And it’s another close to another wonderful unit. We have just been learning about the history of Canada and people who had power at that time. It could be anyone from someone who was involved in the Gold Rush, the construction of the CPR, or immigration. The driving question was “How does power alter relationships between individuals and societies?” I know, it sounds like a complicated question but basically what it is asking is “How can the power of an individual (good or bad) have impact on groups of people?” Now that you know what this unit is based around, I think it’s time to get started!!

MIND MAP

As an introduction to power as it is a very general topic and can be confusing, we did a small activity. Our teacher instructed us to create a mind map of the definition of power from the dictionary and our own definition. We also had to name and describe three people we know that have power and why, and three people we don’t know, like famous people, that have power and why.

This is what it looked like once we finished. This activity really got us thinking and got our brains flowing around the idea of power and that sometimes it isn’t always good.

LOUIS RIEL

Louis Riel was a man of Metis culture from Manitoba. He is seen as a hero to many for fighting for Métis rights, but also seen to many as a villain. We took a look at these two pictures in class one showing his strength and power, holding the Métis rights in his extended hand. And then the other statue, a bit creepy, weak almost. 

This is only one example of how a leader, someone with power can have different impacts on different people. We watched a video called “Louis Riel for Dinner” and when you first watch it, it seems super super weird. But we watched it a few times in class and then I watched it a few times at home and realized a few deeper meanings in it. You can see that in this video there are at least 2 different points of view on who Louis Riel was. Warning, it is quite….. different.

Since our main focus of Canadian History and Power, there are many, was the joining of “The Red River Settlement” or Manitoba to the confederation of Canada, Louis Riel was a big part of our studies. There for we read a graphic novel called “Louis Riel, a Comic-Strip Biography.”

It tells the story of Louis Riel and the important points of that story in pictures. We did a ton of activities based on this story like responses and group chats about it. But I think the most important thing we did was a class debate. Earlier in this post I talked a bit about the different views of Riel, heroic and more of a villain-like. And that was our debate. It was a great experience but I know that I definitely need to work on my debate skills!!

THE KANAKAS

After we got the idea of power and the history of Canada, we combined the two a started the one and only project for this unit. We were to create a 2-3 minute animation about an individual who had power in Canada pre-confederation. It could be anybody from John. A MacDonald to Andrew Onderdonk, each doing different, but important, things for our country. 

We were reading through lists of different people we could research for our project when one caught my eye, The Kanakas.

The Kanakas were a group of people from Hawaii that were brought over from Canada to work for the HBC. I won’t tell you much much more about them because I want you ton watch my video, but, one thing that you will most likely notice is the fact that these people were not treated with care or good power, they were treated badly by someone with power.

My video was a bit different than everyone else’s for one reason. Most people’s video was front eh point of view of the individual impacting a society. Mine was from the point of view of a group being being impacted by an individual, in this case, the Kanakas being oppressed by James Douglas. Let’s review the driving question, “How does power alter relationships between individuals and societies?” I think it is actually an answer that is pretty easy to see. Although there were more Kanakas than there was James Douglas, he had power. He knew that he had power and so did everyone else, so when new people form a different place came along, they were seen as lesser. This can completely alter or tip the scales of relationships between one person and a group and in this case, the scale was tipping downwards towards the Kanakas.

Thank you so much for watching my video and reading my post and….. I’ll see you guys next time!!!

~Your Blogging Friend, Jordyn