Salem Re-Possessed

I’m not a witch at allwitches are old and ugly

Caitlin Wion is a graduate student at San Diego State University writing a thesis on Louisa May Alcott.

I do not think I could have been more excited when I saw The Salem Witch Trials in Hist; I had to plan a discussion around it. The day before section, I e-mailed my students with the following message:

                We are going on a "witch hunt" in discussion to further explore the Salem Witch Trials! More details will emerge in class- but simply we will have a educational, fun, and even ridiculous discussion!
                DO NOT TELL ANYONE WHAT ROLE YOU HAVE BEEN ASSIGNED
                Your Role: Townsperson
                DO NOT TELL ANYONE! Seriously don't it will ruin the fun!

The day of section: We discussed the readings and then moved on to how the Salem Witch Trials started. I explained to the class that everyone got an e-mail that said "townsperson" or "witch." Then I chose students to be afflicted by witchcraft and let those students choose who were the witches in the class. I even made cardboard stocks for the "witches" to be placed in. It worked perfectly; the students were accusing each other of witchcraft because- "You have curly hair" "you are wearing red-the color of the devil" "you have on a Toronto hat" and my favorite "you are a witch because of your high-low skirt." One student even tried to accuse me of witchcraft!!  After half of the class was accused, I let the afflicted sit down and I asked the accused if they were indeed witches. Everyone said no (although one student claimed she was "sometimes" a witch). I condemned them to be hung and let them sit down.

After the activity we discussed the realities of the Salem Witch Trials. Referring back to my e-mail I asked them who was told their role was "witch." No one raised their hand and I explained that no one got a witch e-mail because there were no real witches in Salem; there were only innocent people who were killed. 

The Positives:
  • It seemed to me (and please, no one correct me) that the students had fun wearing the stocks and accusing each other of being in league with the devil.
  • The students seemed to be able to empathize with both the victims and the accusers.
  • The activity helped students relax and will facilitate better class discussions (fingers crossed)


Things to consider:
  • The activity did not take up much time. If I were to do it again, I would assign some sort of group work and hope that they would accuse people on their own.
  • I would have made more stocks. I only had one, so I don't think the witches spent enough time in them. (just kidding... kind of)
  • Also, I really wanted to go outside for this activity. But San Diego weather gods decided that it would be hot and humid.

Now, I have to give credit where credit is due. I got the idea for this activity from an episode of  Sabrina the Teenage Witch:

20 thoughts on “Salem Re-Possessed

  1. I think a lot of the reason it went so fast was because people were a bit confused as to how it was intended to work and what the rules (if any) were.

    For the future it might work better to assign a few people to be the officials (judge, mayor, reverend, etc), and then find some way to really pit the class against itself, e.g. telling everyone that the villagers get points for every witch they catch, and the witches (emphasize there are possibly several) get points for each one of them that remains hidden.

  2. I thought it was a really entertaining activity, for one because I’ve always been interested in the Salem Witch Trials. I also enjoyed how it let us all start to connect with one another as a group, so doing more activities involving the whole group would be great. However it did go a little quicker than I thought.

  3. I thought the activity was a really good idea, it just needed more structure. Perhaps informing the class of what they are allowed and not allowed to do. This is a really good interpretation of how some of the events in during the Witch Trials occurred. It just needed a better structure and a better way to get everyone involved.

  4. I actually do enjoy these group activities and even discussions rather than just reading from the book and having a teacher lecture it back at us. I do think that it went a little quick because we needed more of a game aspect to it, maybe with points or ground rules. The discussions that follow are very informative and interesting though, we get different perspectives and opinions from all of the students, making it a more comfortable environment where students actually do want to speak out and say what’s on their mind

  5. The Salem Witch Trial activity is exciting because of the blame-game interaction that must take order. The email instructing the class could be more specific and informative on the rules of the game. Also doing this in 5 groups of 4 would have worked great too. Place each student into a group 1 through 5 and tell them they are townspeople then when they break up in their groups tell the class one of the 5 groups is full of witches. This makes for a more competitive “My group is not witches!” feel.

  6. The Salem Witch Trial activity was really interesting. I wish there was more we could have done for this activity, because I feel that the activity went by too quickly. We could have went more in depth with this activity by having a mock trial. Overall this activity was fun as well. We should have more class activities that are similar to this. I think is better than just doing ordinary in-class work. I like activities that would be fun as well as beneficial to me.

  7. Ian Chang
    The Salem Witch Trial was interesting. I was able to understand how the people felt when being accused as a witch. However, I think it will be better if we could have everyone participate in the activities.

  8. I thought that the Salem Witch Trial was fun but too short. I understand the concept that mass hysteria was spread at such a rapid rate but I think the activity could of been a bit more in-depth if we were able to argue a bit more, if you were accused. You could also have assigned people certain roles such as the judge, executioner(if you yourself didn’t want to do it), and separate the townspeople into upper and lower class so that the treatment between the class levels were distinguishable.

  9. An Le- Section 13
    The class activity is helpful for me to learn about The Salem Witch Trials deeper. I learned how it was created by the lack of knowledge of people at that time. Also there was not any real witch between “us.” I hope there will be more activities like this.

  10. Jesse Greer — Section 13
    Having a class activity based on the Salem Witch Trials was really fun. I liked the fact that we were all “townspeople” and had to go through the process of being accused, then accusing someone else to shift the focus away from yourself. I thought it was a fun way to see how frivolous these accusations became.

  11. I found this activity very entertaining. It was a great way to get a better understanding of how the trials took place, and how witches were accused and dealt with. I also agree that it went by too fast. The activity could have taken longer and been more interesting if we had done something similar to what they did in Sabrina; dressing up and acting the parts. However, even simple activities such as these make the discussion sections more worth while, and I can’t wait to see what we’ll do next!

  12. I enjoyed this activity, however it went by really quickly. It would have been interesting if we really put some of the witches on trial more seriously and if some of the afflicted actually got to act out what the witches had supposedly done to them. Also it would have been fun to go over and act out some of the tests for determining whether someone was a witch or not.
    All together, it was an entertaining activity. I remember coming into section wondering if anyone had received the title of “witch”. I really doubted it because that wouldn’t have been true to history – considering innocent people were being put to death, not real witches.

  13. I enjoyed this activity, I just think if it had been started off better everyone would have gotten more into it. If we had talked a little bit more about the witch trials and how intense they were at the beginning of discussion I think it would have gone better because everyone would have been more dramatic about being called a witch, or someone calling someone a witch, etc. I thought this was a good activity to get everyone involved, I just think it was a little awkward because not everyone got into the activity and just kind of did as they were told and then sat down. It was overall a fun activity, I just think it could have gone better had everyone been more prepared for it.

  14. The whole activity was enjoyable and entertaining. It did go by fast though so maybe in the future just have it more organized. For example you can have pointed towns officials, slaves, locals and more and hold legit trials with a judge. And don’t tell the class that no one is a designated witch until the end. You can make it seem like you did appoint one person as a witch and at the end we all would have to decide who it is, but we come to find out we were all appointed townspeople or other roles. Overall though, great activity.

  15. Getting to do this activity was an exciting a fun way to talk about history. I thought this was a creative way to get people out of their seats and talking about the trials since at times our class can have issues initiating conversation. As much fun as it was, it did go by pretty quickly. I think it may benefit the classes to experience a mock witch trial with a judge, jury, and back story for the defendant. You could even reenact some of the more famous trials to be more realistic. All in all, it was a fun activity and hopefully we can do more like it.

  16. I liked the activity. I wish that people that were accused of being a witch put up more of a fight instead of just accepting the accusation. It would’ve be a lot more fun if there were arguments between the accusers and the accused about why they were/weren’t a witch.
    Alberto Sandoval Section 14

  17. I thoroughly enjoyed the activity, but as someone stated above, it was rather difficult to understand what all was supposed to happen. The way I might do it in the future is to make it a card game like Mafia. One person be doctor, one person a judge, and one person the witch. The rest will be townsfolk. Everyone will put their heads down and the narrator (you in this case) would ask the special individuals to lift their heads up one by one and ask them to either heal a person, accuse a person, or kill a person. In the “morning” you awake all the townsfolk and let the accusations fly.

  18. I found The Salem With Trails activity very enjoyable. it was fun listening to the accusations and their reasons to accuse someone. I also believe that this types of activities help to get a better understanding of the process and to realize how unfair the trials were.

  19. I very much enjoyed this activity. I do wish it could have lasted a little longer and it may have been even better with more props, but I still think it was a very fun way to put some perspective on the witch trials. I found it interesting that the entire chaos of the trials could only occur if many people decided to come up with these fabrications and go along with the ludicris stories and accusations. The people obviously were fearful and susceptible to conformity

  20. This activity would have been more fun and accomplished more if everyone was more into it and knew what we were supposed get out of the activity ahead of time. This did show how unfair the trials were back in the day and how justice has come a long way. If i was randomly accused of being a witch I would definitely put up more of a fight rather than just accepting the penalty.

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