1. GROUPS research main social groups, characters, and post their articles “wikipedia” style. Check! Done! LOVE IT. (And I would add, social, economic, political, cultural, and foreign relations background info too.) This would serve as their knowledge base for creating their characters with more historical accuracy. They could even add some images of peasant dwellings, country estates, Versailles, Paris, the Bastille, and so forth to fuel their imaginations. So: Stage One: Research on “Micropedia,” in groups.

2. If I get your second point, you’re saying something like: assign a “peasant group,” say, and let each student create their own peasant character and stories, and interact with other characters within their group? That’s similar to what I was thinking, but it’s fun to think about it further: it’s almost Faulknerian, the points of view possibilities. Can you imagine one student, say, writing as a peasant child, recounting the same experience as another student, writing as an adult male peasant neighbor? Very cool!

While I don’t think you’re saying not to do this, I just repeat that the different groups would also “communally interact” with characters from other, conflicting, groups: peasants with lords and priests, Louis with a palace servant, etc.

3. Not sure I get your “internal and external conflict” idea clearly. Elaborate?

But I LOVE the idea of letting multiple students ALL write one character–Louis XVI or Robespierre, for example. So many conversations can come from this about historians’ conflicting interpretations and characterizations of characters, etc.

As you say, “complexity and disagreement is important.” CHECK!

NEW CONSEQUENCES: It seems I’ll need to build in certain dramatic encounters at each point in the writing process. If I don’t, then it’s possible that students won’t write/learn about the key encounters, clashes, and conflicts of different characters and groups. Do you see what I’m saying? I picture all the peasant group hanging out together and not looking at or interacting with the other classes, or ever seeing the King or priests. Thoughts?

Thanks again.

And another idea: Do you want to play with the project, once it’s started? Maybe you can make a guest appearance as Napoleon

The funny thing is, I’m only half kidding. Why should I be the only teacher?

This would probably work well for your peasants & such, but then you have your ‘main’ characters to deal with?

HOWEVER, there are so many layers to your main ‘characters’ that can be discovered with some decent digging that it might also reveal both inner & external conflict as the simulation progresses.

Would it be such a bad thing if multiple students wrote on a single person, but then all of the ideas didn’t necessarily agree? I’d argue that this would probably lead to a more powerful form of deconstruction/discourse than if a single student took on the role of a single character. Complexity and disagreement is important.

You didn’t expect me to suggest the easy road, did you?