What if the best way to help students understand history — and the issues we’re still grappling with today — was to hand them a novel and ask them to try on someone else’s life?
That’s exactly what Margaret Peterson Haddix had in mind when she wrote Uprising. In a video conversation about the book, Haddix explains that she wanted students to step into the history of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire by meeting characters they could genuinely relate to — and that the issues those characters faced are ones our nation is still wrestling with today. Sound familiar? Labor rights, immigration, gender equity — these aren’t just historical footnotes. They’re headlines.
Today, April 9th, is Haddix’s birthday — and what better way to celebrate than by bringing her characters into your classroom with intention? Born in 1964, she has written more than 50 books for children and teenagers, spanning dystopian futures, reconstructed pasts, and the tangled territory in between. Across all of them, she creates characters who are trapped — by circumstance, by society, by secrets they didn’t choose. That tension makes her books ideal for two thinking routines from Project Zero: Circle of Viewpoints and Step In/Step Out/Step Back. And the right digital tools can make those routines even more powerful.
Two Routines Worth Adding to Your Toolkit
Before we dive into the books, here’s a quick look at each routine and why they work so well together.
Circle of Viewpoints invites students to inhabit a specific character’s perspective and speak from inside it. The core frame is simple: “I am thinking about [the situation] from the point of view of…” From there, students respond to three questions:
- What do I see or experience from this viewpoint?
- What do I care about?
- What questions do I have that others might not?
The routine shines brightest when a text offers multiple distinct characters, because comparing what each one sees — and doesn’t see — is where the real learning happens. It moves students from summarizing what a character does to genuinely understanding why.
Step In/Step Out/Step Back builds on that empathy and then zooms out. Students step in to see through a character’s eyes, step out to consider how others in the story see things differently, and step back to examine the bigger picture — the systems, forces, and ideas at work in the world those characters inhabit. For Haddix’s books, that final “step back” is almost always where things get most interesting, because her fictional worlds have something pointed to say about our own.
Used together, these routines create a natural learning sequence: Circle of Viewpoints builds perspective and empathy first, then Step In/Step Out/Step Back widens the lens and invites critical thinking about what those perspectives reveal collectively. Think of it as moving from understanding to analyzing — and doing it through story.
Uprising: Three Windows, One World (Grades 6–10)
Before your students even open this book, consider sharing the video in which Haddix talks about why she wrote it. She makes a compelling case for why these characters matter — and why this history is anything but over. It’s a powerful way to set the stage.
Uprising is a fictionalized account of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, set against the workers’ strike that preceded it. It follows three young women: Yetta, a Russian immigrant passionate about labor rights who becomes one of the strike’s leaders; Bella, a recently arrived Italian immigrant who feels overwhelmed and like a stranger in America; and Jane, an unhappy wealthy girl who longs to break free from the cage of her social expectations. Readers experience three distinct viewpoints on the same events — the conditions in the factory, the strike, and ultimately the fire — as those perspectives coalesce into a single story.
That structure is a gift for the Circle of Viewpoints. Here’s how to make it work with technology:
Before class: Students read or listen to an assigned section using the teacher-created read-along playlist on YouTube — a meaningful accessibility bridge for struggling readers or students who need to hear the prose to connect with it. An audiobook preview is also available to hook interest before reading begins.
During class: Open a Microsoft Form (reviewed here) built around the Circle of Viewpoints prompts. Students choose their character — Bella, Yetta, or Jane — and respond to the routine’s questions. In presentation mode, the Form gives you something remarkable: a live snapshot of how the class distributed itself across three perspectives, with built-in word clouds surfacing the language students reached for. Whose words dominate? What concerns keep reappearing across all three viewpoints? Those patterns become the raw material for discussion.
The pivot: Once you’ve unpacked the Circle of Viewpoints data together, transition directly into Step In/Step Out/Step Back. Use the aggregate responses to ask the bigger question: now that we’ve heard from all three women, what do their perspectives together reveal about power, labor, and whose voice gets heard — in 1911, and today?
The Form doesn’t replace the discussion. It feeds it.
Among the Hidden: A Single Hidden Life (Grades 5–8)
Luke Garner is an illegal third child in a future where the Population Police enforce a strict two-children-only law — a boy who has lived his entire twelve years in isolation and fear on his family’s farm. A teacher-created read-along on YouTube makes the novel accessible for independent reading at home, setting up the same kind of flipped engagement that works so well with Uprising.
For the in-class activity, try the Iron Chef EduProtocol as your vehicle for Circle of Viewpoints. Inspired by the competitive cooking show, Iron Chef is a jigsaw-format activity in which students work collaboratively using a shared slide deck template — with a strict time limit that adds a game-like structure to the work. Here’s how to set it up:
- Prepare a shared slide deck with one slide per viewpoint: Luke, his brothers who live openly, Jen (the shadow child whose experience of hiding is entirely different from his), and the government officials enforcing the law.
- Assign each small group a slide and a character.
- Give them ten minutes to build out their perspective using the Circle of Viewpoints prompts.
- Each group presents. When everyone has shared, the class has built a Circle of Viewpoints together — collaboratively, with accountability built right in.
The Step Back question practically asks itself: Who decides whose life is worth protecting, and why?
Extend the thinking beyond class with a Padlet (reviewed here). Students post a brief “viewpoint card” — a statement from inside their character’s perspective — and respond to each other’s posts. The result is a visible, asynchronous dialogue between characters that you can revisit in subsequent lessons and that students can contribute to on their own time.
Running Out of Time: When the Truth Is Hidden From You (Grades 4–7)
Jessie believes she lives in 1840 Indiana — until diphtheria strikes her village and her mother reveals a shocking truth: it’s actually 1996, and they are living in a reconstructed frontier village. A YouTube read-along playlist supports home reading for all learners.
For the Circle of Viewpoints activity, a Canva template (reviewed here) built around the routine’s prompts gives teachers a flexible tool that works as either a digital activity or a printed one. No device? Print it. Device available? Students complete it digitally and share their thinking with the class. The template can include:
- Character name and role in the story
- Perspective statement (“I am thinking about the village from the point of view of…”)
- What this character sees, cares about, and wonders
- One question this character has that others don’t
For students ready to go deeper, Book Creator (reviewed here) opens up a richer possibility. Instead of a single template, students build a short digital “character journal” — a few pages written from inside their chosen character’s point of view, illustrated with images or their own drawings, tracing how that character’s understanding shifts across the novel. It’s Circle of Viewpoints extended into a sustained creative project, and it produces something students can genuinely be proud of.
The Step Back questions here are some of the most philosophically rich Haddix offers: What do we owe people when we shape the world they experience? How do we know what we know? Students at almost any age can wrestle with those questions — and Haddix gives them a story-shaped container in which to do it safely.
Ready to Try It?
You don’t need to overhaul your ELA or social studies unit to make this work. Start with one book, one routine, and one tool. Share the Haddix video. Build a simple Microsoft Form. Set up a Padlet. The entry point is always a story — and the story does most of the heavy lifting.
So today, in honor of Margaret Peterson Haddix’s birthday, consider introducing your students to Bella, Yetta, Jane, Luke, or Jessie — and then asking them to step into the circle. The thinking that follows might just surprise everyone in the room.
Ready to Learn More?
If any of the tools or strategies in this post are new to you, TeachersFirst has you covered. The OK2Ask on-demand professional learning sessions below are available anytime, and you can earn PD credit for each one you complete. Looking to go even deeper with thinking routines? Check out our full Professional Learning Unit.
Thinking Routines
- Engage and Inspire with Thinking Routines (OK2Ask on-demand)
- Engage and Inspire with More Thinking Routines (OK2Ask on-demand)
- Thinking Routines Professional Learning Unit
Microsoft Forms
- Microsoft Forms Basics (OK2Ask on-demand)
- Microsoft Forms for Differentiation (OK2Ask on-demand)
EduProtocols
- EduProtocols for Student Engagement and Choice (OK2Ask on-demand)
Padlet
- Tech Made EZ with Padlet (OK2Ask on-demand)
Canva
- Canva Basics (OK2Ask on-demand)
Book Creator
- Tech Made EZ with Book Creator (OK2Ask on-demand)