Coordinated and Integrated Curricula

It has become common practice in many universities to coordinate and integrate curricula across disciplines to take advantage of potential common reading assignments of historical novels.

A scholarly novel about a 19th century Buffalo Soldier could serve as a single coordinated reading assignment for history, literature, and Africa American Studies and American Studies.  Students reading this novel are afforded the opportunity to see an important period (1863-1882) in American History through the eyes and everyday lives of ordinary characters they will come to know.  

The result can potentially enhance the learning outcomes you plan for your classes.

Here is a synopsis of my newest novel, First Dark: A Buffalo Soldier’s Story, available 30 November 2011 immediately from my web site in hard cover, paperback, and for the most popular ebook readers.  First Dark will be available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and other major booksellers in early December.

Please contact me, if you wish to have me assist with integration of a study guide with your syllabus.

Getting Started with Historical Fiction in the Classroom

Will and Dena, is history told in story form for students of literature, geography, psychology, sociology, history, African American Studies, and American Studies.  Historical novels offer students the opportunity to vicariously experience the struggles of fictional characters interacting with historic figures, feel their frustrations living under the pressures and mores of a forgotten time and place, and hear them debate the philosophies and political positions of writers from the era in which they lived.

The period of Will and Dena begins early in 1943 when the outcome of World War II was much in doubt and the book ends in January 1945 before the war comes to a close.  Classes will engage in vigorous and heated debate over the roles played, with war as a back drop, by jim crow laws, questions like when did the campaign for civil rights really begin, the prominent role of baseball in the 1940s, Langston Hughes, Billie Holiday, Edward Almond, the Roosevelt Administration, segregated army units, parental mate selection, the existence of a judge like Julius Waites Waring in the American south, and more.

One history teacher said, "When students read about characters living what they are studying, it brings history alive and makes it real. It's no longer just words on a page, but a real experience for the characters and themselves." 

An essay by history teacher and author Michelle Moran (Nefertiti: A Novel), and recent conversations with Dr. Cheryl Butler Brayboy (Humanities Department at Johnson C. Smith University) and Dr. Helen V. Carby (Acting Chair, African American Studies at Yale University) have convinced me of the significant potential benefits for students and educators who read novels like Will and Dena in a coordinated cross-curriculum setting.

Educators are welcome to use me as an additional resource in their individual or combined classes. 

October 2010