Hot-Seating

A student (or teacher) takes on the role of a character from a text, historical figure, or invented persona. The class asks questions; the person in the hot seat answers in character. Distinct from our Hot Seat vocabulary game — this is a drama convention for exploring character in depth.

Classic process-drama technique documented in Drama Resource, Rex Gibson's Teaching Shakespeare, and Dorothy Heathcote's work.

Procedure

1. Class reads or discusses a text featuring a compelling character: Macbeth, the protagonist of this short story, a historical figure you're studying.
2. A student (or teacher) volunteers to be in role. They take a chair at the front.
3. In-role preparation (2 min): the volunteer thinks about the character — their motivations, secrets, view of events.
4. The class asks questions; the student answers in character, using first-person:
   • Why did you agree to it?
   • What did you really think of Banquo?
   • If you could change one decision, which would it be?
5. The volunteer must commit to the character, including their flaws and biases. Answers don't need to match the text — improvisation is allowed.
6. After 10 minutes, swap characters. Or discuss: what did we learn about the character?

Why It Works

• Empathic engagement with text: character stops being an abstract entity and becomes a person with motivations.
• Question-formation practice: the class produces dozens of questions at different levels (what/why/how).
• Inference skill: answering in character requires filling in what the text doesn't say.
• Risk-safe creativity: the chair itself frames the volunteer as "in role"; errors are character errors, not student errors.

Good Hot-Seat Candidates

• Fictional characters from any read text — protagonist, antagonist, minor observer.
• Historical figures: Cleopatra, Lincoln, local historical leaders.
• Authors: If you could interview Hemingway/Austen/this article's writer, what would you ask?
• Archetypal roles: the angry boss, the forgiving parent, the witness to a crime.
• Invented personas: a 2050 time-traveller, an alien anthropologist.

Variations

• Double hot-seating: two characters in chairs simultaneously. Class asks both; they can respond to each other.
• Written hot-seat: questions are written on sticky notes; character answers by writing responses, displayed. Useful in larger classes.
• Role-card version: volunteer receives a brief card with role details not known to the class. The class must discover the character through questioning.
• Conscience Alley + Hot-Seating: character walks the alley first to hear competing inner voices, then takes the hot seat to answer questions informed by the alley.

Tips

• Warm up with neutral questions before probing ones. Where are you from? before Why did you kill him?
• Encourage questions about motivation and feeling, not just plot details.
• Teacher models first. Take the hot seat yourself to show commitment to character; builds permission for students.
• Works from A2 upward with simple characters; B2+ unlocks literary discussion.

Source

Drama Resource (dramaresource.com); Heathcote, D. (1984) Drama as a learning medium; Gibson, R. (1998) Teaching Shakespeare.