Abstract:
Mark Carnes’ Reacting to the Past series of games have been the leading pioneer in bringing
role immersion to a college humanities classroom. Rather than passively reading a textbook or
copying down bullet points from a lecture, students are given roles of historical figures to
actively role-play. Asked to give speeches and form alliances in these roles, they are making
their own way through the historical events, forced to make what feel like real-life decisions and
study primary documents to convince other students to join their side. The consequences of
failure seem real, and the details of the actual events become vital. Having played through
many of the games myself, I found that my recall and understanding of the historical events
were far improved on my previous history lectures, as well as touched with personal interest and
nostalgia. As a future secondary English/Language Arts teacher, I attempt to bring these same
feelings and experiences to a high school English classroom by creating a new version of
Reacting to the Past, using Arthur Miller’s play The Crucible in my own version that I have
chosen to call Reacting to Literature.
