Ancient history may have a reputation for being dry, but one Brock University professor has found a way to show it is anything but.<\/p>\n
Katharine von Stackelberg, an associate professor in the Department of Classics, noticed the difficulty students sometimes had with reading ancient sources.<\/p>\n
This inspired her to find a more\u00a0engaging way to learn about Roman history.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe sources are dense; they\u2019re written in a style that\u2019s not very accessible for modern readers, but they\u2019re absolutely essential reading to understand the impact of the arc of Roman history,\u201d she says. \u201cI was looking for ways to get students to engage with primary sources.\u201d<\/p>\n
A long-time fan of role-playing games, von Stackelberg wondered if such a game might help the 380 students in her Roman Civilization course better understand the complexities and nuances of Roman society while building relationships with their peers.<\/p>\n
Von Stackelberg found the popular role-playing game, Reacting to the Past, pegged to elite male figures of history and major events. Wanting something that reflected the complexity of the ancient world and that would allow students to examine how things actually functioned in ancient society, von Stackelberg settled on family structure for her role-playing game.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe game really puts into context what was happening; for example,\u00a0various religious practices were reserved for various statuses and genders,\u201d says third-year student Liz Hoffer. \u201cYou can read about it in a book or put yourself in that perspective and really understand what it meant.\u201d<\/p>\n
Students in each seminar were divided into three family groups (familia<\/em>)\u00a0and took on characters reflecting the different social levels of the ancient Roman family. Students whose character died came back as slaves or freed people, reflecting the changes that happened to the Roman family through history.<\/p>\n \u201cIt helped to enhance learning because you were carrying over something you were talking about in lecture into seminar, and then you were actively role playing it,\u201d says student Leslie Czegeny. \u201cEven though I was a slave character, I was involved in the familia<\/em>\u2019s decision making. You had to know about the other roles in your family. You couldn\u2019t be a passive member\u201d<\/p>\n Each week\u2019s seminar dealt with a particular theme, such as the economy, religion, military or funerary practices. The familiae<\/em> were faced with various challenges and had to make decisions based on what they were learning in lecture and in their readings.<\/p>\n \u201cA lot of writings are by and about men, so you have to filter through everything and think about what it means for you as a slave\u2019s perspective,\u201d says student Kyle Edwards, whose own role was that of a Roman mother. \u201cSlaves never got to write their own biographies. You have to filter through and figure out how it applies to your character.\u201d<\/p>\n Seminars often lead to passionate discussions, as students felt invested in their characters and familia<\/em>, says Hoffer.<\/p>\n \u201cYou had to be actively involved in seminar,\u201d she says. \u201cIt was an amazing way to get to know people in your class and even lead to making new friends and meeting up outside of class.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Ancient history may have a reputation for being dry, but one Brock University professor has found a way to show it is anything but.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":36,"featured_media":62994,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[37,1,4],"tags":[1583,30,5743],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62993"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/36"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=62993"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62993\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":63033,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62993\/revisions\/63033"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/62994"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=62993"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=62993"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=62993"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}