Wait, what? Canada was a part of WWI?

The title of this post is exactly what I thought six weeks ago. Before my class and I went to Ottawa and learnt a bunch of things in class. I was fully uneducated on WWI and Canada’s role in it. My class and I learn a lot and did many activities. I’m going to breakdown each of the things that taught me everything that had to do with Canada and WWI.

THE DRIVING QUESTION

This is important; How did WWI impact Canada’s identity? Remember that, im going to answer it later.

INTRO VIDEOS

To prep our brains for all the things we were about to be taught, we watched videos on WWI and why it started. This video specifally:

This guy Indie Neidel makes these really WWI fact filled entertaining videos to watch. We watched a few of these videos and took notes as a class.

THE MAP OF EUROPE AND CANADA

To make everything we learn clearer, Ms. Maxwell taught us what Europe looked like before WWI and made us review the map of Canada. (Which I really needed as I thought Yukon was Nunavut before drawing this map)

In the topic of drawings, we also had to draw something that we think represents why WWI started. Here’s mine.

I decided to highlight NATIONALISM. Why? If all countries thought as themselves and everyone else as equal, WWI wouldn’t have started. Everyone thinks they deserve the best and most. Everyone. No one wants to be 3rd or even second.

BOOK OF CHOICE

Ms maxwell gave us the options from 3 books and I chose “War Horse.” War Horse is about a horse named Joey who lives through WWI and the book is told through his eyes. I decided to read this because I had learned that 8 million horses had died in WWI and I wanted to read one of there stories.

After reading the book we were assigned to tell the story of the book in anyway we wanted. I decided I wanted to do it though drawing.

If you choose to read that, great. If not: I’ll give a little explanation. I drew an eye to repersents Joeys vision of his and everyone in it. Its in green/grey/blue tones because those are the only colors a horse can see.

SHATTERED GROUND

To enhance and see visuals of everything we have learnt so far we used a website called SHATTERED GROUND. Its basically a animated story of a boy who finds his grandfathers pictures and diary. We get to see his grandfathers story through his eyes. Its a really cool website and here is a LINK because I suggest if your intrested in WWI you check it out. The assignment connected to this was to answer a few questions and show your favourite picture from the chapter.

 

OTTAWA

For this WWI term I got to literally fly out to Ottawa to study Vimy Ridge. That experiance was one of the most amazing and educational trips ive ever been on. I’m not going to go into depth on it as I have a blog post about it linked HERE.

THE COMIC

Now, finally, I can tell you about what we did with all this information! My class and I made a 100 page comic on WWI. Everyone had a different topic and had to make a title page, 3 pages of comic, and tell a story of a person related to your topic. I decided to focus on Canada’s Nursing Sisters. Why? Because I learnt a little bit about them in Ottawa and I wanted to know more.

I did an insane amount of research…

Made a comic….

Got critique from the class….

And ended up with this…

I had a lot of fun making these comics because I was so interested in the topic. Now, what did we do with the comic?

COVE CLIFF

On a Wednesday we headed down to our local elementary to share our comic book with the schools grade 6 and 7s. I personally didn’t enjoy it too much as cove cliff makes me feel weird inside, but it was educational for me and the kids.

CONCLUSION + MY ANSWER TO THE DRIVING QUESTION

This term was my favourite in grade 9. I never felt bored while learning about WWI, and looked forward to Humanties class everyday.  The project was educational, fun and not stresfull which was really nice. Anyways, what’s my answer to the driving question?

So….. How did WWI impact Canada’s identity? After learning quite a bit of stuff, I think my answer to that is that its why Canada is Canada. Confederation was before WWI, but WWI is when Britain decided Canada could be an independent nation. Women gained the right to vote, Canada’s economy got better and war technology got better. It’s not all good things though. 66,000 Canadians lost there lives and 172,000 were wounded. One of every ten Canadians who fought in the war did not return. Families, friends and communities were all effected.

WWI made Canada what it is today, because of all the brave and selfless Canadians who went to fight in WWI.