Stories in Schools

Having just come out of a class on integrating music into other subject areas, I thought to myself- why don't we make full use of as many different "subjects," texts and media in our Social Studies classes to strengthen our teaching and learning? Why not explore using different text to help students make stronger connections not only with curriculum content, but with community and the world?

That being said, I've been thinking a lot about storytelling. It's just something that isn't done very often in the secondary classroom, but I think that it has immense power. History is essentially a series of stories all strung together and overlapping- different perspectives sometimes cause "knots." There are some fantastic, thought provoking, funny and controversial works of fiction that could easily be used to introduce a unit or topic in the classroom. Reading an excerpt at the beginning of each class could be a way of encouraging students to think outside their normal perspective, and to try and understand another way of thinking and doing. It wouldn't even be necessary to finish the whole book: some chapters may be more appropriate than others to the topic at hand.

Of course, it is important to choose a text (book, journal, diary, etc) that is age appropriate and is an example of quality work in both the areas of literature and historical research. I have a few titles that come to mind from my own collection.

I'll plug the Canadian literature first. This book is fairly tough going emotionally, but it provides an excellent portrait of life during the early days of the Russian Revolution.
Birdsell, Sandra. (2001). The Russlander. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart.

Next, for all those times when you get to teach about the Plague! This book is based loosely around the true event of a small town choosing voluntary quarantine after a few of its citizens are infected with the Plague.
Brooks, Geraldine. (2001). Year of Wonders. New York: The Penguin Group.

Both would require careful selection because some passages are not necessarily age appropriate...but they are both books worth reading. Comments with other books that could work are appreciated!