Edufiction as a genre

Year 5 to 10 parents and teachers

Searching the many genres and sub genres on Amazon fails to find the genre ‘edufiction’, nor is there a BISAC subject heading for it. Edufiction is the deliberate embedding of curriculum topics by an author in a fictional narrative to allow the reader to learn through the experiences of the characters in the story and/or the theme of the story itself. This genre resides between fiction and non-fiction, where the writer requires to adhere to curricular integrity of the material used, but is free to place this in a creative writing context. Perhaps, historical fiction is the more well known sub genre of edufiction, but all other subjects like, mathematics, science, digital techology, etc., are equally suited. Presentation of curricular materials in this manner, if done well, can be a seamless learning experience for the reader, while enjoying the story. Ideally, teaching guides should accompany edufictional books, so that they can become excellent learning resources in class. It is important therefore, that an edufictional publication should clearly indicate the curriculum topics covered. Given that curricula differ around the world, publishers should endeavour to either generalise the topics covered or state the curriculum references for the country where the book is sold. My MG Team Savv-i series embeds aspects of the digital technologies curriculum, to make digital citizenship, digital literacy, and digital transformation of ourselves and our society more understandable to the young teen reader.

Question: What have you learned from books?

Casper Pieters PhD Dip Ed is an author and educator who uses adventure narratives to enliven the ICT curriculum for young people. www.casperpieters.com