Include members from all socioeconomic classes. Variations Classes can concentrate on one period for an entire year or change periods as the year progresses, starting with early United States history and continuing to the present. The class can break into groups, taking characters from different areas of the country during the same year. The class can move from one geographical area to others throughout the school year. Instead of real people of the time the students can take on roles of characters in a historical fiction book.
Students can create characters based on what they know about people of the period in general.
This might be especially appropriate when trying to include people who were not politically powerful and were not given much coverage in historical nonfiction. It might be possible to have students assume two roles, especially if they all want to be someone famous, or they might pair up, each partner assuming a different role. They can share what they learn so they can alternate roles. In fact, a class that's really involved in the project can rotate character roles among its many members. It takes very little time to learn the roles of the characters once the research has been assembled.