What will you research to find an element of
history/reality to adapt into a fictive piece of
fiction or drama?
You are encouraged to choose an event or
person in which you are highly interested. If you
aren’t even sure where to begin, consider one of
the suggestions on the following slides.
Examples We Know
From this course, or other English classes,
where have you seen the thread of truth
fictively re-imagined into a play or novel or
short story?
Examples of nonfiction to fiction:
• Sinking of the Titanic into love story of the movie Titanic or The
Unsinkable Molly Brown (musical)
• Columbine shootings inspired Nineteen Minutes by Jodi Picoult
• Civil War events into Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
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Chicago Fire: Oct 8-9, 1871
Great Fire of London: 1666
Black Death: 1348
Cholera Outbreak in US
June-December 1832
Flu Pandemic 1918
Chernobyl: April 25-26,
1986
Hurricane Katrina
Newtown, CT shooting,
December 2012
Boston Marathon Massacre,
April 2013
Recent airplane incidents
• Polio Outbreak in US-1950s
• Hindenburg Disaster: May
6, 1937
• Spaceship Columbia
Disaster: Feb. 16, 2003
• Challenger Explosion:
January 28, 1986
• Ferguson/Michael Brown
Shooting, Fall 2014
• Colorado movie shooting,
July 2011
• 9/11
• Hurricane Sandy, 2012
Examples of nonfiction into fiction:
• Salem Witch Trials into The Crucible by Arthur Miller
• Scopes Monkey Trial/McCarthyism into Inherit the Wind by Jerome
Lawrence and Robert Edwin Lee
• Triangle Shirtwaist Fire and Trial
(1911): a fire started in a factory that employed
many young women. Doors were locked and there were
no fire escapes. Lives were lost and the building owners
were put on trial
• Black Sox Trial (1921):
Deals with the
fixing of the 1919 World Series
• Scopes Monkey Trial (1925):
Tennessee teacher taught evolution alongside Creationism
and was put on trial
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Hauptman (Lindbergh) Trial
(1935): Charles Lindbergh’s child was kidnapped
and killed. Hauptman was accused/found guilty, but
defended his innocence.
• APD Trial (Rodney King beating)
(1992): Police in LA pulled over speeding Rodney
King, whom they had trouble subduing. Questions arose
over use of force (was it too much) and racial issues
(police were white, King was black) prompted riots over
perceived unfair treatment
• Lizzie Borden (1893):
Lizzie disliked
her stepmother and subsequently resented her father
for marrying the woman. When both turned up axed
to death, Lizzie was put on trial for their gruesome
murders.
• John Hinckley, Jr. (1982):
He
attempted an assassination of President Reagan. The
Catcher in the Rye was found among his things (bad
influence?) and he had been stalking actress Jodie
Foster (was he trying to impress her?).
• Timothy McVeigh (1997):
He was
put on trial for the bombing of a federal building in
Oklahoma in 1995. It was the worst act of terrorism
ever committed by a US citizen.
• Brown vs. Board of Education
(1954): Case ruled against segregation in
schools.
• Rosenberg Trial (1953):
Immigrants
Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were accused of passing
atomic secrets to Russia during the McCarthy Era.
They were found guilty and electrocuted.
Examples of nonfiction into fiction:
• Stanley Hotel inspired Stephen King’s The Shining
• Hull House inspired Rosemary’s Baby by Ira Levin
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Banshees (local to Ireland)
Resurrection Mary (local to Chicago)
NJ Devil
Chupacabra
Marie Laveau in St. Louis Cemetery #1 in New
Orleans
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Eastern State Penitentiary
Alcatraz
Tower of London
Oprah Winfrey’s Harpo Studios building in
Chicago
Jane Addams’ Hull House (Chicago)
Lincoln Theater (local to Decatur, IL)
Gettysburg, PA
Waverly Hills Sanitorium, Louisville, KY
Winchester Mystery House, California (partial
inspiration for King’s Rose Red)
Gravity Hill, PA
Dark Hollow Road, PA
Fonthill Mansion, PA
Interesting People
DB Cooper
Marie Antoinette
Bonnie and Clyde
Coco Chanel
Anastasia
Queen Elizabeth (I and II)
Dr. Suess (Theodore Geisel)
Houdini
Einstein
Sir Edmund Hillary
J.K. Rowling
Walt Disney
Steve Jobs
Mark Zuckerberg
King Tut
Cleopatra
Stephen Colbert
Bono
Michael Jordan
Michael Phelps
Chris Christie
The Obamas
Vladimir Putin
Steven Spielberg
John Lennon
Van Gogh
daVinci
If you would like to research a person, but are not
sure who, check out Time Magazine’s 100 Lists for
suggestions of people who have had a significant
influence on art, culture, politics, government,
business, science and technology:
Time 100 List
http://heavy.com/entertainment/2015/04/time-100-mostinfluential-people-2015-list/
Here are a few people included on these most
recent (2015)…
TIME 100
Kanye West
Tim Cook
Lee Daniels
Laverne Cox
Elizabeth Warren
Jeb Bush
Ruth Bader Ginsburg
Ina Garten (Barefoot Contessa)
Taylor Swift
Malala Yousafzai
Pope Francis
• Barack Obama – President
• Michelle Obama – First Lady
• Joe Biden – Vice President
• Prince William – British Royalty
• Princess Catherine – British Royalty (Pippa Middleton too!)
• Gabrielle Giffords – Congresswoman
• Chris Christie – Governor
• Hillary Clinton – Secretary of State
• General David Petraeus – Army Commander
• Marco Rubio-Republican Senator from Florida
• Chris Christie: NJ Governor
• Amy Poehler – Actor
• Tim Burton-Film director
• Justin Bieber – Musician
• Daniel Day-Lewis– Actor
• Oprah Winfrey – Television Pioneer
• John Lasseter – Filmmaker (Pixar)
• Ryan Murphy—TV Writer (Glee, The New Normal, American
Horror Story)
• Bruno Mars – Musician and Artist
• Sting – Musician and humanitarian
• Mark Wahlberg – Actor and Producer
• Viola Davis – Actor
• Rihanna – Performer
• Kristen Wiig – Actor
• Chelsea Handler – Comedian
• Harvey Weinstein – Film Producer
• Adele – Singer
• Matt Lauer – Today Show Host
• Claire Danes – Actor
• Stephen Colbert – Actor/Talk Show Host/Comedian
• Jeremy Lin – NBA Point Guard
• Tim Tebow – NFL Quarterback
• Novak Djokovic – Professional Tennis Player
• Yani Tseng – Professional Golfer
• Kim Clijsters – Tennis Champion
• Ryan Howard-Phillies First Baseman
• Reed Hastings – Netflix CEO
• Michelle Rhee – School Reformer
• Geoffrey Canada – School Reformer
• Mark Zuckerberg – Facebook Founder
• Sarah Burton – Creative Director/Alexander McQueen
• Warren Buffett – Businessman/Philanthropist
• Sara Blakely – Entrepreneur
Read, Look, Watch and Listen to media available in
digital spaces such as the following:
TIME’s 100 People of the Year:
http://time100.time.com/2013/04/18/time-
100/slide/all/
• Newspapers and Magazines Online (Time,
Newsweek, People, NPR)
• History Channel Online
• Newspaper Photo Galleries
o Philly.com Year in Review
o San Francisco Chronicle Photo Gallery