I played my new mini-game on the Communist Manifesto - the rules of which are here - with my 8AM class today.Below are my field notes:
We began the class with a Kahoot! quiz that reviewed some of the key concepts in the Manifesto that relate to Marx’s theory of history. Importantly, I did not simply review the answers to the questions, but instead use it as a jumping off point for a short lecture that centered around Marx’s theory of class struggle and how it prompted the transition from feudalism to capitalism and how it will prompt the transition from capitalism to communism.
Key thing: I forgot to explain that ‘bourgeois’ is the adjective and ‘bourgeoisie’ is the noun. Furthermore, students continue to be intimidated by pronunciation.
With this short review, which took around fifteen minutes, we then transitioned to the mini game. The introduction and review of the rules took a shorter amount of time than I thought; definitely closer to five minutes rather than ten minutes. I did give them the full fifteen minutes to prepare. This was necessary to clarify rules and expectations, as especially as relates to the factions’ secret goals.
Almost important: students have to work to identify with their faction and to collaborate with their fellow students. However, they immediately latch on to the individual identity of their character. I continue to believe that it is fundamental for Reacting to the Past games to provide backstories, preferably grounded in history as much as possible, for each of the characters.
Unsurprisingly, the debates took a while to get started, but they did eventually get heated, with some of the students with a background in debate or performance leaning into the perspective of their characters to interrupt the other students.
There was confusion about how proposals work: I should clarify that it is not enough simply to present a speech, but that one also needs to make a proposal that the League can vote on.
During the first debate, the students did not realize that it was possible to broker alliances with other factions. By the second debate, there was a beginnings of an alliance between the Anarchist Faction and the Feminist faction, but it was not enough to influence the vote.
The main disappointment was that none of the proposals passed. Furthermore, because the factions would essentially align 3-2 or 4-1 against the proposal, the tally of the vote results were not particularly close. It’s clear to me know why Reacting to the Past uses indeterminates rather than an odd number of factions.
In the brief review, all the students commented on how this exercise forced them to look at the text from a different perspective, which they express a struggle in doing so. Surprisingly, even the students with a background in debate and performance named this as the hardest part of the exercise. Somewhat surprisingly to me, nobody named the complex rules as the hardest part, or the fact that this was radically different than how we have conducted class in the past.
The other thing I am debating is whether to have the debate focus on a single question. My suspicion is that it is essential for the point system.
We began the class with a Kahoot! quiz that reviewed some of the key concepts in the Manifesto that relate to Marx’s theory of history. Importantly, I did not simply review the answers to the questions, but instead use it as a jumping off point for a short lecture that centered around Marx’s theory of class struggle and how it prompted the transition from feudalism to capitalism and how it will prompt the transition from capitalism to communism.
Key thing: I forgot to explain that ‘bourgeois’ is the adjective and ‘bourgeoisie’ is the noun. Furthermore, students continue to be intimidated by pronunciation.
With this short review, which took around fifteen minutes, we then transitioned to the mini game. The introduction and review of the rules took a shorter amount of time than I thought; definitely closer to five minutes rather than ten minutes. I did give them the full fifteen minutes to prepare. This was necessary to clarify rules and expectations, as especially as relates to the factions’ secret goals.
Almost important: students have to work to identify with their faction and to collaborate with their fellow students. However, they immediately latch on to the individual identity of their character. I continue to believe that it is fundamental for Reacting to the Past games to provide backstories, preferably grounded in history as much as possible, for each of the characters.
Unsurprisingly, the debates took a while to get started, but they did eventually get heated, with some of the students with a background in debate or performance leaning into the perspective of their characters to interrupt the other students.
There was confusion about how proposals work: I should clarify that it is not enough simply to present a speech, but that one also needs to make a proposal that the League can vote on.
During the first debate, the students did not realize that it was possible to broker alliances with other factions. By the second debate, there was a beginnings of an alliance between the Anarchist Faction and the Feminist faction, but it was not enough to influence the vote.
The main disappointment was that none of the proposals passed. Furthermore, because the factions would essentially align 3-2 or 4-1 against the proposal, the tally of the vote results were not particularly close. It’s clear to me know why Reacting to the Past uses indeterminates rather than an odd number of factions.
In the brief review, all the students commented on how this exercise forced them to look at the text from a different perspective, which they express a struggle in doing so. Surprisingly, even the students with a background in debate and performance named this as the hardest part of the exercise. Somewhat surprisingly to me, nobody named the complex rules as the hardest part, or the fact that this was radically different than how we have conducted class in the past.
The other thing I am debating is whether to have the debate focus on a single question. My suspicion is that it is essential for the point system.