One of the skills that students from all backgrounds and with varied career goals can gain from the study of history is the ability to see the world from multiple perspectives. Our ability to understand and to problem solve is enhanced when we are able to grasp the complexity and diversity of human experience. Studying history is a powerful tool for cultivating this kind of critical thinking. Journeying into the strange land of a past world forces us to clarify our own world-view and to actively imagine the alternate world-view of others.

To help students in HIST 1700 develop this critical thinking skill, I encourage them to use what I call historical imagination, by which I mean imagining themselves in the different world of the past. This is particularly valuable during the second unit of the course that focuses on the Civil War era. It is especially difficult for students to see the issue of slavery not from the perspective of a society that has long since rejected it, but to get into the heads of people who lived in a nineteenth century world where freedom had very different meanings.

I devised a role-playing assignment in which students are asked to imagine themselves as either a Northerner or Southerner. From this perspective they must write three letters reacting to three events during the Civil War. To help stimulate the students’ imaginations, I have printed copies of period daguerreotypes from the Library of Congress collection and placed these in dual photo frames.

I divide the students into teams of two and each member gets a photo frame with two people in it. The students role-play these fictional characters and write letters to each other. We read some of the letters in class and the team partners exchange their letters. To prepare for writing their letters, students are directed to a selection of essays, films, website, and historic documents available on the HIST 1700 website. Students write surprisingly moving letters and work hard to include a sense of verisimilitude, often using antique looking paper and envelopes.

This semester, I have digitized this project and made it available through Blackboard. Rather than handing out the framed photos in class, students log on to Blackboard, which randomly assigns each student a photo set. Student type their letters into the space provided in the Blackboard assessment tool. I miss the fun of the personal interaction in the classroom as students open up their photo frames to see what character they will be, and the creativity so many put into the physical letters. But the logistics are so much more manageable in the digital version of the assignment. Partners are never absent, photos don’t get lost, letters forgotten. Students who miss class can still do the digital project. And I can read the typed versions so much more readily than handwritten letters. The students seem to prefer the digital version, so I will probably continue with it.