For the first main topic in PLP humanities this year we’ve been focusing on World War One, and it’s impact on Canada’s identity. At the start of this unit we learned about how World War One started and the many different reasons that lead up to the war. We had to create a blogpost explaining how we personally thought the War started, we had to create a visual to go along with this that would add more to the post. We got into quite small groups and my group decided to make a comic explaining the arms race and how it started off the war, after making a little visual the teachers decided that we needed to include more. We were to get into groups again no bigger than 3-4 and create another visual, we had more time to spend on it this time and we could have literally done anything as long as it was historically accurate and showed our understanding of the unit. I got into a group including Kyle, Michael and I, we had an idea to make a historically accurate video about the “Arms Race”. We wanted to also make it comedic as it would be more fun to watch but also have valuable information about the arms race and how it lead up to World War One. Below is our video about the arms race and our comic sketch about the arms race.

The next “assignment” type thing we had in this unit was about the graphic novel called “Shattered Grounds”. The main idea of shattered grounds is that you follow the story of a soldier and witness him and other soldiers fight through World War One. The graphic novel is very interesting and full of little secrets to find such as Dog Tags and real images taken in World War One. Each day we read more of the book we would answer questions looking back on what we had just read. We would have to choose our favourite image from the section of reading and make a question for the class about the book. I really liked how we read a graphic novel as it was a nice change from a normal book an The added images in the book were very interesting.

We then started the main project of this unit, the “Soldier Podcast”. We had to create a podcast showing the life of a certain soldier we picked and had to explain how the overall life experiences of these soldier and how they impacted Canada and relate it to how Canada became a nation. First we were sent to a website that showed almost all the soldiers who went through World War One and who died during the war. We had to chose a Canadian soldier and there would have to enough information on this soldier to make a strong podcast out of. I started looking for a soldier with enough information but I wanted his story to be interesting. It was quiet hard to find a soldier as a lot of the ones I looked through didn’t have near as enough information as I was looking for. I would say at least half of this project was spent reasearching and planning the script for the podcasts as if the script is bad your overall podcast will be bad. As this being my first major podcast it was quite hated to write the script as I was more used to writing scripts when there is a visual on the screen. When writing a script for a podcast you have the make it flow very nicely and make it very descriptive so the listener doesn’t get bored. We did get critique on our podcast scripts. After looking at the feedback I started taking the critique into mind and started revising my script so that it was as close to perfect before I started recording. I added more facts about the battles that my soldier James Hogg Baillie has been through, I also added more facts about the time period which in he served in and made the script more descriptive and interesting. After making these revisions I started recording my first draft, it was quite hard as I was feeling very sick at this time. I composed all of my music on garage band and added all of the sound effects in from YouTube, after finishing this draft I got peer critique so I could make my next draft better.

The feedback I received was quite good, I did have to add more expression in my voice and at some points my audio went loud and then quiet. I had to make my sound more consistent and also add a better outro as my first one was quite week. The class was then taught about the importance of the intro of a podcast, at the beginning of all our podcasts it didn’t really interest anyone and we would need to change that so it would grip the listener and keep them listening and grip them right away. The final step would be to add that new intro into our final draft of our podcast and make the transition nice and flow nicely into the rest of the podcast. I added some battle noises into the intro and made the music very dramatic so that it would grip the listener.

This project was very fun and engaging, for me personally it was a bit of a challenge as I am more used to making content with a appealing visual but this was a nice change. We were given lots of time for this podcast and researching about a soldiers life was very interesting. James Hogg Baillie was one of thousands of soldiers to serve in the war and I’m so glad I got to honour him in this podcast, none of these soldiers will be forgotten they made Canada what it is today.

In PLP we’ve done several projects and assignments to show off ourselves more, to show what and who inspires us and show off more of who we are as a person. As for this assignment we had to choose one quote, choose an imagine to go along with it, and create a mini podcast type video of us reading the quote. The quote has to relate to us and show us off, it couldn’t just be any random quote. I first started off with the quote, I wanted to choose something that really repressed my funny and goofy personality. I started looking for quotes from my favourite role models/entertainers that I like, I found a couple but they still didn’t really represent me that well. I wanted it to be short to the point but funny and entertaining as this would only be a short little video, I wanted it so that my voice would have expression. I decided to choose a quote from one of my favourite musicians “Tyler, The Creator”, he’s generally a very funny guy and he had several quotes that could represent me as a person. The quote I chose was “I never want to grow up”, this has been said before by several people before but Tyler has said it so many times, he’s an adult but you can tell he’s very funny and he stays true to this quote. Tyler is a very very hard working guy, on the outside he may seem goofy and not seem to care about anything. He’s a musician, he produces all his songs, he has his own lifestyle brand “Golf”, he has several Tv shows, and he’s a comedian. He’s probably one of the most hard working people from our generation and he always has a smile on his face, he never cares what anyone thinks about him and just does what he wants.

Next I started planning out my drawing, I wanted to include a picture of me. I wanted the picture to also add a comedic affect, the drawing took me quite a while as I put detail into the foreground and then used water paint in the background to make it pop. I took this photo with my friends and there’s just a lot of memories behind it and I really like the original photo, below is the original photo. Drawing and creating the Image was easy as we used an app called Tayasui Sketches pro, its a really easy to use app and it was actually pretty fun.

Next I had to turn it into a short little video, I recorded my voice which was very easy and I payed it over my image. I had to create my own music in garage band which was very very easy, garage band has a feature where it can create its own little drum beat for you so I used that, I then recorded a bass guitar over it to add a little more until it sounded like what I wanted. I wanted something that would add to the overall comedic affect and I think it goes nicely. This project was actually very fun, I got to learn a lot more about the different apps we used, I also got to learn more about quotes and how to choose one that represents you. Below is the recording from this assignment.