The students of John Moser’s Honors Western Civilization class are rewriting French Revolution-era history. Using a reenactment game from the “Reacting to the Past” series, the class will use historians Jean Jacques Rousseau and Edmund Burke to compose a new national constitution.

Beginning Feb. 2 in Dauch 105 from 1:40 to 2:55 p.m. on Tuesdays and Thursdays, the 18 students will role play specific roles within the French National Assembly of 1791 and 1792. Each day they will debate, argue and announce their opinions, but the students will have to know the works of Rousseau and Burke to accomplish their given task.

According to Moser, the students have been striving to really understand the motivations of Rousseau and Burke.

“Everyone wants to win the game, per se, and if their ability to win depends on their knowledge of Burke and Rousseau, then they will bury themselves in whatever it takes,” Moser said.

Barnard College professor Mark Carnes created this specific game. His goal was to produce a program that invited the students to get excited about the information they likely would not have enjoyed otherwise.

For this game’s participants, the general feeling seems to be one of enthusiasm.

“Students are definitely apprehensive at first, but then something happens, like a switch is flipped, and everyone is wired,” Moser said. “A lot of the students seem nervous, but they are excited.”

The first portion of the semester has been spent studying the texts and discussing them in class. Now they have divided into the three groups of the Assembly: the Royalists, the Jacobins and the Moderates.

Students are not required to wear full costumes; however, the king wears a crown, the Royalists wear the red, white and blue pins while the moderates wear some form of a red hat.

The most exciting part of the reenactment is seeing how everyone progresses. Depending on which passages the students choose, the outcome can be different.

“The fun is in the uncertainty,” Moser said.

In Moser’s experience with this and similar games, the game never ends the exact way of history. With so many minds assessing a situation, the end will be drastically different.

“My favorite part is just discovering which student will be most successful,” Moser said. “Some characters in our game will inevitably perform better than their actual historical counterpart and some worse, but either way the students have never disappointed.”

After the role-playing, students will meet in a “post-mortem” session to discuss the legitimate conclusion of this Assembly and reduce the tension that stems from the meetings.

“I want…other faculty to see this and catch on across campus,” Moser said. “Obviously, history is a great environment for these games, but it works for other subjects too. Students just need to find something to get excited about.”

Because of this, Moser encourages both faculty members and students to come watch the role-play portions of the course.