Creating Authentic Diaries

Session Two

Develop draft entry.

• Ask students to prepare a draft of their diary/journal entry from the chosen person's perspective. Remind students to focus on a specific aspect of their assigned event. Their entry should reflect the criteria for a historically useful, authentic diary/journal. Encourage students to read about the event, looking for details to make their entry more authentic. Student may eventually want to make their final copy look authentic, but they should not bother about this during the draft copy stage.

Critique the draft entry.

• Direct team members to exchange and review each others' work, using copies of the chart on Effective Historical Diaries/Journals to prepare a written critique. Ask students to share their critique, emphasizing two issues:
  • strengths of the piece
  • areas that need work.

Prepare final entry.

• Based on the feedback received, students may revise their entries and, if desired, add other authentic touches to their final copy. The historical entries for all four focus groups should be mounted beneath the time line at the appropriate place along the continuum.