For Teachers
I believe in the power of stories and the imagination to help young people experience other cultures and moments in time. This is why I am passionate about fiction-enriched curriculum.
What is ‘Fiction – enriched Curriculum’?
Primary Schools
In primary schools, we're familiar with using a class read aloud text to enhance understanding of a particular topic, followed by a class discussion and work around the story. For example, during a topic on the Rainforest, you might use a book from the South America booklist, like ‘Zonia’s Rainforest’ by Juana Martinez-Neal, or ‘Rainforest Warrior’ by Anita Ganeri. You might also choose to have a range of picture books on the topic being studied available in the classroom for children to access, or linked chapter books for more confident readers to take home so they can delve deeper into the topic. When we're wanting to kick off a life long love of reading in kids, the quality of these texts is key!
Secondary Schools
At secondary school level, using fiction in the classroom tends to take a dive off the agenda, but a set fiction text can bring a whole new dimension to learning! We can bring alive facts and sources with a story that young people can immerse themselves in. In History, for example, a WW2 text like ‘When the World Was Ours’ by Liz Kessler can bring alive the impact of the Holocaust in a way that factual learning just can’t, and a book like ‘Boy 87’ by Ele Fountain can stir up interest and understanding of what it might be like to be a refugee during a topic in Geography on migration where pure facts and figures fall short. By encouraging students to read fiction set in the particular period or country being studied, we harness their imaginations and their emotions, and so increase their interest and investment in what they are studying. As well as enriching curriculum in the humanities, a set fiction text can also be a great asset in teaching PSHE, as pupils read about and then talk about books from the ‘Life Lessons’ booklists whose characters live out some of the choices and consequences we seek to discuss. Whether you put a novel at the centre of your topic and spin the learning out of it, or add it into your topic as set reading to be done at home, fiction can bring learning at secondary level to life!
In addition to the benefits to learning in the subject being studied, students are improving literacy and their connection with books
it’s a win-win situation!
Get in touch
At The Reading Rebellion the hunt is always on for brilliant books, and I hope you can find texts that support your curriculum in the existing booklists. However, if you want to enrich your teaching with a fiction text and can’t find what you’re looking for, please use this short survey form to get in touch and I’d be happy to help!
When we give children books worth reading, we reinforce their desire to read. Perhaps children are falling out of love with books because we are not putting into their hands stories that satisfy their appetite for adventures worth having, for heroes worth following, and for wonder at the world...explore the Reading Rebellion booklists for good books that will fuel a love of reading for pleasure, or browse the top curriculum picks below if you are on the hunt for fiction to support a classroom topic.
