Welcome to this Lesson!

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 mentor text:

Pedro's Journal is a fictional journal account documenting the voyage of Christopher Columbus. Having students keep fictional journals for historical characters is a great way to make history come alive!

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.