🌲How Might we as Legal Teams Determine the Effectiveness and Ineffectiveness of a Revolution?🌲

 

🌲Hello and welcome back to the forest of learning! In this post you will get to see the process of determining the effectiveness of a revolution through a realistic court trail! I was personally assigned to the Haitian Revolution that occurred from 1791 – 1804. In this project we were put into legal teams with the intent of finding the overall effectiveness or in ineffectiveness of a revolution. The goal is to present this legal trial at the PLP 2021 Winter Exhibition on December 15th. To be honest, this project kind of ended up being a bit of a fail near the end- but, that’s ok! Plenty of lessons were learned through this experience. Well, anyways, if you are interested in seeing my growth throughout the project, keep reading!🌲 

As always, we followed the project path throughout the course of the project:

To start this project off, we needed to learn a bit about how to form a fair and functional society. To do this, we, as a class, participated in a simulation that would give us the opportunity to come to our own conclusions of forming a fair and functional society. This simulation was called “Nation X”. In Nation X there were four groups: group A, the lower class, group B, the middle class, and group C and D, who were the upper classes. I was placed into the lower class, or, group A. Each group had different jobs and were payed accordingly. There were also many rules and regulations to follow, and of course the upper classes would be able to set regulations and create rules. As the lower class, our job was to write 100 words per day, and in return we would be given $1. The amount you were payed completely depended on your group, and of course, the higher up in status, the more you were payed and the less demanding tasks you had to complete. 

Within Nation X, we would also, as a society, face problems. For example, at one point there was a disease that spread across the land, or the store went bankrupt. This simulation lasted the duration of four days and it was a very educational experience. I really enjoy this type of learning because we were able to participate in something hands-on and then come to our own individual conclusions at the end. 

We also completed a written reflection of Nation X⬇️

Once we established an understanding of how we can create a fair society, we were introduced to the “revolution” faze of the project. To start, we learned about “Crane Brinton’s Theory on Revolutions”. To put it simply, Crane Brinton’s theory explains the common reoccurring factors in every revolution that helps analyze the process of a revolution. This includes four main stages: the “Incubation Stage”, the “Moderate Stage”, the “Crisis Stage”, and the “Recovery Stage”. To help solidify the knowledge, we each created a creative diagram that helps explain the theory. 

After solidifying the basic understanding of the structure of a revolution, we, as a class read a book. In two weeks, we read the book “Animal Farm” by George Orwell. If you want to learn more about the book, click HERE. 

Overall, this book was okay. I enjoy the author’s concise and thoughtful language throughout the book- a quality that, as a writer, I strive to achieve. The metaphor’s were advanced and very meaningful, and I can completely understand how it is a classic. I had already read his book “1984” before, so I knew Orwell wouldn’t let me down with his engaging writing style. All that said, there were many things about the book I didn’t like. I did not enjoy how everything was very fast-paced and I believe it could have been more impactful if the author allowed room for reflecting on important events throughout the book. It definitely was not bad, however it was not one of my top reads.

Throughout reading the book, we also participated in “Animal Farm Discussions” in which we found meaningful connections within the book, and reflected on the important concepts introduced in each chapter.

After we had completed the book, in class we wrote an analysis reflecting on Animal Farm and connecting the main events in Animal Farm to Crane Brinton’s theory. One of the key competencies we focussed on in this project was “Connecting”, and, through this response, I believe I expressed a sophisticated and insightful representation of this skill. Although this could be classified as ‘good work’ I personally feel I am not proud of the writing that I expressed in this keystone. I had a deep understanding of both concepts, however, I expressed it in a way that was not my best. If I was able to revise this, I would. It is in the past now, and what matters is that I learned from this experience; it’s okay to feel bad when you don’t meet the high standards you put up for yourself: don’t beat yourself up for it!

Once we completed the response in class, we also watched the live action movie version of Animal Farm. I personally have a deep hatred for this movie. I really disliked it, and I think it removed a lot of the meaningful aspects of the book for me. In this case, the movie was 100% worse than the book. All that said, it was still pretty fun to watch in class with my peers. 🙂

Now, for the main portion of the project, the class was split into eight groups. There were four revolutions in total, and two groups per revolution. As mentioned in the beginning, I was assigned to the “Haitian Revolution” along with Nolan, Gabi, Ewan, and Xander (go check out their blogs!). Our opposing team included Fraser, Julian, Faith, Alfie, Luca. As soon as we were assigned our groups, we went straight into learning about our revolution. There were plenty of videos, articles, podcasts, and other resources that as individuals we studied and took notes on. We did this with the overall goal of gaining a deep understanding of the events that took place in each of our revolutions. Although we didn’t have to, I spent time going through each resource provided- which resulted in a freakishly long notes document.⬇️

🇭🇹Haitian Revolution Notes!📝

 

After we were finished gaining knowledge about our revolution, we each created a graphic organizer that helped explain what the revolution was. This graphic organizer helped us solidify the knowledge we gained throughout the research process. One specific competency we focussed on here was “Identifying Continuity and Change”. In our graphic organizer, we had to identify the continuities and the changes within the country/nation that experienced the revolution. Here, we had to really dig deep into what actually stayed the same, which helped us when it came to actually identifying the effectiveness/ineffectiveness of our revolution as well. If you are interested in learning about the Haitian Revolution, feel free to take a look! ⬇️ 

Here are the drafts I accumulated throughout the process of creating my organizer! ⬇️ 

We then presented our individual graphic organizers to three other people (each person from one of the revolutions; American, French, Haitian, and Xinhai) so that we could get a sense of what the other revolutions were as well. By the end, we also came together with the opposing Haitian Revolution group and combined all of our knowledge into one giant white board of information about our revolution. 

Now, the moment we have all been waiting for (not really) the court trail! With the information we have accumulated about our revolution, we can now debate on the effectiveness or ineffectiveness of the revolution. Remember how each revolution was given to two groups? Well, those two groups would each be either Defence (defending the effectiveness) or Prosecution (proving how the revolution was ineffective). Our group was assigned the “Defence” role in the trial. Before I continue, I wanted to express how truly challenging it is to be defending this revolution. In both cases, prosecution and defence both had a difficult time finding a strong argument. 

Now, you may be wondering, “How exactly do you measure the effectiveness or ineffectiveness of a revolution?” Well, as a class we developed six criteria that help narrow down the specifics when forming our argument. 

The criteria is as follows⬇️

  1. Political reform aligning with the voice of the people
  2. Increased rights, freedoms, and liberties for the people (religion, mobility, speech)
  3. Removal of dictator with sweeping powers
  4. Financial stability achieved (jobs, industry)
  5. Standard of living improved (food, shelter, water)
  6. Removal of internal conflict

These six criteria are what we will be gathering evidence and forming our argument off of! 

With the criteria developed, it was now time to move onto “Building the Script”. In this phase of the project, creating the script for our performance in the PLP Winter Exhibition 2021 was split into 9 steps:

Step #1: Creating the Affidavit!

In the affidavit, we accumulated both primary and secondary documents within an affidavit. We needed to find strong pieces of evidence to support the claims we make in our argument, as well as help shape it in general! This precious document will help support our entire argument, so it was very important.

Step #2: Swap Affidavits

The next step was to swap our affidavits! We did this with our opposing team: Prosecution. This was necessary so that we were both aware of what we might use against them in the trial. From here on out, if we needed to make changes to our affidavit, both teams MUST approve of the changes before being able to use it in our arguments. This was very interesting, as we were able to get a sense of our opposing team’s argument against us. 

Step #3: The Opening Statement!

The opening statement is the first opportunity to summarize and pitch your argument to the court. It is very important, as it must be informative and persuasive so that the jury can make a confident decision by the end of the trial. To be honest, I wrote the opening statement myself, without my team, which, we were not supposed to do. Regardless, I am still happy with how it turned out!

Step #4: Develop Direct Examination Questions For Our Witness

Did I mention we chose a witness? Well, in our affidavit we found a strong piece of evidence written by “Jean-Jacque Dessalines”. If you would like to learn more about our witness, click HERE. In this step, we developed questions and answers for our witness that will help support our argument.

Step #5: Develop Cross-Examination Questions For The Opposing Witness

It was now time to find out the other teams’ witness. We needed to ask their witness examination questions that would hopefully help contribute to our overall argument. This was fairly challenging, as we were very pressed for time at this stage; we ended up re-doing most of the questions we developed. 

Step #6: Swap Cross Examination Questions

In this step, we swapped the examination questions for our witnesses. It was intriguing to see what the other team wrote! We then responded on behalf of Dessalines.

Here was steps 2-6! ⬇️

Step #7: Fill out the Revolution Template 

(Fairly self explanatory)

Step #8: Develop The Closing Statement 

This, just like the opening statement, was very important to our argument. This is the last chance to present your argument to the jury, so it must be well executed. I developed the opening statement on my own, and also ended up presenting it in the Mock Trial.

Step #9 Practice and Present!

This is the final stage of our argument, and here is our completed script ⬇️

Now, remember how I said this project was kind of a fail? Well.. at one point, when there was only three days before the presentation, we found out some crazy news! It turns out that the other team had almost completely changed their argument without informing us. Of course, they weren’t aware that it wasn’t allowed, so, as soon as they were informed, they tried their best to change it back. From that point on, both teams worked together as opposed to against one another and we all worked hard to improve both of our arguments. 

We worked during lunch, before and after school, and during class to produce a script that had been immensely improved from our previous script. Although it seemed so hectic at the time, I genuinely learned so much from this point in the project. We used quick and critical thinking to collaborate with our opposing team to create a wonderful final product that we were all proud of.

Now, without further a due, here is a video of our full performance!

Defence Team:
Xander presenting the opening statement
Nolan as our witness, Dessalines
Ewan as the direct examiner for Dessalines
Gabi as the cross examiner for prosecution Witness 1
Me (Teva) presenting the closing statement
Prosecution Team:
Luca presenting the opening statement
Alfie as witness 1
Faith as the direct examiner for Witness 1
Julian as the cross examiner for Dessalines
Fraser presenting the closing statement

Thank you all for being such wonderful teammates and lovely humans! 🙂

Here are all of the performances from the other revolutions if you would like to check them out!⬇️

When it came to the actual performance, I was pretty terrified. As mentioned, we almost completely changed everything last minute, which meant that everyone had to memorize their new lines- which was, well, definitely not a great situation. As someone who struggles with stage fright, I was not looking forward to this presentation in front of my teachers and parents.

Although it wasn’t the best performance, we did AWESOME!! I am so proud of my team. We worked hard to produce a performance which was way better than I expected. Under the circumstances, our performance was probably the best we could have done. I was not expecting it to go as well as it did, especially based off of the many problems we faced in the dress rehearsal and run-through’s. Way to go team!

Also, CONGRATULATIONS to the other team for winning the trial. To be honest, I am glad that they won: I knew how much they cared about it, and it’s awesome! 👏👏👏

(and honestly, I’ll take that as a victory for me as well because regardless of who wins, I am still so proud of myself + my team! : )

🌲Overall, this was an interesting experience! I think I would say I learned the most from this project than I have from any other project in PLP. I genuinely improved so much on many skills that I wanted to focus on this year. I managed my time well, collaborated, connected, analyzed, communicated, presented, and performed well under pressure. I am so proud of myself. The work I produced was accurately representing my learning, and for that, I give myself  (as my kindergarten teacher would say) a pat on the back! So, how might we as legal teams determine the effectiveness and ineffectiveness of a revolution? Well, we can educate ourselves on the revolution itself, collect evidence, and develop an argument based on criteria that will allow us to accurately analyze the revolutions’ overall effectiveness or ineffectiveness. This project was awesome, and I had a lot of fun creating work that resulted in a wonderful representation of my learning.🌲 

As always, thank you for watching me grow in the forest of 

🌲learning🌲