Voice and text: role playing with computers

In teaching the works of Geoffrey Chaucer and other medieval writers, I want students to participate, to pleye' with the language and ideas of the story. Like any instructor, I hope that students will not sit 'doumb as a stoon'. One way to encourage students to take part is literally to give them a part, a role to take on in the classroom. Over the past few semesters, I have turned to computers to do this, using the InterChange function of Daedalus, a networked synchronous communications program, for role playing exercises in medieval literature classes. In these classes, I have invited my students (mostly English majors at Iowa State, a public university of science and technology) to use role playing in order to explore the identities of Chaucer's Canterbury pilgrims. My intention in beginning these exercises was to help students realize that Chaucer's speakers, lively and realistic as they seem to us, are known through, and constructed of, words. This intention, however, has not been fulfilled-in fact, few of my original expectations have been met; nonetheless, this project has succeeded in other ways, and it has persuaded me that synchronous communications in general, and on-line role playing in particular, can be a vital part of the medieval studies classroom.