Recently we have been learning about Canadian history. We have learned about Upper and Lower Canada, confederation, and everything in between. This of course isn’t the first time we have talked about (Canadian) history. Last year we were taught about New France, and this year we did a huge project on revolutions.

Upper and lower Canada

Canada was very different in the 1820’s. It was split into two groups, Upper and Lower Canada. If you lived in Lower Canada, you were most likely French. If you lived in Upper Canada however, you were most likely English, and of the middle or upper class. Life in upper Canada wasn’t always easy though. Farmland was scarce, and people sometimes had to wait years for a single crop. It was also often quiet, with the only noises being the farm animals, and the weather. In Lower Canada however, there was plenty of good farmland, but a lot of it was owned by English men. Upper Canada wanted more control over Lower Canada, but Lower Canada wanted more freedom. There was a constant struggle with power between the two groups. This only really ended once they joined confederation. Class meant a lot to people back in the 1800’s because the colonizers wanted upper Canada to be an extension of the British empire. So that they could keep their class from when they were in Britain, and continue it when they arrived in Upper Canada.

Confederation

Confederation was basically how Canada was formed. Of course, not every province joined in 1867. Only Ontario(Upper Canada), Quebec (Lower Canada), New Brunswick and Nova Scotia joined. Some provinces didn’t join until much later however. For example, Nunavut didn’t join until 1999.

The Project

Throughout this whole unit we have been watching heritage minutes. Some of me favourites being Wilder Penfield (burnt toast) and Winnie the Pooh. We watched these to learn about different parts of history, and film techniques used in heritage minutes, because we were going to make one ourselves.

Once we were split into our groups, our first task was to decide what we would make our heritage minute about, based on our categories. My group’s category was art and culture. We decided to make our heritage minute about Emily Stowe. Once we chose our topic, it was time to research. When we researched Emily Stowe, we didn’t just learn about one part of her life. We looked at almost all of it before we decided what part of her life to base our video about.

Once we were done our research, we scripted the video, and made a storyboard. Once we were done researching, scripting, and storyboarding, it was finally time to start filming. Our first draft was….. not great. We had to refill the whole thing for our second draft, but it was definitely worth it. We showed our second draft to another socials class, to get critique. When we showed our second draft to the class, we were actually proud of our work, and only had to fix a few things. Between the second and the third (and final) draft, we definitely didn’t change quite as much. The main thing we did was change the voiceover, and edit a few clips.

Our final draft