This Lesson's Title:

Historical Journal Entries

big history from a smaller character's perspective

This lesson was built for WritingFix after being proposed by Nevada teacher Dayna Ayers at an AT&T-sponsored in-service class for teachers.

The intended "mentor text" to be used when teaching this on-line lesson is the chapter book Pedro's Journal by Pam Conrad. Before writing, students should listen to and discuss the writing style of this book's author, especially from Pedro's December 25 journal entry.

Check out Pedro's Journal at Amazon.com.

If you are a Washoe County teacher, click here to search for this book at the county library.

Three-Sentence Overview of this Lesson:

Writers will create a detailed journal entry from the point-of-view of a character who never actually existed.  The journal entry will be from a day in history that the writer has researched and found interesting facts about.  The journal entry will combine a character's voice and historical facts.   Teachers: click here to read the entire lesson plan.

6-Trait Overview for this Lesson:

The focus trait in this writing assignment is voice; writers will attempt to realistically capture the point-of-view and perspective of someone who lived in another historical time. The support trait in this assignment is idea development; the writers' task is to convey historically accurate facts in their own words as they compose their historical journals.