Historical Fiction

Knowing of history is important but knowing of the different perspectives about history is even more crucial. Historical fiction provides the readers with different perspectives. Historical fiction can be defined as a work of fiction that is set in a time prior to when it was written, though some argue that 25 years is the minimum requirement (Temple, Martinez, and Yokota, 2019). In Copper Sun by Sharon M. Draper, Draper provides the first perspective of the enslavement of people from a small village in Africa through Amari. Amari was enslaved and brought through the ships that we’ve learned about in our history classes. Amari, and other women, were raped while they were on the ship – Amari was only fifteen years old. The wat Draper uses figurative language in her writing provides insight as to how horrible the lives of those who were enslaved was. She creates vivid images of how people were killed when the White men came to the village, how people died as they were forced to Cape Sun, and how people died in the horrific conditions they were forced in through ships to the United States. According to Temple et al. (2019), “Today’s writers may choose to capture the flavor of an earlier ear by infusing words and phrases of the period into their stories…” This is exactly what Draper has done in Copper Sun, she has captured the true essence of the horror of enslavement of people and the slave trade that happened in the United States. It is important that the words being used be appropriate for its audience, that is, the readers are able to read the text with ease and fluency.

The perspective of how stories are told is needed in historical fiction (Temple et al. 2019). Polly is also enslaved but when Amari arrived, she was already in the United States. As Draper states, Polly feels that she could not relate to the people brought from Africa because “they talked funny, they smelled bad, and they were ugly” (p. 75). This perspective was not taught in schools – the perspective of someone else who is black who thinks about people like herself that way. Different perspectives are needed to see how people think. Polly is being prejudice against people of the same ethnicity as her, but because she is educated, she thinks of herself as more than those who have been enslaved from Africa.

Draper encompasses the perspectives of those who were enslaved magically. The characters that Draper uses in Copper Sun are those who are not well known – they are ordinary people and not of historical significance (Temple et al, 2019). Children need to relate, in some way, to the characters, and providing characters who are ordinary – like themselves – gives the children the realization that their perspective matter.

This could be incorporated into my classroom by providing students different perspectives of the community they live in and the historical significance of their community. There is a lot of artwork in the community I work in, and it provides history of what the community is about. This can be applied to mathematics to analyze the statistics around their community.