Hello! My name is Amy, and today I am going to be talking about how we might use artifacts and film to show the significance of WWI to Canada. In this post I will be walking you through our project, starting with my video, and then a general overview.
But wait! I might not know you, and you might not know me, so who am I to judge how much you know about WW1? If you want to catch up a bit, then I have given you some options of where to learn more 🙂
If you are a video person, particularly someone who enjoys a good old Irish accent, then I recommend this video.
I know what you are thinking; Six minutes?? For one war?? Yes. WW1 was, frankly, a confusing mess. It had a lot of different parts, people, and places involved. If you prefer reading, here is an article that explains the War in a slightly brief way.
I also highly recommend reading the short piece that my classmate Ryder wrote about the War. I think that he explains everything very concisely!
In this project, we worked individually to create a video essay about a WWI artifact and a Canadian WWI Soldier. We used artifacts from a Discovery Box from the Canadian War Museum, and a solider that we picked from the Canadian government database. My artifacts were propaganda posters, and my soldier was named Frank Burton. Now that you hopefully know a bit about what we are dealing with here, I have my video! TADA!!!
We had six milestones to do, and I found that some of them really helped me achieve my end result.
In Milestone 2, we were tasked with creating a essay that detailed three different pieces of evidence to argue the significance of our artifact, as well as the importance and symbolism that our artifact has to WW1.
How did I use the competencies?
Establish Historical Significance: I established historical significance by talking about it. In my essay, all of my three points detailed some aspect of historical significance. I made a choice about what those points would be based on what I thought was worth remembering.
Global Collaborator: I used technology to connect to the world by referencing it in my essay. I talked about how social media is a modern-day form of propaganda, and how that connects back to the significance of the messages themselves.
Historical Significance of Poster!
Here we go! Milestone 5: the video. This is where everything got put together. We recorded audio, collected photos, found videos, and created titles. This Milestone helped me because it is where I saw the preparations that we had been doing for this video put together.
How did I use the competencies?
Establish Historical Significance: I established historical significance in my video by talking about the parts of history that are remembered today, as well as the story of Frank Burton, who was yet another average soldier who was a small, but significant, part of WW1.
Global Collaborator: I used technology to connect to the world by collecting photos, videos, and audio from credible sources that related and added to my video.
Final Milestone! This is where we saw all of our hard work pay off. We presented our final video, along with our artifact that’s as set up on a table.
How did I use the competencies?
Establish Historical Significance: I established historical significance in presentation by doing a quick pitch that touched on important details about my artifact and WW1, as well as going more in depth about both of those when people asked questions.
Global Collaborator: I used technology to connect to the world by prensting my video to multiple different audiences.
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Me at my booth! -
My booth!
Okay dear readers, we are (unfortunately) nearing the end of this post, as well as the school year itself. Before I go, there is still one more thing to get to: the answer to the driving question.
How might we use artifacts and film to show the significance of WWI?
We can use artifacts and film to show the significance of WW1 by looking at what it means to be a Canadian, symbolism, and nationalistic ideologies in the past and the present.
THAT IS ALL! So long, dear readers, and I will see you in the next one!