I’ve always loved history, and when I was an undergrad at the University of Massachusetts I decided to make it my major. I had every intention of teaching the subject after graduating so that I could share my love of history with my students. However, due to a surplus of history teachers in the area, I became a special education teacher with a focus on English in a co-taught setting.
I teach 10th grade English, which is a pretty broad part of the curriculum. My students get a little of everything: short fiction, memoir, poetry, novels, argument and persuasion, nonfiction, etc. When I first started teaching English, I relied heavily on my co-teacher, who has a master’s degree in English, to bring her knowledge into the classroom. What did I know about teaching texts such as Harper Lee’s “To Kill A Mockingbird?” I had a BA in history, and at the time hadn’t read “To Kill A Mockingbird” since I was in 10th grade. But I did know a lot about the Great Depression and race relations in the deep South during the 1930s, ’40s and ’50s. So I brought that information to my students.
I started connecting the English curriculum with mini history lessons in order to give my students a rich historical context for what they were reading and learning about. As time went on, I became more familiar and comfortable with the 10th grade English curriculum at my school. As my comfort level increased, so did the amount of history I was bringing into my classes.
One summer I took a Western Mass Writing Project class about the Holocaust, and decided to bring some of that material into my class. Now, every year I teach Elie Wiesel’s memoir, “Night” as part of a memoir unit, and I give my students a crash course in World War II and the Holocaust at the same time. During my “Night” mini unit, I use many personal histories from the University of Southern California’s Shoah Foundation website, as well as found diary entries from children affected by the Holocaust from the book “Salvaged Pages” by Alexandra Zapruder. Many of my students are learning about the Holocaust for the first time during this unit, and they are often struck by the fact that Elie Wiesel was their age when he was in the concentration camps.
Throughout the year I teach my students about the history behind the authors of the texts we read, and the historical events that took place during those time periods. I think it’s incredibly important to give students a context for their learning, and in my classroom the context is always through a historical lens. Often my students lament, “I thought this was English class, not history class.” We have a laugh and I explain to them how the two go hand in hand.
By the end of the year my students have learned about the Holocaust, Japanese internment during WWII, the Sioux people and Indigenous boarding schools, and the Civil Rights Movement and various leaders from that time such as Malcolm X, John Lewis, Ruby Bridges, among others.
I don’t think the way I teach is unique, but I do think having a history background helps me keep my students engaged and helps them understand a little more about the world they live in. Not every English teacher needs to have a degree in history. But bringing some historical context into the classroom can lead to a deeper understanding of texts, point of view and author’s purpose. When our students move on from our classes, they can take their new knowledge with them, and see the world in a different, more historical way.
Michelle Bartman is in her 9th year of teaching, and currently teaches special education English at West Springfield High School. She is a member of her district’s equity team, and runs an after school Sci-Fi Club. She plans on getting a master’s degree in English in the near future.