This fall, I have the benefit of leading two classes through Threshold of Democracy after having played the game as Meletus during the Reacting to the Past conference this summer. I also simply have more confidence as a Game Master after now having lead four previous classes through this module.
The main difference for me this semester is that I’m more confident in the durability of the game, most especially the idea that all the roles can accommodate strong and weak students. In previous semesters, I had studied the character sheets closely myself and then assigned them based on what I had learned about my students over the course of the semester. This fall, I assigned pretty much all the roles randomly. That is, I assigned each role a number and suit matching to a deck of playing cards and then drew a card for each student. When I was done, I did move two roles around: Heriodon and Lithicles. Due to Herodion’s secret objective, it is a role better suited to certain students. Likewise, Liticles is also a hard character to assign, as some students do lean into the absurdly hard objective before them, but many of them do not.
Likewise, in previous semesters I had manipulated the assignments of president and heralds so that it did not interfere with students’ speaking schedules. This time, I decided to use the assignment of roles to hype up the game: after we had reviewed the responsibilities of heralds, presidents and archons, I had the students draw their responsibilities out of a hat. That worked well and I would definitely recommend it.
Another major difference is that while in previous semesters I had been forced to confine my preparation for the game to two classes due to snow days, this semester I voluntarily only scheduled two days of preparation. My classes are 75 minutes long. I found that 225 minutes was too much time for preparation, but that 150 minutes was more than fine.
This made sense to me as I considered how other professors have the fortune to teach classes that are only 45 or 55 minutes long. Three of such classes are equivalent to two of my 75 minute classes.
Finally, timing is something else that I’ve become more comfortable with reacting. I now expect students to React for between 40 and 60 minutes. This timing is obviously also a result of the number of students in my class. My classes are capped at 20 and so in Threshold of Democracy I always have three students in each of the four factions and then three to eight Indeterminates. Because few indeterminates, especially the ones that are frequently assigned like Gorgias and Thucydides, have Major Speeches, the class discussion often focuses on one major speech from each faction.
I therefore come to each class with discussion questions for the assigned readings for that day as well. While it can be hard to transition to class discussion after the drama of Reacting, I have the students do some in class writing before hosting the discussion. This seems to work well.
Plus, this semester I designed re-usable name tags for all the characters. You can download them here.
The main difference for me this semester is that I’m more confident in the durability of the game, most especially the idea that all the roles can accommodate strong and weak students. In previous semesters, I had studied the character sheets closely myself and then assigned them based on what I had learned about my students over the course of the semester. This fall, I assigned pretty much all the roles randomly. That is, I assigned each role a number and suit matching to a deck of playing cards and then drew a card for each student. When I was done, I did move two roles around: Heriodon and Lithicles. Due to Herodion’s secret objective, it is a role better suited to certain students. Likewise, Liticles is also a hard character to assign, as some students do lean into the absurdly hard objective before them, but many of them do not.
Likewise, in previous semesters I had manipulated the assignments of president and heralds so that it did not interfere with students’ speaking schedules. This time, I decided to use the assignment of roles to hype up the game: after we had reviewed the responsibilities of heralds, presidents and archons, I had the students draw their responsibilities out of a hat. That worked well and I would definitely recommend it.
Another major difference is that while in previous semesters I had been forced to confine my preparation for the game to two classes due to snow days, this semester I voluntarily only scheduled two days of preparation. My classes are 75 minutes long. I found that 225 minutes was too much time for preparation, but that 150 minutes was more than fine.
This made sense to me as I considered how other professors have the fortune to teach classes that are only 45 or 55 minutes long. Three of such classes are equivalent to two of my 75 minute classes.
Finally, timing is something else that I’ve become more comfortable with reacting. I now expect students to React for between 40 and 60 minutes. This timing is obviously also a result of the number of students in my class. My classes are capped at 20 and so in Threshold of Democracy I always have three students in each of the four factions and then three to eight Indeterminates. Because few indeterminates, especially the ones that are frequently assigned like Gorgias and Thucydides, have Major Speeches, the class discussion often focuses on one major speech from each faction.
I therefore come to each class with discussion questions for the assigned readings for that day as well. While it can be hard to transition to class discussion after the drama of Reacting, I have the students do some in class writing before hosting the discussion. This seems to work well.
Plus, this semester I designed re-usable name tags for all the characters. You can download them here.