Hey Y’all, Max here.
Wake up, wake up, wake up it’s the 1st of the month
- Bone Thugs n’ Harmony
If you couldn’t tell from the lyric, this is the first blog post of the month ( an elaborate analogy meaning grade 10 ). The very first project of humanities this year is about the gold rush.
I feel like the gold rush(es) isn’t/ aren’t as interesting as many believe it/ them to be. I can back up this bold claim after researching the topic for a month. What I did find interesting about the gold rush(es) is the people involved in them. I specifically had to research a demographic that ventured to the BC wilderness, and create a story about a fictional character in a very real environment. This was an interesting and creative project, so let’s dive ( horse-drawn carriage ) into it.
The beginning of this project had a lot of documentaries and “educational videos” that we watched to gain a better understanding of the gold rush. I already knew a lot about the gold rush because of a project PLP 9 attempted last June. We never got very far into it for some reason, but it was still educational. Anyways, the first part of the project was mostly dedicated to watching videos, and taking notes on the subjects we learned about. Another thing we did on the side while this was happening was some English practice and review. This was really simple and was just to help us write our stories.
The next thing we did was make a timeline about the Gold rushes. ( Whenever I say ‘rushes’ I mean both the Fraser River Gold Rush and the Cariboo Gold Rush, two different events that happened at different times. ) I did this with Sepaus. Here’s a link to our Timeline.
A lot more notes happened, we lend about the Cariboo Gold Rush, more notes, and a little more English language practice. The last thing we really did before it was time to write the story was researching the Tsil’qhotin War, and make a cause and consequence chart. You can find mine here.
The research we did to this point on the Cariboo and Fraser River gold rushes would be helpful when it came time to create a fictional character, and put them in a real-world environment. This is the next step of the project, and the beginning of the end.
I didn’t have to search long to find a name and background for my character. The name, Carter Chung, comes from a hesitantly Compliant Acquaintance of mine who has a similar name. It would take too long to explain the backstory of Carter Chung, so I’ll add the character card below, which was also another important part of the preparation process.
Finally, it was time to start writing the actual story. In my memory, the preservation process wen on for way too long, and then we just kind of moved onto writing. I don’t think there was as much prep as I thought, but it still felt like a lot. The story writing took at least a few hours to finish, and when I completed it, it was over three pages long. I don’t know how long everyone else’s was, so I can’t really tell if mine is long or somehow short. You can read my story here.
I also forgot to mention earlier, but throughout this entire process, I was taking notes in an app called Craft. The notes I took can be found here.
At the end of he day I can look back on this and understand how different PLP is this year. Everything about this project, from the beginning to the end felt alien 👽 Not necessarily in a bad way, it just feels like there’s been a change in management. 7.5 / 10