Critical Review Summary

'I've been in the Reichstag': rethinking roleplay. By: Luff, Ian, TeachingHistory, 00400610, Aug2000, Issue 100 Database:Academic Search Complete

I decided to summarize my critical review article because it seems most fitting for the article I wrote on. The article that I used provided a justification for the use of role play in the classroom as well as five different detailed examples of role plays. First, I will list some of the justifications for role play,then a quick description of the examples that were given. The author justified the use of role play with a few explanations. First, he claims that role play can be an inclusive tool to provide stimulation for all students in the classroom. A student with weak reading skills but strong oral skills could be included in a way that is not always available to them. Or, a quiet student may find a way to branch out and develop news peaking skills which they cannot do in a regular classroom setting. He also expresses a belief in the importance of historical empathy, writing that role play can ease students out oftheir personal life contexts, gradually placing them within the situation and emotions that people of the past faced when history occurred. As a result, students may be able to look at a difficult situation (such as therise of the nazi party) and understand how they gained power through democratic (or pseudo-democratic) means. Though the justification is nice to have, it is not backed by much research or cited information. This article is based more upon personal experience in the classroom. This can be valuable, but does not hold as much weight as one might expect out of an article in a journal. Despite this, the article is valuable because of the examples provided by the author.There were five examples or role play provided, some big, some small:

1) The first was a society game designed to mimic almost any era of British society but could be applied to almost any historical society. It involves passing out character cards to each member of the class who are given instructions on how to act them out or are told to research how each character would live.

2) Success in the army- involves demonstrating how particular military powers were led to success. Keys involved army discipline, leadership, and marching practice. It involved the practice of marching in step and imparting discipline upon those doing so poorly or acting out of role. This was meant to demonstrate how militaries become strong through disicpline.

3) Use of roads- (could be almost any transport).
Using the desks of your classroom, tell the students to create bottlenecks and disorder in order to slow movement in the area. Ask two volunteers to represent the roman legions (or occupying forces). Have a person in the middle of the classroom signal a rebellion (using an arm signal). Have the legions move in to stop it by tapping the rebels on the shoulder. This should take some time because of the disorder of the desks and when they get close, you can have other rebellions start in other corners of the room. This is to demonstrate how important roads or transport are for armies.

4) Rise of Hitler-This role play is a little to complicated to include in the summary but essentially recreates the state of the Reichstag at the time of Hitler’s rise to power. Used to quell questions of how Germans could elect such a radical party to lead their country.

5) Interrogation of an indiviual-Use a historical figure real or made up and have the class ask interrogation style questions to you, or a student who is playing that role.
Suggestions include: - the defence of apartheid policies infront of liberal South Africans
- Custer's ghost before an audience of families bereaved by the Little BigHorn massacre

6) Slave Transport:To demonstrate the conditions found on slave transport ships, the author suggests placing some desks together and finding same-sex volunteer who are willing to lay down in close quarters to squish on the desks. Explain to students during this (once the laughing has died down) that this was a regular situation on slave ships but without the volunteers being chained up with limited food and toilet facilities. You can follow this up with a look at an historical slave ship.

Though argumentative part of the paper has value, the greatest value ofthe article came in the presentation of different role plays. They suggest that teachers can use role plays for almost any topic and involve many different situations in the classroom. The main suggestion that I took out of the article was that there should be few limits for role play in the classroom, and that they are an effective way to promote higher level learning and promote a better learning environment for students.