Textbook Reflections: Chapter Eleven- Realistic Fiction

Fiction is a main genre, within it there are sub-genres, categories or formats. Realistic Fiction is a format that falls under the genre. Realistic Fiction stories are believable and consistent with the real world; they are filled with characters, settings, and real events. Realistic Fiction can be also referred as contemporary realistic fiction or Modern Realistic Fiction.

There are three main points in the criteria for evaluating Realistic Fiction.
-Consistency with the real world
-Theme
-Subject matter relatable to readers

Questions that you may ask yourself when evaluating realistic ficion are:

Is everything consistent with the real world in which contemporary kids live?
Does the theme emerge naturally form the story? Does it avoid being preachy or didactic?
How does the topic or subject matter of the book relate to modern readers?

This format of literature tends to be more alluring to all students in general.My sophomore English Students absolutely love realistic fiction, due to the fact that they feel more entertained with the characters and can relate to situations in these books. In my eight years of teaching, I have noticed that overall the fiction genre is the most popular. This chapter provided very good questions that I can use when evaluating this format of literature.