CREATED BY YOAV DUMAN / TEACHING GUIDE

Let the constitution become a problem.

Students enter Kallia after its old council falls. Their membership boundary, property/use arrangements and public offices shape recurring disputes about a reservoir agreement. The core reading is Aristotle's Politics, Books I–III, with particular emphasis on III.

The game is self-contained: all instructions, concept explanations, fictional facts and real-case evidence needed for the tasks are inside it. Original-text and source links are optional further reading. The downloadable HTML also embeds its artwork and PDF tools and can run offline. No account or prior reading is required. About 70 minutes is a planning estimate; timing has not yet been measured with a student cohort. Students can pause, resume and use additional time. It works as preparation for class or as an individual classroom inquiry.

Run the 70-minute inquiry

Round	Time	Work
1 / Who is the city?	10 min	Admission, work, political purpose and a first written reason.
2 / Living together	8 min	Property, use, plurality and institutions that enable participation.
3 / A claim to rule	10 min	Offices, class, six regimes and partial claims of justice.
4 / Whose judgment?	12 min	Expertise, affected users, conditional collective wisdom, civic and personal excellence.
5 / Above the rules?	14 min	Law, discretion, succession and incomparable political-moral virtue.
6 / What carries over?	9 min	Constitutional identity, obligations and South Africa's conditional legal continuity.
Exit / Bring an argument	7 min	Common advantage, a charter feature and an objection; optional personal transfer.

What students submit

Students must enter a name before starting. After completing the work, they download a final PDF with that name, 11 decisions and short move explanations, five longer arguments, a participation graph, an authority diagram and a knowledge/recommendation table. The 11 short explanations have 10–20-word minimums according to context (170 total), and the five longer arguments retain their original minimums (195 total). Overall, writing totals 365 minimum words and about 630 suggested words. Word counts check length; they do not assess theoretical understanding.

Use the completion checklist, then Download final PDF. Students submit that PDF to Canvas or the destination you specify. Saving progress does not submit work. Draft PDF, print and plain-text alternatives are available. A JSON recovery backup resumes the activity; the standalone HTML can also download a playable copy with progress embedded. These recovery files are not the main class submission. The application saves drafts as students type when browser storage is available and does not upload their responses. Students should download a recovery file before switching devices or clearing browser data.

Discuss the argument

Which resident's contribution was politically relevant, and why?
Whose advantage does your charter serve? Use a concrete feature and the strongest objection.
Did changing an officeholder change the constitution? What if the membership boundary changed?
Can someone serve a constitution excellently while doing something morally objectionable?
When can users judge an expert's work? What conditions matter for collective judgment?
Does an outstanding technical expert satisfy Aristotle's exceptional-virtue premise?
What would justify continuing—or rejecting—the inherited water agreement?

Support without reducing the challenge

Internal concept cards are available before students explain a move. Feedback opens after the short explanation reaches its minimum and the student selects Save reason & show feedback to confirm it for the current choice. Changed choices preserve the draft but require revision or explicit confirmation. The first confirmed reason is retained beside later reasoning. Unfinished drafts save throughout. Starting-point and reasoning-process hints support interpretation without supplying model analyses. Students can use larger text, browser zoom and dictation; every quantitative graph has a text table.

What to evaluate

Look for accurate distinctions, use of a passage or supplied fact, a relevant application, and a reasoned objection or revision. Completion of this selected inquiry is not proof of exhaustive mastery of all chapters in Books I–III. Agreement with Aristotle is not a learning outcome. A student's inclusive first decision still leaves substantive questions about law, authority, evidence and collective purpose.

The sixfold classification is a starting chart. Do not equate executive headcount with sovereignty, or overlook Book III.8's class distinction. The graphs record eligibility and chosen procedures, not measured attendance, influence, virtue, happiness or justice.

Exclusion is part of the analysis

The game explicitly examines Aristotle's defenses of enslavement, male authority and exclusion of necessary workers. It distinguishes his arguments from the fictional scenario and from students' proposed alternatives. Dossiers begin with status under the old council; emancipation changes the student's charter, not the historical author's premises.

Sources and extensions

Politics I · Politics II · Politics III · Rackham's complete text

The in-game reading room offers 22 source cards and a glossary. Optional Ireland and New Zealand cards extend the comparative work. They do not replace the required South Africa evidence task.

South Africa's 1996 Constitution, Schedule 6, item 2, continues existing law subject to amendment/repeal and constitutional consistency. It does not settle all inherited debts or commitments. Aristotle's polis identity is not presented as a modern rule of state succession.

The City Is Not the Walls