From Role Playing to Decision Tree
Teaching American History #4
12 October 2010
ROLE PLAYING
What Is It?
• It can be a simple announcement to a class: “It’s
February of 1861. The state of Virginia has
convened a “Peace Congress” in Washington D.C.
You will each represent a state. Your goal is to
prevent the further break-up of the union. Seven
states have already seceded and are drafting a
constitution. They refused to come claiming that
they were foreign countries, however, for our role
play, they will be included.”
It can also be very complicated with students
doing research about their state, formulating
resolutions, debating, and deliberating. For
this kind of Role Play, it is useful to give
students a list of questions they should be
able to answer about their state and a list of
common dates and events between 1820 and
1861 that might affect their views. These
questions and lists can be more or less
inclusive depending on the grade level.
Sample questions for representatives of a state:
• What is your economy like?
• Is slavery legal in your state?
• What are the demographics of your state
population?
• What was your view of the Compromise of
1850? Kansas-Nebraska Act? Dred Scott
decision? John Brown’s Raid?
• Can you imagine any compromise with the
states opposed to your views? How significant
is Lincoln’s election to your state?
• How do you feel about secession?
The role play falls into three parts:
• 1) the preparation for it (thinking about a part
or perspective, doing research if applicable;
• 2) the playing it out;
• 3) the debriefing (discussion of what
happened as well as how the students felt
about what was happening, including
comparison of their outcome vs. the real
outcome).
To do a Role Play, you need:
• a known outcome;
• any number of points of view about that
outcome;
• some plausible or actual meeting for the
discussions to take place;
• some agreed upon procedure for trying to
reach decisions.
In this case:
• outcome = dissolution of the union;
• points of view = states;
• meeting place = Virginia convened Peace
Congress in early February 1861;
• procedure = with Virginia presiding, discuss
how to avoid dissolution of the union and
reincorporation of the states that already left.
What Are the Goals?
• Students gain greater familiarity with key facts and a
more complex understanding of the reasons for a
major historical event.
• Overall, they gain a more sophisticated understanding
of why individuals and groups act as they do. They
become aware, for example, of intangibles like time,
the power of ideologies, emotions, the interplay of
personality and circumstance. For example, imagine
doing the last two weeks of August 1914 where
country representatives can only communicate by
telegram…
How Do You Do It?
• Plan at least two class periods. You need time to
explain the situation and divide up the roles.
Students can act as individuals or in groups
depending on the exercise and the size of the class.
• You need a minimum of one period to play out the
situation. The best ones go for two or three
periods. If possible, have a student preside. This
avoids having the students looking to you when
they express a point of view.
• The debriefing is essential, especially the
comparison of their outcome and the real events
that transpired. If you feel that essential ideas
were not explored, this is the time to bring them
up.
Assessment of the Activity
• In watching the role play, and in the course of the
subsequent debriefing, it should be obvious what
the students did and did not learn.
• Written assignments can form part of the
assessment, for example, the preparatory
questions and the student’s answers. A prompt
could be given after completion of the Role Play
and before the debriefing discussion: why did
they have this outcome, and how is it like or
unlike what really happened?
Decision Tree
What Is It?
• A Decision Tree takes a major event and the list of
events leading up to it and offers students an
opportunity to consider different responses by
one or many groups at key points along the way.
• Presented with the actual response, they then
consider the reasons for that response and what
might happen next. It is a “tree” in the sense that
each event prompts a range of possible responses,
like the trunk of a tree and its branches.
• Underlying each step in the process is the
question, why? Why did it happen this way and
not that way?
For example, a Decision Tree could ask “why was
there a Civil War in the US? It could begin with
the election of Abraham Lincoln, a “Free Soil”
Republican as President in November of 1860.
That is the fact.
Then students consider: What would be the
reaction of the different states? Or focus on
just one state, the key decision of South
Carolina.
Possible Responses for South Carolina:
• Secede as it threatened to do in 1832;
• Work with other states in Congress for a
constitutional amendment protecting slavery
in new territories;
• Confer with other Democratic states to
formulate a united response and press for
extension of the Missouri Compromise line to
all territories, including California even though
it had already been admitted as a state.
Then give students the actual response, a new
fact.
South Carolina seceded from the Union in
December, 1860. Discussion of reasons for
that decision.
Then provide a new opportunity for response:
What would President Buchanan do?
The Tree can be made more or less complicated,
depending on the number of events to be
considered. More detail means more
complications, and requires more class time.
Discussion of the possible response can also be
more or less structured. Students might be
divided into groups, such as: representatives
of the different states; members of different
economic and social groups; leaders of the
political parties.
How To Do It?
• A Decision Tree is similar to a Role Play in that
it explores why events happened as they did.
• It is different from a Role Play in that it usually
presents the events in much more detail and
the possible responses are structured by the
teacher.
• A Role Play, at its best, is completely student
directed. A Decision Tree is more like a guided
discussion, similar to a Socratic dialogue.
To do a Decision Tree
• You need a major event and a standard
account of the lesser events leading to it.
• Then, it is like making up a multiple choice
test.
1) You list a fact;
2) you formulate real or imaginary responses;
3) and then go on to the next event
…responses…and so on.
Resources for a Civil War Decision Tree
These two web sites give more than enough detail to
formulate a Decision Tree for the events leading up to
South Carolina’s secession and the outbreak of war
when Lincoln ordered troops sent to reinforce the
Federal garrison at Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor.
• www.mrlincolnandfreedom.org
• www.tulane.edu/~sumter/index.html
The second site is set up with “Problems” and possible
responses posed as “Questions.” This could be used as
a modified Decision Tree for the older grades.
Underlying Goals
A Decision Tree is meant to answer a big
historical question. In this case: Why was
there a civil war in the United States?
It can also highlight a particular interpretation of
events, such as one of those presented in
Major Problems in the Civil War and
Reconstruction.
An Unusual View of Events?
For example, the class could explore the idea that Lincoln
caused the Civil War.
The web site created by Tulane, uses Lincoln’s decision to fire
on Fort Sumter decisive. We tend to take his decision for
granted. In fact, however, Lincoln could have let the fort be
surrendered. The Confederate States of America could
have coexisted with the USA. The creation of two nations
out of one larger one would not have been an odd event in
the nineteenth-century, or for the Western Hemisphere.
Lincoln’s view of the role of President as preserver of “the
union” has no obvious basis in the Constitution or in his
oath of office. His publicly expressed sentiment that “a
nation half slave and half free” could not survive did not
reflect the views of most politicians.
Goals and Assessment of the Activity
Both goals and assessment strategies are similar
to those of a Role Play. In a sense, however,
the debriefing is happening all the time as
each event and its response is discussed.
The simplest assessment instrument is a preactivity answer to the question: “Why was
there a civil war in the United States?” and
then a post-activity answer.
Web Resources
• The Miami technology gurus offered a site
that could be adapted for use for history. For
those so inclined, go to:
http://www.halfbakedsoftware.com/quandary.php
P.S. If you know of others, or find others, please pass
them along!