Prioritizing Historical Imagination and Empathy Concepts
Simulation and Role-play activities provide great spaces for all learners to practice historical empathy and imagination. However, the artifacts demonstrate that while the two theoretical concepts often compliment each other, it is not always possible for all aspects of both concepts to be present in students’ work.
Clearly if a project requires re-enactment, a student is also required to practice historical empathy and take another’s perspective. The qualitative group data in multiple assignments demonstrate that high re-enactment scores (historical imagination) correlate with high role-adoption scores (historical empathy). Similarly, if students successfully adopt the role of a historical figure, they are also likely to limit their role to the historical context and incorporate relevant primary/secondary sources. [See Artifact 4: Letter of Protest, Student Sample Analysis and Artifact 6: Trial of Socrates Papers, Student Sample Analysis].
But the historical imagination concepts, interpolation and interrogation, do not always compliment re-enactment and empathy as clearly. In some cases they have conflicting goals. For example, the Trial of Socrates paper demonstrates that the skill of interrogation is not always needed in a role-play writing assignment. In fact, it can hinder a student’s ability to adopt the perspective of a historical actor “For example, Mathew received high marks at interrogation and interpolation but his academic voice and anachronistic terms prohibited him from presenting his argument in an Athenian perspective.” [See Artifact Analysis 6: Trial of Socrates, Reflections and Improving Practice]
The example does not suggest that interrogation is a futile concept, or that simulation and role-play activities cannot improve a student’s interrogation skills. But it does reveals that it is not always beneficial for assignments to require all aspects of historical imagination and empathy at the same time. The Trial would have benefited from another activity that practiced interrogation separately. Then students should have moved onto the written role-play work after they interrogated the sources as a historian not a historical actor.
Unfortunately, this brings us to a possible restriction, time limits. Simulation and role-play activities in the classroom already have a tendency to take up more time than traditional class work. Therefore, it may be necessary to prioritize aspects of historical empathy and imagination for each assignment. Each activity should not necessarily address re-enactment, interrogation, interpolation and all of Downy’s historical empathy criteria at once.
The Aquinas Classwork assignment provides another useful case for the need to prioritize goals. The students were required to practice empathy by assuming the role of the philosopher. But they were also required to practice interpolation by guessing how he may have answered the three political philosophy questions that the class had studied. Initially I was frustrated by my students’ short answers but I realized that given the short time a majority of the students chose to focus solely on the most pertinent task, interpolation. As you can see in my overall class analysis, a vast majority of students practiced some level of interpolation, the average score was a 4.05 (out of 5) [See Artifact 7: Aquinas Classwork, Student Sample Analysis]. They did correctly fill in the gaps, but their arguments were not as well formed as I would have liked. Mitchell’s paper really highlights this problem. Given the time restraints, the students actually focused on the harder critical thinking component of the assignment (interpolation). In the future I will give them more time, or just have the class focus on interpolation.
In my method of analysis form, one can already observe my prioritizing efforts. Despite having the standard incorporated into my method of analysis, I was never able to rate students on their ability “distinguish between past perspectives and to shift from one another from a relatively detached point of view” [See Method of Analysis]. In all of my group quantitative tables, the category is labeled N/A. Due to time constraints I decided to leave out this criterion because I needed to examine other aspects of the theoretical concepts first. Despite never being able to address this aspect of historical empathy in my portfolio, I intend to explore this concept in future inquiry work.
Clearly if a project requires re-enactment, a student is also required to practice historical empathy and take another’s perspective. The qualitative group data in multiple assignments demonstrate that high re-enactment scores (historical imagination) correlate with high role-adoption scores (historical empathy). Similarly, if students successfully adopt the role of a historical figure, they are also likely to limit their role to the historical context and incorporate relevant primary/secondary sources. [See Artifact 4: Letter of Protest, Student Sample Analysis and Artifact 6: Trial of Socrates Papers, Student Sample Analysis].
But the historical imagination concepts, interpolation and interrogation, do not always compliment re-enactment and empathy as clearly. In some cases they have conflicting goals. For example, the Trial of Socrates paper demonstrates that the skill of interrogation is not always needed in a role-play writing assignment. In fact, it can hinder a student’s ability to adopt the perspective of a historical actor “For example, Mathew received high marks at interrogation and interpolation but his academic voice and anachronistic terms prohibited him from presenting his argument in an Athenian perspective.” [See Artifact Analysis 6: Trial of Socrates, Reflections and Improving Practice]
The example does not suggest that interrogation is a futile concept, or that simulation and role-play activities cannot improve a student’s interrogation skills. But it does reveals that it is not always beneficial for assignments to require all aspects of historical imagination and empathy at the same time. The Trial would have benefited from another activity that practiced interrogation separately. Then students should have moved onto the written role-play work after they interrogated the sources as a historian not a historical actor.
Unfortunately, this brings us to a possible restriction, time limits. Simulation and role-play activities in the classroom already have a tendency to take up more time than traditional class work. Therefore, it may be necessary to prioritize aspects of historical empathy and imagination for each assignment. Each activity should not necessarily address re-enactment, interrogation, interpolation and all of Downy’s historical empathy criteria at once.
The Aquinas Classwork assignment provides another useful case for the need to prioritize goals. The students were required to practice empathy by assuming the role of the philosopher. But they were also required to practice interpolation by guessing how he may have answered the three political philosophy questions that the class had studied. Initially I was frustrated by my students’ short answers but I realized that given the short time a majority of the students chose to focus solely on the most pertinent task, interpolation. As you can see in my overall class analysis, a vast majority of students practiced some level of interpolation, the average score was a 4.05 (out of 5) [See Artifact 7: Aquinas Classwork, Student Sample Analysis]. They did correctly fill in the gaps, but their arguments were not as well formed as I would have liked. Mitchell’s paper really highlights this problem. Given the time restraints, the students actually focused on the harder critical thinking component of the assignment (interpolation). In the future I will give them more time, or just have the class focus on interpolation.
In my method of analysis form, one can already observe my prioritizing efforts. Despite having the standard incorporated into my method of analysis, I was never able to rate students on their ability “distinguish between past perspectives and to shift from one another from a relatively detached point of view” [See Method of Analysis]. In all of my group quantitative tables, the category is labeled N/A. Due to time constraints I decided to leave out this criterion because I needed to examine other aspects of the theoretical concepts first. Despite never being able to address this aspect of historical empathy in my portfolio, I intend to explore this concept in future inquiry work.