In our most recent unit of humanities we have been learning all about the different dynamics and forms of power and how that has been shown in history. To do so we began studying Canadian history. The first few classes we learned an overview of some key events that happened in early Canadian. However in this unit we primarily learned about how Manitoba joined the rest of Canada. We did this by reading Louis Riel: a comic book and lots of in class lessons and activities. One of my favourite activities we did was an in class debate about whether Louis Riel was a hero or an evil person. I’ve always loved debates and anything to do with law so it was fun to exercise that skill. I was also put on the side that believed he was evil which personally I believe so I was excited to I’d more research on that. Our driving question for this unit was, “How does power alter relationships between individuals and societies?”.

Our main project was to pick a powerful Canadian person that did something before confederation and make an animation about something they did. We then had to learn all about them, how they gained power, and what they did. We were supposed to tell a story of their power. My person was Sir John A Macdonald, the first prime minister of Canada. I told the story of his life and how he helped create Canada. Once we had written our full story it was time to start generating ideas for my animation.

The story I wanted to tell was about his work in politics, more specifically his contribution to confederation and the beginnings of Canada. Since my story was less of one tale and more of a timeline of his life my animation was quite different from the others. I called my style the draw my life style as on YouTube there are these things called draw my lifes, where the YouTuber basically makes mini illustrations about their life as their voiceover is telling their story. This is my final animation, I hope you enjoy it and learn something new about John A Macdonald.

This unit was really fun for me. Although I like group projects it is nice to be able to do something on your own and have your own timeline. I didn’t have to worry about meeting up with people or delegating tasks. I was able to get everything done at a good pace and ended up getting pretty ahead near the end. I also was very proud of myself in my animation skills. At the beginning of the unit the only animating I had ever done was with a still image and just moving it around the screen isn’t he chemical stories project. I had never done real animation. So I went into Flipaclip and just spent lots of time practing animating and I’m very proud of how good I am now. Overall I believe this project helped me with time management, a better understanding of early Canadian history, and how to animate.