Volk, Steven S. “How the Air Felt on My Cheeks: Using Avatars to Access History.” (2012)

This article presents a profile of an avatar-based teaching method for history classes. The author describes how he adapted and utilized a student writing project designed by Stanford University historian Edith Sheffer which directed students to create historical characters from the subject period and journal about their lives in the first person. The author's course "Dirty Wars and Democracy," examining the history of military dictatorships in South America during the 1960s and 1970s, is then profiled and evaluated with regard to a similar project where students created blogging avatars to portray people who lived within that period.