This project was based around the question “How can multi-modal communication enhance our ability to humanize and understand complex issues?” While I’ve always wanted to know more about the Holocaust (since all I had known before this project is what’s in the Disney plus show called A Small Light), I’ve always been cautious about the topic. The first thing Ms. Madsen said to us about this project is that we had to watch what we were saying because it is such a horrific and serious topic that still greatly affects us our world today. 

For this project we learned about the Holocaust and the events leading up to it through reading articles, lectures, video testimonies, a symposium and a visit by a granddaughter of a survivor. Each one of these sources added more and more horrible information that I couldn’t imagine. We started with learning about the rise of the Nazis, and then the growth of antisemitism ending with the Holocaust itself. For the first investigation, I wrote a paragraph talking about which type of format resonated most with me and why. 

This assignment got to me more than I would’ve thought. When I’m in class listening to every horrible thing about this time in history I would try to focus on just writing things down, or on the content, and not the person side of it, but for this assignment all of it was the personal and thinking side. This assignment was meant to demonstrate my analyzing skills and I think I really did that. I not only shared what I learned from the activity that most resonated with me but I believed I showed in depth thought into why. I chose the activity about the granddaughter of a survivor because she made it seem more real and not just statistics. Every person she mentioned was a cousin or uncle or dad of her grandmother and all I could think about was my own family. If you want to see what my paragraph was listen to the voice memo below (I chose to do a voice memo because it seemed more personal to me).

Investigation two was reading Maus which is a graphic novel by Art Spiegelman and the only graphic novel to ever win a Pulitzer Prize. This book is about the author learning and writing about his father’s experience during the Holocaust. Reading this book was crazy because  every few pages there was a way his father could’ve been caught or died. His father was also treated terribly and went through so much pain and loss that you could see still the experiences affecting him when the book changed between past and present. With this book we were instructed to do a literacy critique in an essay format. While we were supposed to choose to write on the psychology aspect of the trauma depicted in the book, or on a comparison of two characters or on the literary elements, I chose to combine the first two because to me they seemed very intertwined. I wanted to show how the trauma Vladek experienced affected how he interacted with everyone around him and how those people then reacted. I’m actually very proud of my essay which isn’t always true for past essays. I had so much to write (maybe too much …… 7 pages…..) and had lots of examples of everything because unlike reading novels, I could remember it because I had pictures to go with the words. I have very strong narrative memory skills. I liked my writing and my friends thought it was good so I decided to see what Ms Madsen thought. Earlier this week I got the essay back with few parts needing revision so I changed those but most parts earned an ✅.  Overall I thought my essay showed in depth thinking and is an essay I’m actually proud I wrote. 

The final product was “With a partner, choose an upstander (historical or current), research who they are and how they stood up against intolerance, and create a multimodal exhibit to contribute to our class showcase celebrating difference making!” Which was meant to be showed at the spring exhibition. If your curious what an Upstanders is here are a few definitions my teacher gave us:

My partner for this project was Fraser and together we came up with awesome plan to research the incredible Irena Sendler who saved 2500 Jewish children from the Warsaw ghetto and then make an interactive timeline in milk bottles. At the same time in BCFP I had started to research the mistreatment of Indigeous people in healthcare. While I was trying to manage the two projects the plans for the exhibition changed. Ultimately, the new choices led to Fraser and I merging our “Upstander” project and our BCFP project although there was plenty of confusion. Personally, I  wanted to do both from the beginning so was glad when they got combined. I am very proud of how I acted when they got combined too, as most people got very stressed and didn’t know where to start but I just got a white board and a pen and started planning. In the end our exhibition exhibit was educational and engaging. Fraser and I had multiple interactive parts including our original timeline idea, effective visuals including orange origami roses to make into a heart, and a call to action which was a physical card the visitors could bring home. Everything was presented well from the crisp edges of the paper, and the interesting layout.  I was super passionate about both topics (Irena Sendler’s life and the terrible mistreatment of Indigenous people in the healthcare system) and really enjoyed telling everyone one about it. While all of those things alone were great I was really impressed with how I explained the project to everyone who walked by. I really enjoyed explaining and showing everything I knew from when Irena got in a fight at school to when she was almost executed and found myself realizing how in the younger grades I wouldn’t have been able to do that so confidently.

This project was filled with horrible history that I’m glad is being taught, because it is so important to where we are today with antisemitism rising. Please check out the links and read the images below to learn about Irena Sendler and her incredible her life and as check out my BCFP post connected to this as well.