The war was a massive event that had massive details you need to know to fully understand. In this unit we looked at all of those details from alliances of countries to an actual soldier. You now may know from my last post why did the war start, that the war started because countries felt pressured to fight to keep their power. There were also events that added up to the war starting, like France furganans death.

Many countries joined the war because of the alliances that were already set up like the British and Canada.

The English Canadians felt I tie toward the British unlike the French Canadians. This brought up unresolved tension between the French and English Canadians that even the “Great Compromiser” couldn’t fully resolve. There were also restriction for who could join the war, medical exams required a potential soldier to be at least 5 feet 3 inches tall, and between 18 and 45 years old. Good eyesight, arched feet, and healthy teeth were also essential. Early in the war the minorities like black and Asian Canadians were also banned from joining the war.

How did WWI shape Canada’s identity as a nation?

The Canadians had a huge impact in world war 1. There was so much enthusiasm to go to war and I can say with no doubt that Canadians proved their great capability in world war 1. In the battle of Ypres April 1915 Canada showed their fierce determination even when in bad circumstances when the Germans threw a poison gas attack and Canadians managed to still hold there line. Also in Vimy Ridge the corps were brought together to take over the ridge which was done in three days. The ridge was firmly under control by the Germans and many tried to capture it but failed until Canada. After learning about this unit i was more proud to be a Canadian.

Who were these soldiers that gave Canada its reputation. In class we read a short novel called shattered ground. This novel gave us a inside look about world war 1 as it has many interesting photos of the men in the war. One of my favourite photos from shattered ground was a picture of men waving goodbye to there injured buddies.

After reading and discussing shattered ground I got a much better understanding of what actually was happening during the war. Now I was ready to find my soldier.

We went on to a website that lets you find Canadians that fought in World War 1. After much searching I found a very interesting man named Frederick Hobson.

The site had a digetal collection of primary sources about the soldiers. Here’s a few cool things I found on Fredrick Hobson.

War Journal

 

 

Form signed by Frederick

 

Information and Award Citation

Plaque about Frederick Hobson from Ontario

From the information on the website I had a understanding of Fredericks story that is, though it looked bad he single handedly held back the enemy with a Lewis Gun, which was a machine he had never been trained to use. Sadly he died that day but because of his bravery he gave his crew time to get reinforcements.

How does Fredricks story tie into our driving question. Soldiers just like Fredrick had courage and determination even when times were ruff. Because of this Canada now was looked at as a strong nation when before Canada was looked at as subordinate.

My first script draft

The main feedback that I got for this script was to explain my ideas for the podcast more,  have a bigger connection to the driving question, and make the story less fictional. I made sure to go over the feedback that was given before making the first draft of the actual podcast.

Making the podcast

 

For my podcast I used garage band to make the music and record my audio. This was a little tricky because if you make all of your audio in one file it’s hard to keep it organized and you have to keep lengthening your track or it will cut your recording off. I decided to instead record and edit the audio in different files in garage band, and then put them together in iMovie.

The feedback I got back on my first draft I completely agreed with. I still needed to add more detail about the driving question, music was loud, and there was a echo at the start of the podcast.

To help us focuse on being more creative and making our podcast sound more professional we had to listen to 30 seconds of ten podcasts and write about what made them interesting. After we were supposed to use what we learned from the podcasts and make our own first 30 seconds. I was overall happy with my first 30 seconds with only needing to turn down the volume of the music.

Final podcast

Though I did love this project it was such a relieve to have all the work I put in editing the audio and changing the script done! So here it is, enjoy.

Reflection

I really enjoyed learning about World War 1 though, this was a huge unit that usually would have of board me to death.  I don’t know when the battle of Somme’s was but I now do know that this was one of the first important battle for Canada being joint with the British in the war. I was able to learn this because instead of doing question in a textbook and taking stressful tests about each detail, we looked at the important facts of each aspect in interesting ways, like when we read shattered ground.