Category: humanities

When France sneezes, Europe catches a cold.

This is a metaphor for what I  learned about in our latest project, about nationalism. The driving question for this project was how “has Nationalism’s influence shaped the global structure?”

Our project started, with snails and slugs. Since research was going to be a key part in this project, we first learned how to cite sources, by practicing using articles about these gastropods. Everyone individually wrote a short paragraph with some information, citing where each source came from after every sentence or fact. Here is mine:

Next time I think I could make sure to proof read it, because there were several mistakes. However, this was very helpful for me to learn how to provide credit in an organized way, as we began research.

First, we watched and hypothetically took notes on a video as a class, however it was too faced paced for a lot of us to keep up. As well, my keyboard starting glitching 5 minutes in, and my writing to text didn’t go very well. This is how my notes turned out:

The quality of this video was important to note and reflect on, as we also focused on how to make a good video, our end project. We watched a few other videos after this and then started our individual research.

To guide our research, everyone developed 6 questions: who, what, where, when, why and how. To do this, we first made a list of questions for 5 minutes and then chose and refined them to narrow it down to those 6. Here are my questions:

– Who were the most significant figures in French nationalism?

– What were the most significant events affecting French nationalism in the 19th and 20th century?

I found it hard to find resources that answered my specific questions, but I eventually found lots of info, which I organized into this chart, with citations of course! One of the main things I learned was what nationalism actually is, since I didn’t know before and I was still confused throughout the beginning of the project of whether it’s a concept or an event. This relates to the cause and consequence, because the ideas of nationalism result in nationalistic actions. Watch my video below to find out more!

Next, we wrote a script outline. I made my really brief and had a separate script because I didn’t know it should all be combined. Anyways, I found this part easier, because I just had to transfer the research into proper sentences and I like writing. As well, I used the chart below to start thinking about the visuals I would use in my video.

Finally, I began making my video. I used Keynote to animate some scenes, Procreate to draw cartoons for these animations or for other visuals, flipaclip to make some stop motions and online images. As well, I recorded a voice over. Then I lined everything up and edited it in Capcut, adding a few sound effects and background music too.

Here is my final video:

The main thing I would improve on is the audio of me speaking. I was talking quietly when I recorded it, which lead to my voice sounding unstable and unsteady. As well, I made a few mispronunciations on accident (like nationalisbsmsms and monacarcy). Being more careful on my tone and pronunciation is something I can remember for the future. As well, choosing a more upbeat background song to keep the video interesting and not make everyone fall asleep.

In conclusion, I learned a lot. I expanded my understanding of Nationalism in France and how it has effected the world, even today. Thank you for reading, that’s all!

Have you ever met a bird that is also a pig, giraffe and bear/dog thing and has a rainbow tail? It’s not as ugly as it sounds, in fact, Ursula is very coquette with her bow.

As I was saying, she’s very aesthetic and gorgeous (and sideways for some reason).

In our latest humanities project, we have been answering the driving question of How do we as writers make our message clear and engaging to an audience?

To do this, we first started by reading the book Leviathan, by Scott Westerfield. Every week while reading this book we also had a quiz about the previous reading section and then had a discussion in small groups, where we asked both closed and open ended questions. I think that this was helpful for understanding the book because me and others found it kind of confusing and these conversations also gave everyone the ability to share different perspectives on the book. 

While we were reading the book, we also created Frankenstuffies – stuffed animals made of body parts of other stuffed animals. I used some stuffies that I found on Facebook marketplace since I have emotional attachement issues to my own :P. To make Ursula, I used the already falling off head of a bear/dog, a giraffe neck, a pig’s body, the wings and feet of an owl and a tail from a rainbow poodle. Then I sewed everything together and added a pink bow around her neck, because Ursula has a deep love for fashion. Here is a video of the process of making my frankenstuffie.

After making our stuffies, everyone started planning out their stories. To begin, we wrote short stories about our characters. Before starting the actual writing process, we first filled in character files:

After developing our characters, we created a plot overview with a format called the hero’s journey. I think that this was really helpful because it made it easier to think of ideas because I knew what part of a story to write in each section. Both of these organizers helped me learn how to plan out a story better because in the past I’m not always sure what to plan out. This is my hero’s journey planner:

Along with that, we wrote theme statements for our stories, try to guess my theme in the padlet at the end.

Next, we chose a section out of the hero’s journey and started writing our stories about it, which I mostly enjoyed because I really like writing. However, my first draft was over 3 000 words and it had to be shortened to 1 000 words max. Here is my first and final drafts:

Ursula Story Draft

Ursula Story Final

After writing the stories, we starting planning to turn the short stories into a little movie. To do this, we created storyboards. This is my storyboard.

Then I started making the video. First, I found all my backgrounds on mainly Pinterest. Then I removed the background off photos of Ursula and added them on top of the background images and animated the characters in Keynote. As well, I used some 3D models online and took photos of them at the right angle. Then, I recorded the talking audio and added music from Capcut, where I edited everything together. Here is my video:

In conclusion, this was a really fun but also challenging project. This project was really important for helping me improve on my clear and effective storytelling, through both writing and video. Here is my padlet, try to guess the theme of my story!

https://padlet.com/KaiaWagner/rise-of-the-frankenstuffies-kaia-w-hzo6gfxd5iol0f2q

That’s all for this post

Kaia out hehe

Have you ever been hung? Me neither (well maybe you have and you’re a ghost?), but Louis Riel has.

Yeah well um anyways…

In our last Humanities project of the semester, we answered the driving question “How has the portrayal of Riel changed over time?” We all created multi-paragraph compositions. This project consisted of two parts, learning about Louis Riel and improving our writing skills. 

To improve our writing skills, we first worked on Frayer models, which are helpful for understanding words. We also described the 5 senses of some words (feel, taste, smell, hear, see). As well, we practiced elaborating by writing a few sentences about why voting is an important civic duty. Here are a few of my Frayer models.

 

On the history side, to launch the project, we first did a human timeline. Some people in the class held a piece of paper with a historical event on it and then we rearranged them into order from past to present. After that we started learning about the Red River Colony and made a timeline with some of the events that happened. Here is my timeline.

To learn about different portrayals of Louis Riel, we looked at 3 different statues of him.

The first one outside the Legislative Building of Manitoba was made by Marcien Lemay and Étienne Gaboury in 1973.  However the portrayal of him in this statue was too controversial and after about 20 years it was replaced by a different statue, made by Miguel Joyal. Finally a third statue by John Nugent sat near the provincial Legislative Building before being put into storage in an art gallery. We wrote down some observations about each statue on the board. Here is some of what my partner for this activity and I wrote. 

Another text that shows different portrayals of Louis Riel is Historica Canada’s Heritage Minute. After watching this video, everyone wrote individual paragraphs about how Louis Riel is portrayed in it. Here is my paragraph.

After all of this, we combined our history knowledge and writing skills and wrote three paragraphs to answer the driving question. Here is my final multi-paragraph composition.

In conclusion, I learned a lot about Louis Riel and the Métis and their changing portrayals over time. That’s all for this post!