Are you teaching historical fiction to your middle or high school students and wondering how to give this genre the justice it deserves and help students gain empathy along the way? Maybe you’re reading a contemporary text like Refugee or We Are Not Free, or a classic like Number the Stars or Of Mice and Men. Perhaps you’re facilitating book clubs or literature circles centered around a specific time period, literary movement, or essential question.
Historical fiction is one of the most powerful genres for helping students develop empathy, critical thinking, and a deeper understanding of the world…but it is often intimidating for our teen readers. In my experience, there are always a few big historical fiction buffs in class, but many other readers shy away from the genre because it feels too challenging or it’s simply “not as fun.” But with the right approach, I’ve seen historical fiction be engaging, transformative, and rewarding for these readers. Through historical fiction, students can see the ripple effects of history, recognize patterns that still shape society today, and step into the shoes of characters whose voices might have been overlooked in traditional textbooks.
But to make the most of a historical fiction novel study, students need engaging activities that push them beyond surface-level comprehension. Whether you’re teaching a whole class novel, literature circles, or independent reading, there are so many ways to bring this literature to life.
Ready to start planning a brand new historical fiction unit or polish up an existing unit that needs some extra love and attention? Here are 10 fresh historical fiction teaching ideas that will help you engage your students, expose them to new perspectives, and elevate their empathy, all while hitting the ELA standards:
PRE-READING STATIONS
Building background knowledge is crucial to preparing students for any historical fiction text, which is why I love starting my unit with pre-reading learning stations. With the right approach, stations can offer historical context, spark powerful discussions, and hook students before they read a single page. Investing time in this pre-reading phase will help you set a strong foundation and pave the way for understanding and empathy.
Speaking of empathy, I like to set expectations for how we will speak about the characters and seek to understand them during a historical fiction unit. I’m always reminding students that this really happened and these characters are (often) based on real people. To start strong, I set this tone during our pre-reading stations with an article about how literature can increase empathy and questions that encourage students to reflect on stories and situations that have stretched their understanding and empathy.
That’s just one example of a station that primes students for the discussions we will have during our reading. While your stations will look different depending on the text, time period, and context required for reading, here’s a layout I like to follow:
- Station 1: Anticipation Guide (Students debate statements that preview themes & situations in the book)
- Station 2: Introduction to the Genre (Readers explore the genre through book trailers and/or physical books)
- Station 3: Preview the Text with Excerpts (Students get a sneak peek at the text with powerful excerpts that act as scaffolding)
- Station 4: Setting/Background Knowledge Mind Map (This station activates background knowledge and can be paired with an info text, video, photo gallery, etc.)
- Station 5: Nonfiction about Empathy & Literature (Here, readers discuss perspective-taking, consider connections to other stories, and learn about empathy.)
You can check out these exact stations in 100% editable format and tailor them to your next historical fiction unit. All you have to do is tweak the universal anticipation guide questions I’ve included, add two key excerpts from the text, and tailor any language to reflect your book’s unique setting.
To learn more about how I introduce novels and units with learning stations, check out the following blog posts:
- How to Create Learning Stations to Engage Students
- How to Facilitate Successful Learning Stations
- 5 Engaging Ideas for Pre-Reading Activities
HEADLINE SUMMARIES
Historical fiction can be complex and challenging for students to comprehend. Unfamiliar settings, multiple perspectives, complicated timelines, flashbacks, parallel plots, and other elements can make it difficult for readers to keep things straight. Whether you’re teaching I Must Betray You, Out of the Dust, or WWII historical fiction, it only makes sense to incorporate summarizing into your unit to help readers to stay on track with the narrative.
But endless chapter summaries will feel boring and tedious if that’s all you do. One way to level up your summary practice and help students understand the order of events is through a journalistic headline-style approach. (Did you know I taught journalism & newspaper for 5 years?) To do this, show students examples of historical and current headlines so they can see the style and structure, teach them about a few journalistic guidelines, and then challenge them to summarize sections/chapters in short, no-fluff headlines. This headline summary lesson doubles as concise & precise writing practice, because it forces students to cut out unnecessary words, emphasize the most important elements of events, and use strong action verbs.
If you’re not a journalism nerd like me and would like a student-ready lesson with headline examples, guidelines, and templates for students, you can find this resource in this historical fiction unit for any book.
BELL-RINGERS & QUICKWRITES
Historical fiction naturally sparks questions and curiosity but you can take engagement to the next level with creatively crafted questions that lead to insightful writing, meaningful conversations, and even a little debate. Whenever I teach a novel or book club unit, I like to have a bank of prompts ready to go for quickwrites, bell-ringers, small-group discussions, exit tickets, and more. Even in the middle of a reading unit, I look for ways to weave in daily writing practice, whether it’s a personal response, literary analysis, or a real-world connection. So, I created a slide deck of 25+ thought-provoking questions designed to work with any historical fiction text and made it fully editable so you can use it, too, whether you’re teaching Between Shades of Gray, Fever 1793, or any other book.
If you’re wondering what kinds of prompts can work for any historical fiction novel, here are a few examples:
- How does the setting impact relationships between characters? Explain with examples.
- “The historian will tell you what happened. The novelist will tell you what it felt like.” –E.L. Doctorow. How does the novel reflect this quote? What are you learning about how this part of history “felt like?” Explain.
You can grab my historical fiction writing and discussion prompts HERE or as part of the historical fiction bundle HERE.
TED TALK PAIRINGS
Any successful historical fiction unit should pull in multiple perspectives and nonfiction to weave together a diverse tapestry of experiences. But while you’re bringing in different sources and info texts to round out your unit, don’t forget to press play on a video or two to mix things up. Two of my favorites to pair with historical fiction are “The Danger of a Single Story” by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and Eric Liu’s “How to Understand Power” TED Talk.
The first is great to introduce historical fiction and discuss the power of multiple perspectives and the danger of sterotypes and incomplete stories. It can help students examine the “single stories,” or biased assumptions, they may hold about a time, place, or group of people before reading, and teach them to critically question, “What perspectives are missing from this story?” while reading.
The second TED Talk helps students understand power dynamics so they can analyze power more closely in any text. Readers can apply Liu’s “types” of power to the historical narrative, examine the impact of setting through more of a sociopolitical lens, and make connections between past and present power struggles.
You can check out how I use both videos in this editable historical fiction unit for any text.
CHARACTER POSTCARD ACTIVITY
You can ask students, “How does the setting impact the plot and theme?” but why not hit this skill with a more creative perspective-based approach? With the right parameters, you can accomplish the same goal with a character postcard activity. Whether your goal is to focus on point of view, the impact of setting, character relationships, or theme, this activity can help your readers think about their historical fiction books in a new way. Not only is this activity creative and fun, but it also gets students critically thinking and helps scaffold more complex literary analysis. Here are some powerful extension questions to pair with the postcard activity:
- Why do you think the author chose this point of view/narrator? How does it shape your understanding of the historical context?
- How does the historical setting impact the characters, plot, and/or theme?
- Which character relationship is the most important, and how does this relationship reflect the time period?
- What does the protagonist learn that could be considered a theme? How does the historical setting shape this lesson?
Students can even “send” their postcards to other characters for extra engagement. Check out this activity in the historical fiction novel study bundle for middle and high school.
CONFLICT BAR GRAPHS
One thing you can’t help but teach during a historical fiction novel unit is the impact of the setting on the characters and plot. To spark these kinds of conversations, I love using charts where students break down the conflict and analyze how it impacts the protagonist. While I often use traditional pie charts, I thought of a fun twist for historical fiction: stacked bar graphs. Instead of asking students to analyze the conflict during just one moment in the text, students track the development of the conflict throughout the story in 3 different horizontal bar graphs. This specific setup works perfectly with historical fiction because it helps students see both personal and historical conflicts, how they develop and interact, and how the setting impacts the conflict. If you’re teaching historical fiction about the Holocaust or any other genocide, war, or tragedy, charting the conflict can help students see how atrocities like these unfold–and how to prevent them.
Like the other activities mentioned in this blog, the conflict bar graph resource is included in this historical fiction bundle.
CHARACTER RELATIONSHIPS GROUP WORK
You can’t read historical fiction without analyzing character development and dissecting how the setting impacts relationships between characters. To get students thinking about these complex questions, organize them into groups and assign jigsaw-style group work where each student digs deeper into a character. I like to give each student a foldable that includes a frame where they illustrate the character on the outside and describe, cite, and analyze on the inside.
Each student can become an “expert” on their character before discussing the relationships and impact of the setting with another character representative. This approach works especially well if you’re running lit circles or book clubs, but it’s still a great way to integrate collaboration during a whole-class historical fiction novel unit. This activity also works especially well with stories told from multiple perspectives, like Salt to the Sea, Mirror Girls, A Long Walk to Water, When The World Was Ours, or The Blackbird Girls.
POINT OF VIEW SCENE REWRITE
As I’ve mentioned, historical fiction provides the perfect platform for a deep dive into point of view. Whether you’re reading The Book Thief (narrated by death), We Are Not Free (told from the perspectives of 14 Japanese-American teenagers), or The Night Diary (written as journal entries), it’s essential to explore how point of view shapes our understanding of the text (and history, too). One way to do just that is by asking students to rewrite a pivotal scene from a different perspective.
For example, students could could rewrite a scene from Liesel’s 1st-person point of view in The Book Thief, try out third-person narrator for We Are Not Free, or even experiment with using verse instead of the epistolary format in The Night Diary. Not only will this exercise flex students’ creative muscles, but it will prompt them to think about how the point of view shapes the story. Plus, students will love sharing their rewritten scenes and discussing the changes with their peers.
POST-READING SPEED DISCUSSION
Before you facilitate a post-reading discussion or jump into assessments, it’s important to give your students time to process, reflect, and practice their thinking in a low-risk, engaging way. My favorite way to do just that is “speed discussion,” which gets students thinking, talking, and connecting so they’re ready for a stronger whole-class discussion afterward (or the following day). If you’ve never heard of the speed discussion strategy, it’s super simple: you pair students up for quick rounds (think 60-90 seconds) of discussion. Each round, students are paired up with a new peer and a new discussion starter. By the end, they’ve had multiple conversations with different peers, making them more confident and prepared for deeper discussions.
Here are a few sample prompts from my historical fiction speed discussion activity. I like to mix text-based questions with broader, thought-provoking prompts to keep things interesting:
- How can we take a theme from this historical story and apply it to our world/current events? Explain.
- Do you think any of the history in this book has repeated itself? If so, how, when, and where? Explain.
You can find this historical fiction speed discussion HERE and other speed discussion resources for various genres and texts HERE. To learn more about the speed discussion strategy, check out my blog post HERE.
CHARACTER MUSEUM EXHIBIT PROJECT
Want to wrap up your historical fiction unit with a memorable, hands-on project instead of a test or essay? Try a character museum exhibit project! This unique alternative to tradiitonal assessment will get your students thinking creatively as they curate an exhibit of artifacts that represent the main character, story, and setting. It’s a great way to explore symbolism and theme, and it works especially well during literature circles and book clubs. Students can display their “exhibits” gallery-walk style and learn from other lit circle groups through this project. Plus, it’s so much more fun to grade AND you can get all your grading done in class when students present (in front of the class or through a gallery walk). A win-win!
You can find this unique project available separately HERE or in my complete historical fiction bundle HERE. If you don’t have time for this project, the bundle also includes short-answer assessment options and rubrics for your convenience!
Teaching historical fiction is an incredible opportunity to help students connect with the past, build empathy, and think critically about the world around them. With the right activities, you can transform any historical fiction unit into an engaging, student-centered experience that goes beyond basic comprehension.
If you’re looking for ready-to-use, editable resources to bring these ideas to life, check out my Historical Fiction Unit Bundle! This flexible bundle works well for any format of instruction: a whole-class novel, literature circles, book clubs, or even independent reading. It’s designed to work with any historical fiction text, including, but not limited to: Refugee, Salt to the Sea, I Must Betray You, Code Name Verity, We Are Not Free, Code Talker, The Night Diary, Prisoner B-3087, The Book Thief, The War That Saved My Life, Between Shades of Gray, A Night Divided, Resistance, Fever 1973, Lyddie, Number the Stars, Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry, Echo, To Kill A Mockingbird, Chains, Copper Sun, The Grapes of Wrath, Their Eyes Were Watching God
Everything is flexible, standards-aligned, and easy to adapt to your needs. Happy teaching! 🙂
