Why Teach Historical Context for Creative Writing?

Our writing emerges from an understanding of ourselves and others; historical context is one tool that helps us refine that understanding. I define historical context as the conditions that reveal a specific time, such as cultural and social events or trends. With historical context, we can both sharpen distinctions between experiences and draw parallels between settings that seem different. For example, motherhood is an experience shared between millions of individuals across space and time, but the life skills and priorities that my great-great-great-grandmother taught her children in early 1800s rural Japan differed dramatically from those that my mother taught me in 1980s suburban New England. At the same time, I am drawn to the parallels between the stories of Caribbean writers and my own, particularly those with devout Christian parents who grew up among sugarcane fields and who raised their children in the continental US.

In the fall of 2006, I taught my first world history courses in a red brick midcentury building at a public university. In the large fluorescent-lit classroom, students could sit in clumps with gaps between them that remained undisrupted all semester. In the process of landing that job, I learned about the gaps that others perceived, too. The hiring committee told me they took job candidates to breakfast at Bob Evans to see how they handled Northeast Ohio. (After hearing that, I ordered biscuits and gravy.) Department rumor maintained that one colleague wanted to ensure that the new Asian history specialist spoke good English. And in the first week of the semester, the newly minted university president floated to the student center table where I was having lunch with my coworkers and asked me, “What is your major?” In my mid-thirties, I was not the youngest person at the table, but only I got that question. I was also the only person of color. The following week, I discovered that our students’ responses to lectures on slavery from nonwhite faculty ranged from hostile energy to leaving the lecture hall. The historical context can help us understand the priorities and anxieties of that moment. In 2006, the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center (designed by a Japanese American architect) were a fresh memory. Against the backdrop of the postindustrial Northeast Ohio economy, I sensed both frustration with George W. Bush and frustration toward people frustrated with Bush. Most of my classes had at least one veteran from one of the two wars the US openly fought at the time. Many institutions in higher ed and beyond publicized diversity with images, language, and working groups.

Since I had not taught world history before, every week I hauled home a bag stuffed with books of African, European, Latin American, and other histories. In the textbook I used, each chapter covered several areas of the world under a theme such as “contact, commerce, and colonization.” The book allowed me to connect topics I recognized to those I knew nothing about for each lecture. It also helped me grasp worldwide historical trends in a way I hadn’t before. As a child I visited Lexington, Massachusetts, the site of the “shot heard ‘round the world.” The end of the exhibit probably mentioned the other revolutions that followed, but like most other visitors I walked past it. If I learned about the American Revolution in conversation with the Haitian Revolution and wars for independence in Latin America, the similarities and differences would have animated my understanding of myself and who we are as a nation. Teaching world history in my thirties, I started to find ways to close those gaps between myself and others as never before.

For this class, I wanted an assignment where students could apply world history content to their own lives and carry those skills beyond the classroom. They would find a topic that pertained to their lives, research that topic, and place their own story within the timeline of that topic. This is hard to do when we are socialized to believe that a history class involves memorizing facts and dates that we will never use again. It might have been too ambitious a project for an entry-level undergraduate class, but this assignment did help students see themselves as part of something bigger. I also learned a lot. One student researched the history of ROTC scholarships. Another student learned more about his mother’s birth country.

Despite some wins, I didn’t achieve one larger, more important objective: to have students’ stories talk to each other. I wanted students to see each other’s timelines and reflect on how their timelines resonate or diverge. I wanted this assignment to bridge the stubborn gaps separating the students from each other. Even if the students never spoke, I wanted them to learn about possibilities for connection, if not with people in my class, with other people they may meet.

In 2017, after leaving the higher ed industry, I taught “Your Story and Historical Context” for the first time at the Loft Literary Center. A practice run with friends revealed some problems I couldn’t work out before the class started. I had students summarize their stories on an index card, place them on a large sheet of craft paper, and discuss connections between their stories. This was too difficult to do in one session without a lecture or other way to identify historical points of reference. In the following years, I tinkered with lecture, texts to discuss, and in-class writing. Each iteration helped me think of new ways to build connections between students through historical context.

In November 2025, I will teach this class for the fourth time at the Loft Literary Center. This time, I think it will work. The class will be divided into four sessions, where participants can dig into their stories as they see fit: research, reflection, or any other activity that helps them understand the world about which they are writing. To introduce the idea of historical context, I will use spreads from graphic novels and demonstrate how the stories talk to each other across a broader historical canvas. Participants may use an online platform to continue discussions between class sessions. When I taught this class in February 2025, some participants hailed from places as far away as Canada and Georgia. I was excited by our conversations fueled by the stories that each person brought to our online space. I hope that this fall conversations like these help writers feel more grounded historically both in their stories and in their own bodies as they move about a world that often feels ungrounded.

You can learn more and sign up for the class here: https://loft.org/classes/so-what-your-story-and-historical-context