Teaching Game for Elizabeth's Reign

Following prompts from Ruth I have designed a game which I think can be used to teach elements of Elizabeth's reign. The game is a simple role play/card sort type game and I have designed it to teach about the complexities of decision making for Elizabeth. This game is centred on the dilemma and decision of what to do with Mary Stuart when she arrived in England after fleeing Scotland in 1568. The game could be adapted for any other dilemma simply by altering the characters and range of choices and responses they have available.

This version of the game is created as a PowerPoint file. It has 9 characters: Elizabeth, Mary Stuart, France, Scotland (Moray), Spain (Philip II), Norfolk , Northumberland, Cecil and the Pope. (If numbers are tight and combination of Northumberland, Cecil or the Pope may be omitted). Each character has a sheet of traits which covers things like their fears and aims, so for instance Elizabeth's traits include Mary being a threat to her and not liking to help rebels. The traits give flavour. Elizabeth has five options and she can take only one of them: help Mary regain her throne, send Mary to France, send Mary back to Scotland (to be tried), keep Mary in England, or execute Mary. Each option will have pros and cons as represented by the responses available to each of the other characters. They have a set of responses for each option Elizabeth picks. These responses then determine how difficult life might be for Elizabeth and England.

The game would be played with the Elizabeth group using their knowledge of the subject to choose what they think is the best option. Then each other character shares their response with the rest of the class. At the end, the responses and their impact on Elizabeth and England are debated and compared to what we know happened.

I like this approach to learning as I find in my experience that people learn best when they can be involved and can start to get a sense of what it was like to be there and to be involved. Games can really help to drive this kind of experience.

I can't get the PowerPoint onto this blog so I have created an account for SlideShare and have uploaded it to that. If you are interested in it then search for Elizabeth I Lesson Game.ppt. Unfortunately, I have only just started to use SlideShare so don't know how to search on it yet.

I hope to create more games to facilitate the teaching of history as I go through the PGCE course.