📋 How to Use Historical Conversations in Class

The conversation with a historical figure in class is not a digital gadget that you plug in and it works on its own. It's a structured educational activity, with preparation, facilitation, and debriefing as important as the dialogue itself. Teachers who achieve the best results with this approach are not necessarily the most tech-savvy — they are those who have thought most about what they want their students to learn, and how the conversation allows them to learn it.

Before the Session: Preparing the Students

Preparing the students is the most often neglected phase — and the most decisive. A student who arrives in front of Parlova without having worked on the context will produce questions like "Who are you?" or "What's happening right now?" — questions they could answer themselves with ten minutes of reading. A prepared student arrives with second-level questions: "You say you want to defend the Republic, but your actions seem to weaken it — how do you explain this?"

• →Distribute a short character sheet (one page maximum) that sets the context without revealing the future. The sheet gives the character depth — without the timeline of their death.
• →Remind the golden rule: the character does not know what will happen after the date of the conversation. Julius Caesar in 49 BC is unaware of the Ides of March. This is precisely what makes the conversation interesting.
• →Ask students to individually write two or three questions before the session. This step activates their prior knowledge and reduces downtime at the start.
• →Choose an angle. Depending on the course objectives, guide the questions: political angle, social angle, military angle, moral angle. Each angle provides a different session with the same character.

During the Session: Teacher's Role

During the dialogue phase, the teacher's role changes radically. They are no longer the transmitter of information — the character plays this role. The teacher becomes a facilitator: they move between groups, read over shoulders, point out particularly interesting or problematic responses. Their critical eye remains indispensable — some of the character's responses deserve to be contextualized or nuanced, and only the teacher can do this in real time.

It can be useful to move around with a sheet of post-its or to note remarkable responses on the whiteboard: quotes from the character that you want to use in the debrief. A response from Caesar that downplays the resistance of the Gauls, a statement from Napoleon on the legitimacy of the coup d'état, an argument from Freud difficult to refute — these moments are gold for the collective synthesis.

After the Session: Debrief and Written Record

The debrief is the moment when the conversation becomes knowledge. Without this phase, students leave with anecdotes and impressions — but not with a structured understanding of the period. The typical debrief lasts ten to fifteen minutes and follows three stages: what the character says, what history says on the same points, and the gap between the two.

1. 1Collect two or three striking responses from the character (those you noted or that the students propose).
2. 2For each: do historical sources confirm, nuance, or contradict what the character says?
3. 3Identify what the character does not say or cannot see. Their blind spots are as revealing as their certainties.
4. 4Synthesis: what have we learned about the period through this character's discourse? What does this discourse reveal about the values and logics of the time?

The written record can take various forms depending on the level and objective: a commented quote, a synthesis paragraph, a comparative table (what the character says / what the historian establishes), or a question for the next class. The important thing is that the record is the student's work — not a transcription of what you just said.

Adapt According to Level (6e to Terminale)

In 6e and 5e, students need a tighter framework of questions. Offer five to six pre-formulated questions and ask them to choose three. Conversations with Zeus on mythology or with Caesar on the Roman Empire work very well in this semi-guided framework. The goal at this level is mainly understanding the context and logic of the character, not yet in-depth critical analysis.

In 4e and 3e, students can work with more autonomy. Give them an angle (political, social, military) and let them formulate their own questions from this angle. Conversations with Napoleon on the French Revolution or with Zeus on Athenian democracy (linked with Socrates) lend themselves very well to this level of autonomy.

In high school (Première and Terminale), the conversation can be integrated into an essay or text explanation approach. After questioning Freud or Socrates, students write an argued paragraph using the conversation as a primary source to analyze. "Freud asserts X, but this assertion is questionable because Y" — this is exactly the structure of a philosophical essay paragraph.

Frequently Asked Questions from Teachers

• →Can students test the character's limits? Yes, and it's often productive. Caesar confronted with anachronistic questions responds in his period's logic, which quickly defuses destabilization attempts.
• →What if the character says something factually incorrect? It's a goldmine for teaching. Note the response and ask students in the debrief: do historical sources confirm this? Why might the character say something incorrect?
• →Is a device needed per student? No. Conversation in pairs is even preferable: it generates discussion between students on question formulation, which is itself a learning activity.
• →How to evaluate this activity? The critical written record is the most natural evaluation tool. You can also ask students to note the character's most convincing response and the most debatable one, with a short justification.