The above video is a role play activity conducted with a class at Lincoln High School. The students were not understanding the necessity of having Hammurabi's Code and felt that the punishments were too severe. I quickly created a scenario where we would see how people before Hammurabi's Code lived without a law code.

An idiosyncrasy I have is that I have a tendency to pull my hair out of my face. I do use bobby-pins and hair bands, but they do tend to break which is why I keep brushing my hair back in the video. In certain teaching situations like this video, I use a "game show host" voice. I put more emphasis on words and it helps to draw the students into the scenario. I am very much a story teller type of teacher. I can be very dramatic and enthusiastic, and I believe that when I have fun and show interest in the topic that my students will be inspired to feel the same way.

To set the mood for this role play I went into a storyteller mode. The role play was not planned and was used as a way to engage the students, and help them to better understand that Hammurabi's Code was necessary in order for society to properly function. If I had the opportunity to do this again, I would use better props. I used what I had on hand, but it would have been nice to use props designed for the activity.

This activity was not question based. The purpose of the role play is to get the students to act out scenarios so that they can actually see the event unfold and experience it at a level that would otherwise not have been afforded to them by hearing a lecture or working on a worksheet. Participation was encouraged. All students who wanted to participate raised their hands and were called upon to be in the role play. Students who did not want to be a part of the role play were not forced to participate.

I was very pleased with the number of students who participated and the level of which they embraced the activity. Role plays can be an epic failure if the students don't want to participate. The positive reaction to the role play is what inspired me to create the King Tut news broadcast activity for the class.

I think that I could improve the role play by being more prepared with props. This was not a planned activity, so with given more time to prepare I could invent more scenarios. I see myself becoming more willing to try new ideas. I am becoming more flexible with strategies and have begun being quicker in realizing what doesn't work and then trying a different approach. I should not be afraid to try different approaches, because different classes learn in a variety of ways and I should not limit them, or myself, with one teaching strategy.