research in Pleasant View CemeteryA Thematic Approach to
Historical Fiction

by Sarah Jordahl Reeve

Sarah Reeve (right) on a class expedition
with seventh-graders at a local cemetery.

Historical fiction can provide a powerful way to introduce your students to the large themes of history, while helping them to find personal meaning among them by following the lives of particular people. Good historical fiction provides vivid insights into both history and folklife, and it provides insight into how the two interact, each shaping the other. Montana's 1996 Christa McAuliffe Fellow, Sarah Jordahl Reeve, spent a year completing an extensive annotated bibliography of young adult novels that deal with the history of the American West. The bibliography is organized around four major themes.

What follows is a portion of the introduction, which describes the four themes. If you would like the complete work, please contact Sarah through the Montana Heritage Project.

I. Theme - Adventuresome Journeys into Uncertainty

Many stories of the American West involve a willingness to take risks to achieve reward. This often leads individuals out of the known and into the unknown, or on a journey involving adventure, uncertainty, and decision-making. This theme is also central to the coming-of-age story, which is developmentally relevant for adolescents who are grappling with identity as they question who they are, where they fit in, and what paths are available to them in life.

Western stories illustrate that the nature of the journey is shaped by the reward desired. For many involved in the westward movement, the journey promised opportunity and a freedom from the past. For others, such as some Native American characters, the journey was motivated by community expectations and needs. The stories we read and hear will help us explore such questions as:

1. What motivates the protagonist to go on the journey?

2. What decisions does the protagonist make, and how does he/she make these decisions?

3. What would have happened if the protagonist made different decisions?

4. What aids, or assistance, does the protagonist have on the journey?

5. What beliefs sustain the protagonist, or break down for him/her, throughout the journey?

6. What virtues does the protagonist accept and reject, develop and sustain?

7. What role does custom and tradition play in the protagonist's adventures?

8. How does the protagonist respond to adversity? What sustains or fails the protagonist in times of adversity?

9. What answers does the protagonist find to the question "Who Am I"?

10. What does the protagonist learn about human nature on his/her journey? How does the protagonist then respond to this new knowledge?

II. Contest for Property and Power: Story of Making Borders and Using Resources

Part of the Western story centers on expansionism, the pursuit of property and profit. Two key frontier activities were the distribution of land and the containment of Indians. The people who already lived in the West relied on the resources, and the people coming out west wanted the resources. The use of resources, such as water, land, timber, minerals, and wildlife, has always been a central issue of the West. The contest has not only been between people, but also between people and the land itself during natural disasters such as the Grasshopper Plague of 1873-1877. The stories we read and hear will help us explore these and other questions:

1. What virtues are expressed by those attempting to control the land?

2. What battles are fought, and what motivates these battles?

3. What lessons do the characters learn from the land?

4. What are the dilemmas the land and resources present to those living in the West?

5. How do different cultural groups and different characters view the land?

6. In what ways do the characters change due to their interaction with the land, and how does the land change from this interaction?

7. In what way are personalities shaped by the land?

8. What kind of person is able to survive and even thrive in the unpopulated West?

9. What happens when borders are established on the land?

III. Diversity and Difficulty

As a result of expansionism, the West is ethnically and socially diverse. This diversity has often resulted in difficulties such as cultural conflict, discrimination, and alienation. Often different ethic groups were harrassed and persecuted in the name of American ideals and virtues. Diversity and oppression, however, have resulted not only from ethnicity but also from economics and class. For example, during the Depression poor Midwest farmers were lied to, cheated, and virtually starved by the Growers Association which lured them out to California. Patricia Nelson Limerick in The Legacy of Conquest writes that "The West was not where we escaped each other, but where we all met." What happened when we all met? These are a few of the questions we'll explore in the literature and through our research:

1. What motivates the acts which cause the difficulties for the protagonist?

2. What responses to difficulties are offered? Which responses work better than others? Why?

3. How do characters retain their dignity and strength when oppressed?

4. How do the young characters honor their parents, community, and traditions in difficult times?

5. In what ways do young characters rebel against their parents or tradition in difficult times?

6. What justification exists for the powerful people?

7. How are the world views of different cultural groups similar and different?

8. How do stereotypes originate? How do the characters respond to stereotype?

9. What do the traditional tales of cultural groups reveal about their world view and community virtues?

10. How does a strong community and/or family life affect those experiencing difficulties?

IV. Community and Family vs Individuality

At the center of any history is community, since humans are communal creatures. The type of community or family we devise, however, is influenced by our heritage, our accepted virtues, our rebellions and our dreams. Many who came west left family and community for the individual freedom offered by the wilderness, yet most of these emigrants established community soon upon arriving. Once settled, they continued some traditions and rejected others. Of course, community life was already central to the story of the West prior to this migration. The economic society that came with the westward movement would not understand the profound communal life of the tribal people, and in most cases this unfamiliarity bred fear and rancor toward the native people. Yet tribal community persisted, despite resulting death and devastation, through the sharing of heritage from one generation to another. Community life both endures and transforms as each new generation listens, learns, and questions what is being passed on to it.

The stories the students read and hear will help them explore these questions about community and individuality.

1. What skills, art forms, stories, and other knowledge do the family and community share, and how is this passed on from one generation to the next?

2. What importance does hierarchy play in the community? How do individual characters respond to this?

3. How do the old ways get changed? What is gained and lost?

4. What happens when an individual's dreams conflict with the vision of the community or family?

5. What does the protagonist achieve alone? What does he/she achieve with the family or community?

6. What virtues do the family and community uphold?

7. What does the community, family, and individual spurn, and why?

8. How do historical events affect the community, family, and the individual?

9. What changes occur from one generation to the next?

Sarah Reeve taught English at Mission Middle School in St. Ignatius when she completed this framework and an accompanying annotated bibliography of historical fiction for young adults as part of her Christa McAuliffe Fellowship. She is currently a Program Officer for the Ford Family Foundation in Oregon.
TeacherLore:

(Left, Sarah Reeve watches as eighth-graders pose
for a group photograph at Mission Middle School)

After teaching novels selected from the "Adventuresome Journeys into the Unknown" bibliography, I turned the questions the students had been exploring upon their own and their families' lives.

We concentrated on the question "Have you experienced an adventuresome journey into the unknown? Tell me about it?" We applied the question both to ourselves and to our parents and other family members.

The students conducted interviews centered on this question, which gave them stories to bring back to class and to write up for our book, Adventuresome Journeys into the Unknown. The students also took pictures of the people they interviewed, so these pictures were part of the book. We made one copy of the book for the school library and one copy for the community library.

Later in the year, several students produced a play about these stories. They selected stories to retell through theater, they choreographed the scenes, and then they performed the resulting skits for the community Heritage Evening.

SJR

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