In humanities, we started studying Canada’s role in World War 1. We first starting learning about the countries involved and how it all started. It all started with the assassination of archduke Franz Ferdinand, he was assassinated by an activist that believed that they should break free from Austria-Hungary and create an independent Yugoslavia. Ferdinand’s assassination initiated a chain of events leading to one pf the world’s largest and deadliest conflicts in history. Austria-Hungary declared war against Serbia on July 28 1914 exactly one month after the assassination. In class, we watched multiple videos on this topic, here are a few links to some videos we watched.
After we watched some videos about the start o0f World War 1 we were asked by our teacher, Ms. Maxwell to create a drawing or collage of pictures to represent the start of World War 1 or just the countries in it. I decided to draw a finger pushing down blocks or dominoes if you would like to call them, at the end of the trail of blocks there is a hole. The finger was labeled “Franz Ferdinand” representing the assassination of the archduke to be the very start of World War 1. The blocks would be labeled in order, the countries involved in World War 1. And the hole at the end would be labeled “WW1” To represent the war being in full swing. I enjoyed this mini assignment, it was fun learning about World War 1 while also being creative by sketching. After a few more classes of watching history videos and taking notes, we were finally assigned our main project. Our task was to pick an important topic from World War 1 and make a comic book on the topic. For example, some of the topics you could pick from we’re: The battle of Vimy ridge, Tanks in World War 1, Combat Tactics, and many, many more. One of the topic’s I have always been interested in since I was 6 was war planes and aviation. I chose this topic because I think it fits around what my main interests are when it comes to World War 1. For the last page of the comic book, we were tasked with writing a story on a specific person. For my last page, I decided to write the story on Billy Bishop. Billy was a Canadian Ace Pilot in World War 1. He was officially credited with 72 victories, making him the top Canadian ace of the war. I thought writing the story on Billy was a great idea because he was a Canadian and he was a pilot which fit perfectly into my comic since the topic for my comic was the war in the air.
When it came down to the main part of the comic, I decided not to write the comic solely on planes in general, but more of a story on one specific plane. I wanted to choose a plane that was used by Canada in the war and I also wanted a plane that was very common in World War 1. The plane I came up with was the Bristol F.2 fighter. The Bristol Fighter was used by Britain and Canada in world war 1. In late 1915, The royal flying corps needed a new artillery spotting and reconnaissance aircraft. After many design submissions from multiple plane manufacturers, the Bristol F.2 design was chosen. By December of 1916, production of the Bristol Fighter was in full swing. It started out being used for reconnaissance and mapping but eventually, it evolved into something much more powerful. A fighter plane, with a machine gun mounted to the top. Since the plane had two seats, the pilot could focus on flying the plane while the gunner could focus on gunning down enemy planes. I was interested with the story of this plane mostly because it was a very influential plane in the war. The No. 48 squadron was the first operational unit to receive the Bristol Fighter for use and on March 8, 1917 the plane was finally deployed.
Once all our comics had been handed in, our teacher, Ms. Maxwell combined all our comics together into one big book about World War 1 and she then announced to our class that we would be heading over to Cove Cliff Elementary (that was a five-minute walk away from Seycove) and present our comics to the grade sevens and sixes. I know that the people who didn’t go to Cove Cliff for Elementary were more nervous than the people who did because the people who had been there before knew what to expect.
The time at cove cliff was a blast, each person in our grade was assigned to a group of three or more grade 7’s and 6’s where we presented our part of the comic. I finished talking about my comic a few minutes before we were done so I asked the people in my group what topic interested them about world war 1. Most of them said that they liked the technical aspect of the war, (Weapons, Tanks, Planes Etc.). I absolutely loved this comic book project and I learned an insane amount of stuff about World War 1 that I never knew. I loved the comic book aspect of this project because it was a unique and eye catching way of creating a report on a topic. I am excited to see what else is in store for the last bit of the school year in humanities!