8. How did you assess the students' understanding of what
you wanted them to learn? They demonstrated an understanding of
point of view, but how did you know that students really understood
historical fiction?
I guess when you read their stories and you look at the letters
and the questions that they've gotten through their correspondence
with the people from the Memories listserv, I could see, in comparison
to previous years, that students were basing their story, plot,
and structure on actual facts, on things that had really happened.
They demonstrated--the students actually demonstrated the use of
actual facts in creating their stories. Where in the past they didn't
have access to information from history that was full enough where
they could actually ask the questions they needed to ask and get
the answers to write a story. Where with the interaction with the
Memories people they could interact and ask questions and get more
information and develop the story so it became historical fiction.
Before, most of it was embellished, so it wasn't so much historical
fiction; it was fuzzy, and so their understanding of it was fuzzy.
Here it was very clear that they had based it on actual things.
