As students in the first-year philosophy seminar “Critical Thinking” drape themselves in togas, a symbolic pig is sacrificed to mark the start of their weekly Ancient Greek General Assembly.

Portraying characters from Athens, circa 403 B.C., the students are debating the best way to rule the country and are putting the philosopher Socrates on trial for his teachings in Plato’s “Republic.”

“I’m prosecuting Socrates for blasphemy, anti-democracy and corrupting the youth of Athens,” says prosecutor Joe Drzonsc ’10. “I’m going to win this thing today.”

The students in Philosophy and Religious Studies Assistant Professor Peter Bradley’s course are playing the game “Reacting to the Past,” developed by Barnard College in 1995 to promote speaking, writing, critical thinking and reasoning skills. The game is used in more than 25 colleges and universities nationwide.

“I was looking for a way to teach rhetoric, so students can learn about character and how to appeal to emotion in oratory,” says Bradley. “They got into it immediately.”

“I’m more comfortable speaking in front of an audience than I was before,” says Keith Adams ’10, who served as the judge.

Each student’s role book details their character’s political objectives and secret motivations. While in character, students make alliances and deals. They huddle. They pass notes. They whisper. And they present sophisticated unscripted speeches and arguments from their character’s point of view.

At the end of the weeks-long program, students cast votes in the form of black and white pebbles. The class found Socrates guilty by a vote of 18-6 and decided to put him to death.

The critical thinking role-playing exercise will again be utilized in a 2007 freshman seminar, led by Gretchen McKay, associate professor of Art History and associate dean of Academic Affairs and director of the Honors Program.