Using Role Playing to Teach History

When it comes to teaching history, most teachers agree on the importance of bringing the students into the history lesson. History taught by lectures and textbooks alone does little to engage students and make the lessons of the past relevant to today’s students.  One way to achieve active learning in the history classroom is to introduce students to topics, themes, eras, and events using role play.

Drama includes elements of spontaneity that can enrich lesson plans and activities. You can make one group the actors for a day, or you can break your students into smaller groups and let them carry out several role-playing sessions at once.

One way to determine who will play what role is to randomize the selection. Draw names from a hat. For a drama lesson on the Civil War for example, use lanyards or badge reels. Students participating could draw names or titles such as union soldier, President Lincoln, confederate soldier, and so on. Those name tag badges can be clipped on lanyards or badge reels to help the audience see what roles are being played.

Drama works in the teaching of history because it encourages students to think more critically about a specified historical context. They must assign an identity to the roles of the people being portrayed in the role playing. The must also think about how the time and location of a situation influenced the event. Finally, they learn to see an issue in terms of how it impacted the people living at the time.

Eventually students will be able to see the event as a big picture idea that is applicable to them today.

Before you develop a role-playing activity, think about the issue or event and establish a list of learning goals that you hope your students will achieve during the process.

Finding Inspiration for Drama

• Give yourself a role: As a teacher, you can take an active part in the drama that unfolds. Using your knowledge of the event can help set the tone for students who may not otherwise know where to begin. Plus, students might be more likely to pay attention seeing their teacher in a role outside the norm.
• Use old photographs: Find primary sources like old photographs that depict and active scene. Have one student represent each of the people in the picture. Before the role playing begins you can discuss what is taking place in the photo. You can either ask the students to play out the scene as it unfolds to help them remember the events more clearly, or you can ask them to take a few minutes and decide what may have happened as a result of the event depicted.
• Let the classroom eavesdrop on conversations from the past: Sometimes asking students to portray normal, everyday families or groups of friends can be very effective. Ask them to come up with a typical dinner scene from the 1960s Civil Rights Movement. What might parents and children say to each other over dinner after watching event unfold on the news?