Immersive History

Leverage text- and image-based AI tools to craft an immersive educational journey through significant historical events, cultivating meaningful engagement with and nuanced comprehension of specific time periods.

Assignment Details

Credit

AI Theme

Subject

Tools

Skills

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

Analyze the causes and effects of major political, economic, and social developments in history
Use generative AI to craft narratives that bring history to life in an engaging way
Evaluate historical sources and hone skills in interpreting and validating information


INSTRUCTIONS

Tasks

  1. The instructor distributes a list of 5-10 impactful historical events across different time periods and geographical areas (e.g., the French Revolution, women’s suffrage movement, abolition of slavery in the U.S., partition of India, the Black Death, etc.).
  2. Students select one event to focus on. Students will write a short paragraph explaining why they selected this event, and why it interests them. Students must stipulate a particular lens or framing that they want to explore, to encourage a more critical and novel take on the event.
  3. Using a generative AI image tool, students create a visual depiction of themselves or likeness set within the context of their chosen event. This makes the learning experience personal and stimulating.
  4. With input from a text-based generative AI tool (e.g., ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, etc.), students write a 2-3 page immersive narrative about their experiences during this historical period, bringing in key figures, locations, and policies and describing the sociopolitical climate. Here is a sample prompt students can use (or the instructor may require students to create their own prompt):
    I have chosen to focus my immersive history assignment on [specify key historical event]. Please generate a richly detailed first-person narrative of my experiences as an everyday citizen living through this era in 1000 words. Please frame the narrative through the lens of [specify particular framing of the experience, e.g., a working class adolescent, the matriarch of a noble family, etc.].

    Incorporate the following core elements into the narrative:
    What specific location am I inhabiting? Describe the geography, architecture, layout of the area.
    Who are 3-5 key public figures I may have encountered and what were my interactions with them? These could be political leaders, activists, artists, or other influential people of the period.
    How did major policies, political/military conflicts, or sociocultural dynamics impact my daily life at that time? Provide specific examples.
    What were some key controversies or public debates that would have permeated conversations I took part in? What sides/opinions did I hold?
    Using vivid sensory imagery, illustrate the rhythms of life through what I ate, wore, values held, and daily routines/rituals I followed.

    Please focus on historical accuracy throughout while leveraging creative narrative elements that immerse me right into this pivotal era through an everyday lens. The end goal is for my classmates to feel transported back through skillful storytelling rooted in fact.

Follow-up

  1. Students conceive and pose three thoughtful and open-ended questions to ChatGPT/Gemini/Claude to learn more about intriguing areas. What sparked the event? How did it impact different groups? What were the long-term ripple effects? Is there a particular lived experience that has not been explored?
  2. To encourage students to critically evaluate the information provided by their chosen generative AI tool and develop their source verification skills, they should find and cite at least three reputable sources (i.e., academic articles, books, verified news outlets) that corroborate key points from the AI-generated narrative. These citations should be directly linked to the three follow-up questions that have formed the scope of their historical investigation. This process helps ensure the historical accuracy and reliability of their work and reinforces the importance of being cautious users of Generative AI tools, which can generate content that includes inaccuracies and biased perspectives. Instructors may also consider integrating a mechanism or interface for real-time comparison or feedback to help students understand the relationship between good prompting and generative fidelity. Anthropic’s Claude is one example of a tool with a responsive dual-window interface that would facilitate such real-time comparison.


[Optional] Expand the assignment with any of the following ideas:

  1. Incorporate more interactivity: Students could develop their narratives into scripts and act them out as historical reenactments with the class. Alternatively, students could use conversation AI to role play the first-person interactions described in their narratives.
  2. Expand into multimodal projects: Students could supplement their writing with original artifacts, music, art, menus, maps, letters/diaries, or other creative history-infused pieces that lend texture, physicality, and wholeness to their simulated experience.
  3. Provide more platforms for sharing: Offer students opportunities to publish excerpts from their narratives in a class history blog/magazine, record them as podcasts to share within or beyond school, or develop them into theater productions for the school or parents.
  4. Spotlight student passions: Provide links between the curated historical events and students’ personal backgrounds, interests, or future aspirational fields to drive deeper connections and engagement.
  5. Scaffold for all ability levels: For less advanced writers, provide sentence/paragraph templates, graphic organizers, and ample collaborative brainstorming time so all can meaningfully participate.
  6. Incorporate local history: Alongside national events, include hometown historical moments students could vividly recreate and bring local color to with immersive depictions. Potentially add further constraints or prescriptions on the specific framing/lens used to create the narrative.
  7. Tie to current events/issues: Prompt students to identify modern connections to their historical moments. How do key themes, divides, or policies referenced still resonate in today’s landscape? Suggest the exploration of history’s duality through prompting the chatbot to provide a comparative modern-day event that shows history repeating itself. This helps students to understand the concept of historic recurrence.


ASSESSMENT

Students are evaluated based on their visual representations, the quality of the questions posed, and their ability to find reputable sources. This stimulating approach promotes engagement with history and skill-building across visual art, creative writing, analysis, and information literacy. Instructors may use the following grading rubric to assess student work and provide comprehensive feedback that emphasizes the development of these skills.

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