I, along with the class was assigned to create a diary entry from the perspective of someone who fought for Canada in WWI. After having no luck finding a soldier with loads of information on the Canadian war memorial website Willemse game us. I decided to do a nifty google search for famous Canadian World War I soldiers. After reading multiple articles I came across the Huffington Posts article on 11  Canadian War Heroes We Can’t Forget On November 11 I chose to impersonate Sir William Stephenson who was a couple scrolls down the list. I then read all bout him in an informational Wikipedia page.

William Stephenson is mainly known for his WWII actions but I wanted to focus on him in WWI. He seemed like a personable young Canadian who was brave and fought valiantly. After reading his obituary written by the NY times I felt more knowledgeable about him.  I couldn’t find many personal primary documents online so I started to write based off of his obituary and what was written about his World War I actions on Wikipedia. I was sucked into the writing and the 500+ words I wrote flew onto the page. It was a fun but eye opening experience writing from the perspective of someone weathered by war. I seemed to be following more of a depressing theme while writing and I only did that because I can only imagine how so much death around you can mess you up.

To reflect…. I enjoyed writing this Journal entry from the perspective of William Stephenson. I enjoyed the process because of how natural the words flowed onto the page. When I write and I stumble through the wiring process it’s painful, it is not easy to write when the words won’t flow and it the words you do put down seem choppy and rough. I think the words flowed naturally because it was 1-Persoanl and 2-On a topic we have been focusing so heavily. It was a nice combination of approachable writing on a subject I feel like I know a lot about, I was able to combine William’s personal actions with my  perceived understanding of what was going on around him. I feel like I could have included more Canadian identity and personal memorabilia. This would have enriched my writing and added more emotional connection to how the journal entry is absorbed. Below is my first try at making something in Adobe Photoshop, it is Sir William Stephenson as a young soldier on the left and him after his time in service as a top class WW2 spy on the right.