Course samples

The course explores the ways in which video games use history, its epistemological claims, and the way that mediation affects our approach to the past. The course is both theoretical and practical. The first module explores the main concepts and methods developed in historical game studies through class activities and discussions. The second module explores the use of history thematically, supported by the students' analysis of specific games, demonstrating the use of the concepts and methods explored in the first module. The course ends with a final project in which the students make creative use of these ideas by creating their own original video game pitch.

See the syllabus here.

This module for high schoolers explores why peoples engage in resistance and revolution against their governments by using the case of the Enlightenment and the French Revolution. Experience plays a key role in this module. The class is divided by social estates that they will embody throughout the module: one monarch, a few members of the clergy, and nobility, the rest being the third estate. Belonging to a higher estate allows for some privileges: working outside, answering fewer questions, and being able to eat small snacks in class. This differentiation is constantly compared with Enlightened ideas to highlight how intellectual developments play a key role in social changes. The module ends with a game about the meeting of the Estates-General of 1789 in which the class must negotiate a new social order for France, of which students write a final reflection on the role that their estate played in the coming of the French Revolution.

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The instructions for the meeting of the General-Estates can be seen here. 

This module explores the way in which war affects the lives of common people through the case of World War I. The module relies heavily on an experiential approach accompanied by primary sources. The class is divided between the five great powers of the war (Germany, France, Great Britain, Russia, Austria-Hungary) which they will represent in various class activities, including a negotiation game to try to stop the war. Students are encouraged to research their country's position and reasons to go to war. Furthermore, the class explores the perspective of common people through correspondence from the period. The module finalizes with the students writing a letter by taking the role of a common person from the country they represent. Students can choose the type of individual (civilian, soldier, spy, diplomat, doctors and nurses, etc) and they must write a letter to someone narrating their daily experience. This project is handed over with research that contextualizes the letter.

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Instruction for the negotiation game can be found here (courtesy of John D. Clare).

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