WHY DOES THE PAST MATTER ANYWAYS?

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Surprisingly, we have learned a LOT from the past. You may have never thought about it, but in this project we dove into the past and how it affects us today. Keep reading to find out for yourself! 😁

Here is a medevial portrait (Yes, that is actually my face).  Read about the process down below ⬇️ 

DRIVING QUESTION

Every project we have a driving question. It is used to quite us through the project. Everything that we did connected back to the driving question. The driving question was, ’What can we learn from the past and why does it matter to us today?’’ I think that this was a good driving question, because it really gets you to think deeply into the question. I used this as my guide for the whole project.

THE BOOK OF THE LION

For this project we had to read a book called The Book Of The Lion by Michael Cadnum. The book is about a boy in medieval times who got recruited to join the crusades. His name was Edmund. The book shows how people lived, and what their worldview was back then. I learned a lot about medieval times. I learned about religion, rights, economy, the society, and so much more.  My opinion on the book: To be honest, this was not my favourite book and I found it hard to follow. But it was different for everyone. With each section, we had to do a role sheet. Here is one of my role sheets: In this one, we had to draw a picture related to the reading, so I chose to draw a horse being beaten up, because in one scene, Hubert tries to stop a man beating up his horse. I think this book was good to help us learn about medevial times, and the role sheets helped us too.

LEADERS TRIBUTE

We did lots of research about different world leaders in the past, and how their actions affected us today. Many of them made lasting impacts to our world today. We researched about Genghis khan. He was a very bloodthirsty, and innovative leader. He made lasting impacts because he created the Mongolian empire.

Then Tyler, Cece, an I created a tribute to him. We could make a bill with his face on it, a drawing, a slideshow, e.t.c. But we chose to make a musical. I’m not sure that it was very informational, but it was good for the 20 minutes that we got to make it. A017C141-7A36-491A-9E0A-BBFC4AD056E8

This assignment gave me a good idea of how one leader can turn into the leader of multiple countries by gaining followers and using their power.

 

SKETCH AND TELL

This assignment was a short activity that didn’t take long. We were assigned a partner to sit across from. We had 10 minutes to draw a quick sketch about how we think societies rise and fall. When we finished the drawing, we shared it with out partner, and then wrote a paragraph about the drawing, and how we think societies rise and fall. Here is the paragraph I wrote:

Societies rise and fall for different reasons. I find that the most common reasons are anger, religion, power and land. 

We know that leaders and their societies rise and fall. But do we know why and how? This drawing shows a leader who’s land spans across a large portion of the world. But there is another society who almost has the same amount of land. The red leader is more dominant, and wants to maintain their land, so then conflict happens. There are a few things that fuel war and crusades: Anger, Religion, Power, and land. All of those ideas fuel conflict. And that conflict leads to war. The more that they fight, the more that the societies slowly fall apart. Anger is something that is very delicate, and something that must be used wisely. In the drawing, you can see the leader is very angry with the other side, and that fuelled him to fight. Next up is religion. Religion is a very important thing for societies. These days we can pick which religions to follow, but back then Christian leaders ran crusades that killed and attacked just to make everyone Christian. Power is definitely part of society. I think it is important for there to be organization, and a good leader for societies. But it should be fair. My last idea is land. I feel like this is an obvious one because depending on how much land you had, the more powerful you were back then. 

Those are some ideas and thoughts I had about how societies rise and fall. In my drawing I represented each aspect.

ARTWORK CHOICE CHART

This assignment was for us to lay out the aspects of medevial worldview. We chose a piece of medevial art for each aspect, and we incorporated it into our final product in a creative way. For each piece of art, we had to explain why this would be the best fit, and also why we chose it. We had to include links and the image had to be Creative Commons license. The time period was 1000 to 1300. This assignment helped me to understand how I was going to lay out my artwork. It also helped me to stay organized.

 

FINAL PRODUCT

Finally, we made it to the end.

Well, not quite….. I still had to assemble my personalized medieval art! In order to creat our art, we had to learn how to use SuperimposeX. It is an editing app that, after some practice, is very easy to use. It is a very fun app to explore, and our whole class had fun with it 😂.   I learned how to mask things, layer, and edit. ✍️ This is how we put together our art. You can see in my art that I included many small things from my artwork choice chart. I tried my best to blend in my hair and face. The cross represents religion in medevial times, the paper represents knowledge, the map is geography, e.t.c.

This is a paragraph about the art that I wrote before that answers the driving question, and it is based off of society:

We have learned from the medieval times because their actions taught us ways to organize our society, and society connects to the aspects of my artwork piece. Society is a big part of a civilization, and it shapes our worldview and much of our actions. The actions of the past shape the future. Have you ever wondered about medieval times and how it has affected us today? Well before this project, I have too. After some research, reading the Book Of The Lion, and making ourselves into paintings, I have finally began to understand how their actions back then have impacted us now. I found three supporting details to incorporate into my painting. I discovered that all three of them play a part in society. The first one that I chose was Beliefs. Beliefs are something that a society relies on, because it is important for everyone to believe in what they want to. Back then, they were essentially forced to believe in Christianity. There was no freedom in beliefs back then. Today, you can choose what you want to believe in. The next Idea that I had was Economy. Back then, people would travel on boats to trade. Trading was very important, and still is because that is how you would eat and get basic needs. Today, we can just go to the grocery store and buy whatever we need. They didn’t use currency until later on because they traded with goods.Trading was a big part of the society and still is today. Back then, I would have had to trade my prized belongings even if I just got hungry. The third supporting idea that I had was Knowledge. Without knowledge, we would be nowhere. Knowledge is something that you gain from experiences, other people, and reading. You can gain knowledge in other ways too, but those are most common for me. Back then one of the big ways that they learned was from reading. That is something that stayed until today, and will forever be affected. In my worldview, I believe that reading is a skill that will be effective for me all through life. Societies need knowledge in order to keep going. Knowledge is something that stays with you and helps you with life. In my painting I will incorporate all these things creatively, and put my face into the painting. Those are some ideas that I had about how the past affects the future and what has stayed the same or changed. There are other ideas too, but those are some. Making this art piece has helped me gain knowledge about all of those things, while challenging me to create something that will be interesting.

 

REFLECTION

Ok, now its almost over for real 😅. This whole project has really got me thinking into the past, and why the actions of the past have affected us today. We need to learn from our past actions, and take what we know so we can change it for the better. It is important to make up for mistakes, and learn from them. Even if I didn’t enjoy the book as much as I would have liked to, I enjoyed the process of the whole project. The medieval times were very interesting to learn about, and I am glad that we got to learn about it. It is important to know how the world has changed, and how to accept it.  Overall, I really enjoyed this project, and I know way more about worldview and the past. This post has helped me understand the answer to the driving question. I explained how the leader’s actions reflect on us today, and it matters to us today because it is up to us to make decisions and we use knowledge of the past in our everyday life. In this project, I strived to do the best I could, and show my understanding the best I could.

 

THANK YOU FOR READING! 📖

 

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