Literature, History, and the Connections We Make

As someone with an avid interest in literature and history, I’m partial to texts that merge these interests.  This is where I intend to focus on and explore.  As this is obviously quite broad, I’ll be focusing on World War II in literature.  This ranges from historical fiction to memoirs and autobiographical work to graphic novels. 

Diary of Anne Frank

Going in, World War II is an area that I consider myself to be knowledgeable in, both from academic and personal study.  Thinking of this as if it were a unit I were to cover in a classroom, this background knowledge is great for providing lessons on contextualization.  I’ve focused my own study largely on the European theater, but still know a fair amount about the Pacific theater.  As a result, I feel inclined to focus on the European theater and place the Pacific in the greater context of this project. 

There’s also a significant amount of literature on this topic, I’ve found it geared both towards adults and young adults.  I’m inclined to focus on young adult literature.  A number of texts come to mind, even when narrowing the topic down to YA.  For example: The Book Thief, Number the Stars, Maus, and Barefoot Gen.  A number of texts, such as The Diary of Anne Frank (image and link above) and Elie Wiesels Night, are already found in many English classrooms. 

So I’ve stroked my ego enough by talking about what I know about World War II and the texts I’ve read.  What can I stand to learn by continuing to focus my attention on this area?  I’m interested in placing historical fiction in conjunction with autobiographical texts, and focusing on the different reading strategies used for these texts in the classroom.  I'm also interested in learning more ways that these texts can inform the ways that we look at current events. 

Hello and welcome to my blog!

I am a graduate student here at UWM and I'm working towards my Masters and certification in English education.  I did my undergraduate work at the University of Iowa, where I double majored in English and History.  I found these two subjects worked extremely well together and often helped flesh one another out as I worked.  For instance, literature often provides a cultural insight to a period in history, or history can present context to the world of events taking place in literature.  Hopefully this knowledge also helps me with future classes too.

The experience of history helping me engage further with literature (because I'm a huge nerd) also makes me wonder about ways that I could help my future students engage with texts that they otherwise would not read.  Mostly, I'm interested in creating connections.  The connections that have impacted me most are history and seeing places I've read about.  The next step is helping students learn to make connections in their own ways.

Example: seeing the light post rumored to be C.S. Lewis inspiration for the entrance to Narnia.