Staging Historical Reenactments on Twitter: History, Methods, and Ethics

This paper is based on the first two iterations of the Twitter reenactment in "History 450: The Growth of Metropolitan Milwaukee," taught at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (UWM) in Fall 2020 and 2021. According to the authors, they did not come up with the Twitter reenactment as a pedagogical tool on their own. This paper describes the development and refinement of Twitter reenactments since 2009. The authors explain how they worked out the details of transforming what had been a volunteer activity into the core of a class. The authors conclude by examining some of the ethical and pedagogical questions raised by having students engage in a historical reenactment. According to the authors, historical reenactments can offer students an unusual opportunity to develop their historical thinking and share original research findings with a public audience.