And what’s the point of such exercises? What’s the point of assigning a student, or anybody, even an educated person, to write from the point of view of, say, a slave, at a plantation in the South in 1800? An exercise in ignorance. Heavy duty literary writers struggle with such (self imposed) assignments, and come up short half of the time.
Read history books, you dummies!
It's a heuristic technique that can be both educational and fun. And I've experienced this sort of thing myself. I once took part in a simulation of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe, which eventually led to the 1975 Helsinki Accords--I was the Soviet delegate. As part of a history seminar, I also took part in a conference to unite the world's socialist movements, in which I represented Stalinism.