Hi everyone, and welcome back to my blog!
Today’s post will be about our recent project in Humanities 9. This project is called “Revolutions on Trial”. The end goal of this project was to prove the effectiveness/ineffectiveness, of the revolution we studied. I studied the Xinhai Revolution, and my goal was to prove that it was effective. Also, the final product was a mock trial, so that was pretty cool. This project was a group project for the most part. My partners were: https://www.blog44.ca/maxl/, https://www.blog44.ca/arianec/, https://www.blog44.ca/davidp/, https://www.blog44.ca/gwenl/.
The driving question to this project is: “How can we, as legal teams, determine the effectiveness of a revolution?”. We can do this by researching thoroughly, presenting witnesses, and by working together as a legal team.
The first piece of learning that I’m going to mention is “Nation X”. Nation X is a game that simulates an unfair society. The end goal of this game is to establish a fair, equal, and functional society. However, when our class played this game, we didn’t reach the end goal. Long story short, our society ended up splitting in two, and a wall was built. USA style.
The second piece of learning that I’m going to mention is the book “Animal Farm”, by George Orwell. This book is a direct anecdote of the Russian Revolution. This book is a about animals on a farm who are sick of their owner and want freedom. They then take over the farm and banish their owner. The animals then establish two leaders, both of them detest one another. One leader ends up taking over, this leader is unveiled to be just as harsh as the owner was.
As we read this book, we wrote chapter reflections, asked questions, and highlighted key points a in the story. Looking back, this reading really developped my knowledge on revolutions and how they work. After we read this book, we did a reflection. In this reflection, we answered the question: “Explain the anatomy of the revolution in Animal Farm through use of Crane Brinton’s theory. I did pretty well in this reflection, however I could’ve connected the book to Crane Brinton more. This activity included the Connecting Competency.
The next piece of evidence that I’m going to mention is my graphic organizer.
We used this graphic organizer to organize our ideas on the revolution we were researching. I was researching Xinhai, and I quickly discovered that it was a pretty complex revolution. We had to organize it by order of crane Brinton’s 4 steps of revolution. The Incubation Stage, the Crisis Stage, and we also included Ineffectiveness/effectiveness, and Continuity and Change.
This activity included the Continuity and Change competency.
After I completed my first draft, we did a peer critique. My peer told me to add a timeline, limit text, and to add more visual elements. I took that critique and improved my organizer.
We then collaborated as a full group to make a Group Graphic Organizer.
Here’s an image of the group graphic organizer.
The final piece of learning that I’m mentioning is the trial preparation and the trial itself.
My group was defence, so we were arguing that the revolution was effective. The first step was to create an affidavit. An affidavit is a written statement that contains important facts that you want the judge to know about. In this affidavit, we included our exhibits that we were going to use in the trial. Also, we included our witnesses. In our case, our witness was Sun-Yat-Sen, the leader of the Xinhai Revolution.
These were the next steps:
After that, we put it all together into a script. My role in the trial was a lawyer. I was the one that asked the Direct-Examination questions. Also, I got to say “OBJECTION”, which was the coolest thing to do. Furthermore, our trial was apart of the PLP winter exhibition. The exhibition is an opportunity for all grades of PLP learners to showcase their learning. I had an opportunity to see most of the the grade’s exhibits and I thought they were really interesting.
To summarize, this project taught me lots about revolutions and how they work. I already had some knowledge on revolutions, so it was good to expand my knowledge. Using Animal farm, the graphic organizer, and other resources, my group and I were able to present an authentic mock trial. My favorite part of this project was presenting the mock trial. It was fun to say “OBJECTION”, and I was really proud of myself after. Next year I hope we do something similar to this for the Winter Exhibition!