Exploring Historical Fiction: Fourth Grade Projects Explores Connections Across Time

This week, fourth-grade students proudly presented their Trimester 3 Book Projects, demonstrating both their analytical skills and growing literary insight. Each student selected a historical fiction novel to explore, deepening their understanding of how personal narratives intersect with significant historical events.

Students had the choice of two creative project formats. The first was a mobile depicting the major plot points—highlighting how the introduction and rising actions led to the story’s climax, and how the falling action and resolution brought the conflict to a meaningful close. The second option was a "Now and Then" poster, which encouraged students to draw connections between the historical conflicts at the heart of their novels and similar issues reflected in today’s news.

These projects were the culmination of work completed during Units 4 and 5 of our Fishtank ELA curriculum, which focused on historical fiction texts. Students used the same planning sheets throughout the year to guide their work in both literary analysis and narrative writing. Their final presentations were shared in small groups during a Town Meeting attended by both fourth and fifth-grade students, fostering a supportive and intellectually curious learning environment.