Role Playing Offers Advantages
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Students interest in the topic is increased.
Students are directly involved as active
participants.
Students may develop a deeper
understanding of Perspective Taking.
Encourages students to reflect upon their
knowledge of a subject.
Requires students to use appropriate
concepts and arguments as defined by their
“character”.
Historical Advantages
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Engages students to re-enact or re-invent
a known historical event.
Requires students to imagine they were
known historical figures, both good and
evil.
Encourages students to analyze events and
historical figures, interpret evidence and
reconstruct historical events and
characters in their own creative and unique
way.
Continued…
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Students will gain extended historical
knowledge and understanding as to how
and why historical figures acted the way
they did.
Students will develop a working knowledge
of primary sources and how to use them.
Students will gain the ideologies and
philosophies of a historical figure.
World War II Conversation
Project
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Imagine that some of the most significant
players of World War II were alive at the
same time in the same place. Because they
all have different opinions and philosophies
and are concerned with the major issues of
the war, it will be easy to have them all
meet someplace I. E. The Yalta Conference,
The Potsdam Conference…or perhaps a
coffee shop. What would they say to each
other? How would they act? What would
they look like?
World War II Conversation
Project
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The Goal:
Create a conversation/dialog and perform a
skit where 4-6 of the following characters
from World War II are gathered and have a
brief 3 to 5 minute conversation.
Character Options:
Allies
General Dwight D. Eisenhower
 Prime Minister Neville Chamberlin
 Prime Minister Winston Churchill
 Premier Joseph Stalin
 President Harry S Truman
 President Franklin Delano Roosevelt
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The Allies Power During WWII
Axis
Emperor Hirohito
 Chancellor Adolf Hitler
 Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto
 Prime Minister Benito Mussolini
 Field Marshal Erwin Rommel
 Field Marshal Hermann Göring
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The Axis Power During WWII
Specific Tasks:
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Choose the characters for your dramatization
and conduct some primary research on each
individual.
 Consider multiple resources for the
research. The amount of research is up
to you; However, the more research you
conduct the easier it will be to write the
conversation and the better off both the
experience and your grade will be.
Continued Tasks…
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Discuss your research with your group and
write a 3 to 5 minute script involving 4 – 6
of the characters that your group has
chosen.
 Be
sure to address the following:
 Why/how
did the group gather in one place?
 What do the characters look like?
 What might they say to each other?
 How would they respond to others’ questions and
accusations?
 What tone would/should permeate the discussion?
Continued Tasks…
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Prepare your performance.
Gather the props you might need and practice the
delivery of lines (you will be permitted to use note
cards) for a smooth performance in front of the
class.
 Each group member must read and act the part of
one individual.
 Make sure that everyone has a copy of the script.
 Be ready to begin as soon as your group is called.
 Groups will be chosen at random.
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Continued Tasks…
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Perform your World War II conversation for
the class and turn in your written notes
from the other groups to your teacher at
the end of the hour.
 Submit
one copy of your script with
everyone’s name on it and ALL research
attached to the teacher.
 All written notes and Players of the World War
II handout should have individual student
names on it to verify group contribution.
Extension Ideas For Application
to Other Areas
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In a Business Class:
Students would select occupations, either private
or retail.
 Other students would be either clients or
customers.
 By role playing in this setting, it would illustrate
customer service, bargaining and the lessons of a
free market.
 Students could also use different time periods and
eras which would also allow them to research not
only the business itself, but how certain
generations conducted it.
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Continued…
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In a Spanish Class
 In
this scenario, students can break into small
groups and come up with a relevant topic to
class material, in 4 to 6 minute skit
 This might include using the current
vocabulary words combined with recent verbs.
 EXAMPLE: Customers buying items at a
market.
 ¿Dónde están los huevos?
 ¿Qué es el precio de la carne?
Continued…
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In a science class:
Assign organelles to the students: nucleus,
nucleolus, golgi apparatus, lysosome, vacuole,
mitochondria, cytoskeleton, ribosomes and so on.
 Each students will research their “part”.
 Costuming may be required or different colored
headbands be needed to show distinction.
 The students will move about and explain how
their individual “part” connect and influence the
rest of the cell.
 In the end, the students will perform a completely
functioning cell.
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