'Reacting to the Past' Engages Students

An invading army has set up headquarters inside a church in the town center. The villagers fear that the historic building and its irreplaceable contents will be destroyed. Do they send in members of a civic militia to roust out the enemy? Or do they bomb the church? NMU students were assigned various roles in this medieval scenario, based on historical documents. They engaged in lively small-group debates as they put aside personal opinion to lobby for their respective character’s chosen course of action. The professor observed and rarely intervened. This is the format for Reacting to the Past (RTTP), an elaborate game-based pedagogy employed by the NMU History Department. RTTP is designed to actively engage students in complicated historical events to promote critical thinking, communication, problem solving and leadership.

“RTTP reinvents the traditional classroom, where students passively consume what someone in front tells them they need to know,” said Professor Robbie Goodrich. “The professor shifts from a sage on the stage to a guide on the side and students run these games. They are not re-enactments. The context and characters are grounded in classic texts, but there’s no set script. Sometimes the outcome deviates from what actually happened as new developments are introduced during the exercise or those in certain roles persuade others to change their stance.”

Historical figures in this particular exercise included priests, widowed mothers, militia members, local business owners and individuals whose deceased relatives are commemorated on monuments in the church.

Students voted between periods of dialogue to determine if either the militia or bombing response met the required majority. When the margin wasn’t enough, a roll of the dice determined which intervening variable to introduce to the scenario. In this exercise, villagers discovered some of the art in the church was being destroyed after the first roll and that a priest was captured and being held hostage by the enemy after the second.

“History is presented in facts, but this makes you think of decisions from the perspective of the people who made them,” said student Carl Runstrom. “You realize that one little thing said or done differently can change the whole outcome. The path we’ve taken through history is not defined; there were chances for it to change all over the place. RTTP is a new avenue for exploring past events and it’s fun.”

Goodrich said historical events given the RTTP treatment can range from a succession crisis in Ming, China, to the Copenhagen climate change conference of 2009.

“Students have to adhere to the beliefs and level of authority of the figures they’re assigned to play,” Goodrich said. “For example, a student assigned to be prime minister of Denmark couldn’t vote for a climate treaty with no money dedicated to preserving rainforests because that would contradict the role, based on the historical documents. Yet there’s still leeway in what that figure could do. The prime minister of Denmark could make a separate deal with the Chinese foreign minister to provide direct aid to countries with rainforests rather than working through a consortium or the UN, even though, in reality, he did not do that.” 

Teaching assistant and Wildcat soccer player Brianna Frontuto was once assigned the role of university president in an RTTP game related to Title IX.

“As students learn to analyze primary source documents and adopt a specific character’s perspective, they experience increased awareness of the cause and effects of past events and how the choices made back then influenced the future,” Frontuto told the NMU Board of Trustees. “They also discover their 21st century minds approach situations from a different frame of reference and they need to think differently. Many games extend to a larger context. For example, Title IX is part of the broader economic, social and legal pressures of stabilizing a university. The trial of Galileo was a small component of the Protestant reformation and downfall of the Catholic church. RTTP aids students in terms of public speaking, thinking fast on their feet, debating in a civilized, informal manner and writing papers. And it definitely increases their level of engagement with the material.”

Pioneered in the late 1990s by Barnard College history professor Mark C. Carnes, the RTTP curriculum has been implemented at hundreds of colleges and universities in the U.S. and abroad since dissemination began in 2001. RTTP was honored with the 2004 Theodore Hesburgh Award for pedagogical innovation and has been featured in numerous publications. For more information, click here.

Goodrich can be reached at rgoodric@nmu.edu or 227-2037.