Social Family of Models

Mr. Johnson, a 6^th grade Social Studies teacher, is presenting a series of lessons to his students regarding World War II. Mr. Johnson is fixing to talk to his students about the unfair imprisonment of Japanese Americans during this time period. He wants to do more than simply present a lesson regarding this injustice. He really wants to get his students involved. He has decided that role playing will be the best way to accomplish this feat.

Phase One: Warm Up the Group

In phase one Mr. Johnson wants to identify the problem and make it explicit. He also wants to interpret the problem and explain how role playing works ((Joyce, Weil, & Calhoun, 2009).

Mr. Johnson: I am really happy to see that each of you remember some of the things we talked about yesterday during our lesson about Pearl Harbor. Pearl Harbor was a devastating event in our nation's history and it ultimately led to our involvement in World War II. Tommy pointed out that it was the Japanese that bombed us during World War II. Do you guys that think that anything should have been done to the Japanese living in America during this time?

Pupil: I do not think that anything should have been done.

Mr. Johnson: Why not?

Pupil: Because most of them did nothing wrong.

Mr. Johnson: Okay, that is a good point. Does anybody have a differing view point?

Pupil: I think they should have been put in jail just in case.

Mr. Johnson: Who knows? You could be right about that. Today, I want to take a deeper look at this story. We are going to do a role play to learn more about this situation. A role play is when you take on the responsibilities and actions of someone else.

Phase Two: Select Participants

In phase two Mr. Johnson will analyze the roles to be played and select role players. With the help of his students, Mr. Johnson will describe what he is looking for in each role. This might include a description of how certain people should feel or what actions they might carry out in a role. Mr. Johnson will then ask for volunteers. (Joyce et al., 2009).

Mr. Johnson: I will need five role players today. One of you will be the president of the United States and the rest of you will be the president's team. In other words, you help the president make decisions. There will be four advisors to the president. Two advisors will argue for the imprisonment of Japanese Americans after Pearl Harbor and the other two advisors will argue against imprisonment of Japanese Americans. What might be one argument against imprisonment?

Pupil: People cannot go to jail if they did nothing wrong.

Mr. Johnson: Good. That could be one argument. Do I have two volunteers who would like to argue against imprisonment?

John: I will.

Mr. Johnson: Okay, thank you John.

Jay: I will too.

Mr. Johnson: Okay, great. Who wants to be president? I saw Alison raise her hand first so she is president. Who wants to argue for imprisonment?

Jason and Sara: I do.

Mr. Johnson: Great, all of our roles are filled now.

Phase Three: Set the Stage

The teacher's main responsibility in stage three is setting the stage. The goal is to determine where the scene is going to take place but the characters do not actually begin their dialogue (Joyce et al., 2009).

Mr. Johnson: Alright Alison, you are president. Where is thing going to take place?

Alison: How about the White House?

Mr. Johnson: That sounds good too me. Are you in the Oval Office or are you somewhere else?

Alison: How about we are a bunker below the White House?

Mr. Johnson: Good idea. Let's put a table at the front of the classroom and then put chairs around it so it can look like you guys are having a meeting.

Phase Four: Prepare the Observers

In phase four Mr. Johnson will assign observation duties and explain to the observers what they need to look for. It is vital that Mr. Johnson get each observer involved in the role play (Joyce et al., 2009).

Mr. Johnson: Now the rest of your will be observing this role play. This is very important. I need everybody not doing the role play to get in groups of three (students get in groups). I want the first group to evaluate how real the role play feels. I want the second group to evaluate which advisor makes the strongest argument. I want the third group to listen closely and see if any player leaves anything out of the role play that should be there.

Phase Five: Enact

In phase five the role play will be enacted. The teacher needs to assume up front that this may not go smoothly and some players may need to be coached (Joyce et al., 2009).

Mr. Johnson: Alright, everybody take your positions and lets get this thing started. Alison will get us started off by asking her team what she should do about Japanese Americans after Pearl Harbor.

Alison: (to her team) I have a very hard decision to make. Many of our citizens are scared to death after what happened at Pearl Harbor. I am having a hard time trying to determine if I should put Japanese citizens in prisons or do nothing about the situation.

John: Mr. President, the Japanese living in America have done nothing wrong. Why should we punish them for no reason?

Jason: Nothing wrong. It may have been their family members who bombed us.

Jay: We have no way of knowing that.

Sara: Who cares if we have no way of knowing it. Do we want to take a chance on something like this happening over here?

Alison: All of you raise good points but I still do not have an answer.

Jay: You cannot put people in jail for no reason.

Sara: You can if you think they might commit crimes.

Alison: I think I agree with Sara and Jason. I do not want to take any chance. I am going to start putting them in prison. (Mr. Johnson has advised Alison to say this)

Phase Six: Discuss and Evaluate

In phase six Mr. Johnson will review what took place in the role play and discuss the major focus of the events. He will also begin to develop the next reenactment (Joyce et al., 2009).

Mr. Johnson: Before moving on I want to ask my groups what they thought about this role play.

Group One: We felt like it was pretty real.

Group Two: We felt like Jay make a really good argument and Sara did too.

Group Three: We felt like the role players should have tried to find a middle ground.

Mr. Johnson: Okay role players. I want you to consider all these comments as we move forward.

Phase Seven: Reenact

In phase seven the teacher may feel that roles should be revised. Observers may become role players or role players and observers may be asked to take on new roles within their groups. It is vital that during the reenactment the teacher encourage new behaviors and new outcomes. No actual dialogue will be specified here since reenactments may take place as many times as possible (Joyce et al., 2009).

Phase Eight: Discuss and Evaluate

This is basically a repeat of phase six. The difference is that the discussion and evaluation will take into consideration what is hopefully new behaviors that were portrayed in phase seven (Joyce et al., 2009).

Phase Nine: Share Experiences and Generalize

In phase nine the teacher is going to relate the scenario to a real experience and/or current event. General principles of behavior should also be explored at this time (Joyce et al., 2009). For our situation Mr. Johnson may relate the treatment of Japanese Americans to the treatment of Americans of Middle Eastern descent since 9/11. He can ask students if they see any comparisons in the two ways these groups of people were treated. He may also wish to do a role play with the president and his advisors after 9/11 and discuss the possibility of imprisoning Americans of Middle Eastern descent after 9/11 so that students can see that historical events do have a way of repeating themselves.

References:

Joyce, B., Weil, M., & Calhoun, E. (2009). Models of teaching (8^th ed.). Boston: Pearson

Education, Inc.