Today’s blog post is on ….. CANADIAN HISTORY!!!! That’s right, for the past weeks we have been hard at work learning about the things that lead of the confederation of Canada. For this unit our driving question was “How does power alter relationships between individuals and society”? Our project for this unit was an animation showing how a famous Canadian figure had power over a group of people (More on that later). Without further ado lets get right into it!

We started off this unit with a fun intro activity. This activity took us to Manitoba in the year 1870 when the Manitoba act was signed. As for what we did, well we were randomly given a slip a paper. This paper explained whether you were a Metis or a prospector. I was given the task of prospector. As a prospector you needed to buy as much land a possible using any means necessary, the only catch. We had a budget of 300$. The metis were trying to get as much for their land as possible.

In the end this activity showed me that the metis got the short end of the stick in the Manitoba act.

For this unit there were two main parts, the first was the animation and the second was Louis Riel.

1. Louis Riel

For this part of the unit we read a comic book. This book, written by Chester Brown is all about Louis Riel. In the book we learned about all the stuff he achieved, did wrong, and what happend to him in the end. The book also taught us about Riel’s impact on the Métis, CPR, and the creation of Manitoba. The book was split into 4 parts. Every week we had to read a part and write a paragraph about all the important events that happend in that part. If I had to give a review about this book I would give it a solid 8/10 stars. I really enjoyed this book. It had a good storyline and the visual were good. Where it lost points was in the plot as it was hard to follow in some parts. As well as it being written from one persons point of view because that effects the way characters are portrayed.

Debate

At the end of this book we had a debate. The debate was on wether Louis Riel was a hero or not. I ended up on the hero side.

Right from the beginning you could tell we had the upper hand. Nik and Kyle  kicked it off with an outstanding opening statement. Amelia, Jason and Fraser continued the steamroll with precise blows that kept them on their toes. Finally I delivered the killing blow and the debate had been won.

In all the debate was a lot of fun. You had to know louis Riel’s history quite well otherwise you got shredded to bits. I really enjoyed this debate as it brings out the competitive side in a lot of people as well as having lots of people participate. I really hope we get to do more of these in the future as I really enjoyed them.

2. The project

Using the power that Louis Riel had as an example, our task was to feature another famous persons power. The person I choose was James Douglas.

Before we could begin our animation we first had to learn about the person we chose. One fact that I learned about Douglas was, he important man as he founded Fort Victoria (now the capital of B.C.).

Once we had done our research we had to draw out our plan in the form of a storyboard. Once done that we could begin drawing our animation.

First draft

Final draft

Reflection

In the end I thought this unit was FANTASTIC! I enjoy almost every moment of it. I really liked how my animation turned out as well as the debate. One thing I realize in this project is that I need to time block a lot better because I was up really late finishing my animation. If I had time blocked it better I could of spread it out a lot more instead of doing it all in one night.

So ya the my shpeal for this post I hope you enjoyed

-Em