Telling a story in 60 seconds

Confederation. Until this January, I didn’t know anything more than it is what made Canada, well Canada. My class and I learnrd about everything to do with confederation by participating in many activities that would lead to a big group project.

Instead of taking notes and reading off text books about everything to do with confederation like the other history 9 classes, we did interactive and real life activities to fully absorb the large amount of information about Canadas past… good and bad.

HERE ARE 3 EXAMPLES OF THINGS MY CLASS AND I DID TO FULLY COMPREHEND HOW CANADA BECAME CANADA

“You will use the website below to take on the role of Lord Durham, travel to the colonies of Upper and Lower Canada, to talk to business owners, soldiers, and key players, to determine not only the causes of the rebellions, but also the solutions.” -Ms Maxwells iTunesU Post

I pressed the link and went into an animated world of Upper and Lower canada in the shoes of Lord Durham. As someone who learns best from visuals, this really helped me see both POV’s of the French and English during the rebellions. We had to write a summary in our own words on each person we talked to.

Then we wrote a letter to Queen Victoria on why I think the rebellions were caused and how to solve them. Here is my letter.

 

 

Another thing we did was a small activity where everyone had a card with a statement connected to confederation on it like “Loyalty to England” and “First Nations had no say or representation”. Our task was to decide whether not it was a pro or con, then place it on the wall of “For Confederation” or “Against Confederation.” We discussed all the cards as a class, which helped make the whole image of confederation clearer.

Being honest, I could go on and on about things we did this unit but this blog post can’t be that long so let’s get on with the big project!

Have you ever watched a Heritage Minute? I hadn’t before this year, so before I start explaining the project I recommend you watch a few. Don’t worry, they’re only a minute. Here are some of my favourites.

The big project we were assigned to do is make a Heritage Minute! The criteria was it had to be on a place, person or event, before confederation (1867), and it cannot already be a heritage minute. I got put into the First Nations category, with Jamie, Lucas, and Tamara. I was happy with this group as I haven’t done a big project with any of these people before!

We brainstormed and decided we were going to dedicate our heritage to a lost hero named Mistahimaskwa, commonly known as Big Bear. We chose him as he stood up for what he believed in with zero violence.  He put his people and peace first.

My group split up the tasks really well. I was on research duty, Tamara wrote the script, Jamie revised the script to class critique, and Lucas made the story board with the visions from all of us. Lucas and I filmed the group-planned video down at a beach near my house, and we ended up with this video.

 

My group and I made the decision to portray Big Bear’s story in the perspective of a letter to Canada. We wanted the letter to repersent Big  Bear and how his peoples lives were changed when Canada felt the First Nations deserved less than them. I hope this video shows how people like Big Bear had to stand up to the government’s short -sightedness at the time.

Overall, I think this project was a success. It was mostly stress free as my group and I had managed our time very well, and we ended up with a video that was unique in the style of Heritage Minutes.