As the teaching of History in Australia undergoes substantial changes through the implementation of the national History curriculum, undergraduate student teachers and teachers in classrooms are being required to re-think their teaching/learning strategies for the teaching of History. With the developments in SOSE/HSIE since the 1970s, curricula researchers have found that during the last few decades the teaching of History has drifted almost into oblivion in many Australian schools. More recently, with the implementation of the National History curriculum undergraduate teachers and teachers in classrooms have been asked to re-engage with the subject (Rodwell, 2010). In this chapter, I argue historical narrative offers many effective possibilities for this re-engagement process.

Developments in the use of the historical novel in History classrooms

In this book's Introduction I looked at several authors of historical fiction who were passionate about the use of their genre in the classroom. Some teachers are also passionate about the use of the genre in their teaching. For example, Moran (2005) writes about why she decided to use historical fiction in her classroom. It relates to the curiosity and discourse that the reading of historical fiction generates amongst students: