Teacher Note: For many students, getting started (i.e., selecting their historical incident, event or era) may be the biggest challenge of this performance task. You may wish to jumpstart the process with a class brainstorm of suitable historical topics. You may also choose to partner with your school’s librarian or with social studies colleagues in developing a list of ideas and resources. Remind students that a subject they care about or feel passion for will yield the most convincing book pitch! Also point out that many people can fictionalize the same historical event or era and their interpretations will all be distinctive.  

When trying to sell a manuscript, an author needs to provide a book pitch. A book pitch is a compelling summary of the book designed to entice publishers to buy the manuscript and publish it as a book.  

Share with the class:

Your task is to create a book pitch for a work of historical fiction. It will be based on a topic, incident or event in African American or Black global history that you find engaging and that you think others should know about. You will have an opportunity to research your topic. The historical events in your book could be from long ago or they could be more recent, but they should be at least 20 years old.

Your book pitch should:

• Summarize the story. Include a first sentence hook that captures the reader’s attention.
• Introduce central characters, conflict, and plot
• Highlight the book’s uniqueness: What are the  key themes and issues? Why is this a time period that people should know about now? Why is this history meaningful to you personally? 
• Identify the target audience: Who would be interested in your book?
• Provide a key website or source from where you conducted your research. Explain the importance of this source for your research.

The rubric can be found here.