Hey blog! It’s been a while since I posted, and since then, I have had two Humanities project. The one I will be talking about today is “The World Needs More Canada”.

So, what even was this project? Well, for this project I got to learn about Canadian identity, Canada itself, and why the world needs more of it. All this learning lead to one final product: an episode in a podcast. I got to create a real 5 minute podcast! 

So, let’s jump right into it, and look at how I got to my final product!

A hugeeee chunk of this project was really just learning. As a class, we read over text, watched videos, and discussed about the subjects. These subjects included: The National, globalization, international conflicts, and more. During this learning, it was my job to retain the new information I had just learned, which I did by taking notes, and contributing in class discussions. It is a goal of mine to contribute in class, because I know that for me to contribute, I need to understand what I am saying/asking. For me, this is the perfect way to understand what I am learning. And I really got use this in one of my mini assignments, which was the “Thinking Thursday Discussions”! 

Thinking Thursday discussions were an activity that let everyone practice listening, sharing, researching, and questioning. At some point over around 4 weeks everyone was tasked with researching a current Canadian event (sourced from “The National”), writing about it, creating opened questions from it, and the presenting it to small groups. For whatever anyone picked, they also had to answer one specific question: How does this story connect/reflect Canadian identity? I found this very fun and interesting! I learned a lot of things that I normally wouldn’t, considering I don’t normally listen to the news. For mine, I picked a topic I cared about, involving wildlife. I had lots of fun researching about it! I practiced my questioning ability by extra research and resources outside of the national, to make sure I fully understood the topic. 

For the presentation part, I felt very confident in my questions, and lead a very interesting conversation. My group definitely helped, and embraced the thought-provoking questions.

After my presentation, I did get some feedback from my teacher, asking to elaborate more on the subject of Canadian Identity. From this, I used a discussion with my mom at dinner to help myself see what I thought about how the event, and the reaction to the event, reflects Canadian identity. The discussion let me go through my thoughts, hear other opinions, and come up with my final answer!

 

After this road mark, we continued our learning, and looked at how the diversity of Canada shapes the country! This learning was paired with quizzes on what we had learned, which was pretty cool, since PLP doesn’t normally do quizzes. I had a bit of a hard time with this part of the project. I definitely enjoyed learning about the topic, but I found myself getting distracted in class. Once I could finally recognize that I was at fault for getting distracted, I started to try and find a solution. I brought my headphones to class, tried to sit with people I knew would support my learning, and took notes (when I remembered to!). I feel like this part of the project set me up really well for the (basically) last part of it!

Our last piece of evidence was creating a multi-paragraph to reflect our learnings on Canadian Authors insight to Canadian identity, mixed with an area of interest. This sounds like a lot, and it was😭. We first learned how to analyze text, so we were prepared to do lots of reflections on short pieces of writing. We look at new Canada text, old text, and indigenous voices. During this, I really practiced my reflection work, while completing the evidence required on time. I felt pretty good during this, I read soooo much and I also did get a good insight into Canadian identity.

The images above show two of reflections I did for our literary analysis portion. I feel like these two were the hardest for me to assess, but were also my two best ones. I really used the skills I was learning to dive really deep into what the story symbolized, I feel like I ended up doing a really good job!

Now, we get to talk about the holy grail of this project, the multi-paragraph response! This essay is a reflection of my learning about Canadian identity and why the world needs more Canada. Now, the best part for me was picking my interest, which was the environment. Canadas protection for the environment is something I deeply care about, so I was very enthusiastic about researching on it. At first, I did have a hard time picking what “source” I should use, meaning the organization I felt best working with. I ended up picking the CEPA (Canadian Environmental Protection Act). 

I thought it would get easiest from here, but no, I definitely faced some struggles. I had felt very confident in the information I was reading, I had a good understanding of CEPA (I credit my investigation skills). Actually writing was hard, but I ended up creating one of my most proud pieces of writing. My thesis statement was strong, I met all the requirements, and the information I had was good. I think the part I am most proud of was how once I started understanding my difficulties, I actually made a plan! I reminded myself of how when I normally end up in this situation, the best thing for me to do is just get my thoughts down. I also made sure to talk to my mom, because I know she helps me best. Doing these two things helped me push past my struggling point, and led me to the end!

This essay is something I am very proud of, aswell as what it led to! Though this part was not in humanities, I ended up talking this essay and turning into a podcast for my script. 

But don’t you worry, I still have to answer the driving question. So, why does the world need more Canada? Well, I believe the world needs more Canada because of the impeccable drive for environmental protection. Having acts and laws in place to preserve the various ecosystems set Canada up for a livable future. These acts and laws do that, without compromising the present. 

I believe the world needs more Canada, and so should you!

Thank you for reading my blog, I hope you had a great time!