How do I justify ‘historical thinking and historical literacy’ as valid measurements for the alternate history role play assessment to an education system accustomed to rote learning?
Category: alternativehistory
The Brothel System Gameplay
How the introduction of a ‘brothel system’ gameplay opened the eyes of the students to the reality that History isn’t all about random dates, events and dead people’s names.
Feedback Time
Role Play #4 has come to an end and as per usual, at the end of each role play, I ask the students for feedback and suggestions – reminding them that none of it will affect their grades so as to encourage them to be honest about the practical framework. Despite having the smallest group…
Traitors – a good or bad addition?
Traitors – a new gameplay added to the alternate history role play framework – which required the selected students to betray their original groups, to achieve a newly customised manifesto. In the 2018 alternate French Revolution role play, the Traitors served as a separate secret faction that exploited their positions in the other factions such…
“Too much brain power” or is it just a Malaysian thing?
One of my biggest worries whenever I introduce the alternate history role play assignment to a new group of students is that the assignment is too challenging but just as I begin to doubt myself and the effectiveness of the assignment, I am reminded of the two main objectives of the role play: i) to…
Playing with Power: An Alternative World War 2 Role Play
Imagine an alternate universe where Soviet Union, instead of Japan, bombed Pearl Harbour causing Soviet Union and United States to be at war with one another. Further complicating matters, Soviet Union agrees to either an alliance or truce with Germany, thus allowing for the territorial expansion of Nazism throughout Europe. Owing to the truce or…
A Rough Start: A Slightly Disheartened Humanities Educator
Here is an honest post. It has been a month since the Ptolemies successfully conquered Egypt yet they have not fulfilled the first set of checklist: 1/ Permanent settlement – draw out a city plan for Alexandria which should include the Greek, Egyptian and Jewish quarters 2/ Law and Order – create a legal system and a…
Power of Play: Reimagining Graeco-Roman Egypt
Deciding on a civilisation to develop and manage was harder than I expected. While discussing with the students, I kept in mind the primary objective of this assignment: to provide students with the opportunity to develop their historical thinking, literacy and imagination – skills necessary of historians and archaeologists – in an immersive context. Hence, the following…
Power of Play: #AlternativeFact WW2 Assignment Review
Similar to the ‘archaeogaming’ assignment, I had never created a role play-based assignment before hence I was nervous whilst designing the assignment and was even more nervous trying to explain it to the students. The nerves can be easily summarized into three points which are as follows: I was not sure how the students would…
Power of Play: Archaeogaming Assignment Review Pt. 2
A few weeks into the term and it was time for the students to submit the assignment and for me to sit down with a cup of coffee/tea, a red pen and my research assistant, Teddie (who wasn’t very helpful as he preferred to enjoy the cool breeze) and grade the assignments. And as I…
Michelle L. 