Summary
Throughout our analysis of the written responses and oral comments, the students
primarily focused on the narrative and read historical fiction as they would other fiction.
They appeared to consider differences in historical settings and time periods as similar to
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those they might encounter in realistic fiction or fantasy. For instance, they did not
frequently explore how a historical event contributed to the characters’ actions. The fact
finder and investigator jobs nudged students to consider some historical aspects.
Language was the key element that students focused upon in these jobs. There were also
subtle changes in responses from the beginning to the end of a book. At the beginning
students described historical events or vocabulary but did not make explicit connections
to their books. At the end of their reading, some students connected vocabulary and
historical events to the narrative within their books. Finally, the constructed response,
with its overt expectations, pushed students to consider historical events.
Discussion
Fifth grade students enjoyed reading, writing, and talking about historical fiction
books and, for the most part, identified characteristics of historical fiction. They focused
on the narrative and explored unique vocabulary. However, just reading the books and
writing and talking about them did not result in an understanding of the significance of
the story embedded in a historical context. Also without the fact finder expectation, most
students did not pay much attention to the historical facts that would have contributed to
a more complete understanding of their books.
Students did not gain an increased curiosity about historical events or a more
complete understanding through just reading historical fiction. As Beck, Nelson-Faulkner,
and Pierce (2000) noted, connections to social studies content may be fostered more
successfully when the historical fiction book choices are closer to the social studies
content. We support this suggestion for if students had explored the historical context
first, before reading the historical fiction book, and it was connected to their social
studies curriculum, they would have been primed to notice the history and how the
characters responded to its affordances and constraints. We believe they would have
moved from mentioning the historical event or language to an intersection of the
narrative and historical importance. We suggest that teachers consider overlap between
social studies and reading to better support the genre of historical fiction.
Students read their historical fiction books as they might other genres and focused
on the plot, rather than the intersection of the plot with the historical time period. Clearly,
this is a genre that requires teacher and/or student scaffolding so that students experience
the richness of historical fiction and discover that the historical time period is critical to
its full understanding. Rather than direct instruction about the historical event during the
reading, we see that an exploration of the historical time period or event before reading
would support students in a deeper understanding. In addition to the intersection of social
studies and reading, there are several other ways to accomplish this exploration. Teachers
might explore books about the same time period or event so that they can scaffold this
instruction more systematically at least for the first exploration into this genre. Although
having students read a multitude of historical fiction books seemed a way to support
student engagement with this genre, it complicated the ways to support students in
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meaning making. It proved difficult to provide historical background knowledge to
students with so many major historical events within their range of books. Even with a
singular focus on the books of Christopher Paul Curtis, the time periods were different
within each book so students needed varied background knowledge.
Another way to support students in developing historical background knowledge
allows for each literature circle group to read a variety of historical fiction novels
centered in different time periods or events, similar to what happened in these classrooms.
Rather than having the group start reading their novel when they first convene, the
teacher could allow a week or two where the group researches their time period or event.
They would be responsible for learning the necessary information for a full understanding
of their book. Then they could bring this knowledge to the reading of their books. This
suggestion extends the time for reading a historical fiction book but it allows students to
take the lead in considering the history.
All of the suggestions support students in gaining the necessary background
knowledge with differences lying in the leadership for the information search. Because
we value the voice and agency of students and the opportunity for choice in reading, we
prefer the suggestion where student groups develop necessary background knowledge as
it keeps students as the primary informants during reading.
References
Apol, L., Sakuma, A., Reynolds, T., & Rop, S. (2002). “When can we make paper
cranes?”: Examining pre-service teachers’ resistance to critical readings of
historical fiction. Journal of Literacy Research, 34(4), 429-464.
Barone, D. (2011) Children’s literature in the classroom: Engaging lifelong readers.
New York: Guilford.
Beck, C., Nelson-Faulkner, S., & Pierce, K. (2000). Historical fiction: Teaching tool or
literary experience. Language Arts, 77(6), 546-555.
Berghoff, B. (2004). Reading historical fiction like a writer. The New England Reading
Association Journal, 40(1), 39-41
Damico, J., Baildon, M., & Greenstone, D. (2010). Examining how historical agency
works in children’s literature. Social Studies Research and Practice, 5(1), 1-12.
Daniels, H. (2002). Literature circles: Voice and choice in book clubs and reading
groups. ME: Stenhouse Publishers.
Freeman, E., & Levstik, L. (1988). Recreating the past: Historical fiction in the social
studies curriculum. The Elementary School Journal, 88(4), 329-337.
McTigue, E., Thornton, E., & Wiese, P. (2013). Authentication projects for historical
fiction: Do you believe it? The Reading Teacher, 66(6), 495-505.
Merriam, S. (1988). Case study research in education: A qualitative approach. San
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Spring 2014
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Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Rycik, M. T., & Rosier, B. (2009). The return of historical fiction. The Reading Teacher,
63(2), 163-166.
Youngs, S. (2012). Understanding history thought the visual images in historical fiction.
Language Arts, 89(6), 379-395.
Children’s Book References
Curtis, C. (2007). Elijah of Buxton. New York: Scholastic.
Curtis, C. (2004). Bud, not Buddy. New York: Scholastic.
Curtis, C. (2000). The Watsons go to Birmingham – 1963. New York: Scholastic.
Lowry, L. (1989). Number the stars. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
Ryan, P. (2002). Esperanza rising. New York: Scholastic.
Selznick, B. (2007). The invention of Hugo Cabret. New York: Scholastic.
Speare, E. (1972). The witch of Blackbird pond. New York: Yearling.
Tarshis, L. (2012). I survived the San Francisco earthquake – 1906. New York:
Scholastic.
Authors’ Biographies
Rebecca Barone is a fifth grade teacher in Clark County School District. She constantly
reflects on student learning and how her curriculum supports their needs.
Bethany Oswalt is a fifth grade teacher in Clark County School District. She focuses on
her students’ learning and how she can tailor instruction to support their needs.
Diane Barone is a foundation professor of literacy at the University of Nevada. She
spends much of her time collaborating with and learning from teachers.
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