The Art of Teaching History: A Guest Post from Beyond the Bright Sea Author Lauren Wolk
Lauren Wolk’s first novel, Wolf Hollow, was a Newbury Honor winner. Her newest book, Beyond the Bright Sea, is a poignant, beautifully crafted story of a twelve-year-old girl, Crow, who has grown up on an isolated Massachusetts island. Determined to learn more about her mysterious origins, Crow sets off on an adventure that leads to discovery—and peril. Wolk was kind enough to some insights into what inspires her as a writer (and the value of history as a teaching tool) with The B&N Kids’ Blog.
Beyond the Bright Sea
Hardcover
$11.04
$16.99
Beyond the Bright Sea
By Lauren Wolk
Hardcover
$11.04
$16.99
When I was a kid, my mother used to drag me to cultural events. Think collar. Think leash. It didn’t take long, though, before I went willingly. And then eagerly. And then led the way. Here’s what I learned: that art is a great teacher. That museums and theaters, concert halls and libraries are magnificent classrooms. And that visual artists, performers, and especially writers are very fine teachers who have shaped my world, how I think about it, and how I express my thoughts.
When I was a kid, my mother used to drag me to cultural events. Think collar. Think leash. It didn’t take long, though, before I went willingly. And then eagerly. And then led the way. Here’s what I learned: that art is a great teacher. That museums and theaters, concert halls and libraries are magnificent classrooms. And that visual artists, performers, and especially writers are very fine teachers who have shaped my world, how I think about it, and how I express my thoughts.
Kids need a slew of history teachers in their lives. Some will be paintings like Picasso’s Guernica that teach and teach and teach…and teach. Some will be movies like Breaker Morant, which taught me about the second Boer War (and, yes, this one involved some dragging … but here I am, several decades later, writing about it). Some will be plays like Our Town by Thornton Wilder, and Athol Fugard’s Master Harold and the Boys. Some will be songs like Strange Fruit, made famous by Billie Holiday, which Abel Meeropol wrote after he saw a photograph of a lynching of two black men. My teachers this time? The photograph itself and Lawrence Beitler, who made it; Abel Meeropol, who wrote the poem and, later, the music; Billie Holiday, who gave it her voice before I, in turn, gave it to my students when we read Toni Morrison’s Beloved. And we all learned history along the way.
Wolf Hollow
Hardcover $16.99
Wolf Hollow
By Lauren Wolk
Hardcover $16.99
Novels have always been my favorite history teachers. How do I know what life was like for a young settler living in the wilds of Kansas over a century ago? Laura Ingalls Wilder taught me. Or what the American south was like before the Civil Rights Movement? I read the stories of Harper Lee, Maya Angelou, Samuel Clemens, and many others. I didn’t go looking for a history lesson when I read The Diary of Anne Frank, but that’s what I got. And I didn’t set out to teach a history lesson when I wrote Wolf Hollow or Beyond the Bright Sea, but that’s what I gave.
Novels have always been my favorite history teachers. How do I know what life was like for a young settler living in the wilds of Kansas over a century ago? Laura Ingalls Wilder taught me. Or what the American south was like before the Civil Rights Movement? I read the stories of Harper Lee, Maya Angelou, Samuel Clemens, and many others. I didn’t go looking for a history lesson when I read The Diary of Anne Frank, but that’s what I got. And I didn’t set out to teach a history lesson when I wrote Wolf Hollow or Beyond the Bright Sea, but that’s what I gave.
Some might argue that a work of fiction can never measure up to a textbook. Not when facts are such an important part of a history lesson. I would counter by submitting that the world’s history books are full of inaccuracies, some of them intentional, and that a text must be as accessible as it is informative.
But this is not an either/or situation. Yes, broccoli is good for you. But it’s not the only element of a balanced diet. Pair the textbook with the novel, the poem, the song, the play, the movie, the painting. Throw in a little dance, some fashion, some culinary art. And make sure that the students both experience and make that art. That they themselves both learn and teach. No educational tool or technique is more effective than asking the student to teach, and not just with a lecture or a demonstration or a lesson plan. Art teaches, too. With minimal dragging. And lifelong rewards. Think intellectual curiosity. Think creativity. Think individual expression. Think thought.
If I have managed, in Beyond the Bright Sea, to convey what life was like on a string of lonely islands off the coast of Massachusetts in 1925, it is because I have lived a layered life, full of appreciation for what came before me, what lies ahead, and where I am right now. My protagonist, a girl named Crow, has that same appreciation, though she is only twelve. Like an artist, she pays close attention to her world, noticing what others miss, questioning what they take for granted, and hungry for both explanations and ways to explain what she knows.
We have that in common.
I am beyond happy to introduce her to readers who may find, in her, the same fine companion she’s been to me.
Beyond the Bright Sea is on B&N bookshelves now.