‘No, no, the Cold War was not that dramatic’: A case study on the use of a drama task to promote Dutch secondary school students’ historical imagination

Abstract

Imagining what it was like to live in the past may help secondary school students to understand historical developments and situations. In this case study, the opportunities of a drama task are explored by using a mixed-method approach. In small groups, Dutch 14–15-year-old students examined historical sources and produced a short film clip on daily life in the Netherlands during the Cold War. Results indicated that both the students and their teacher perceived the drama task as motivating. The group discussions were rich in on-task utterances, and the students reported that they thought the task was valuable for gaining insight into thoughts and feelings of people in the past. However, the clips were relatively poor in information, and the assessment proved to be a challenge for the teacher.