Another Tiktok post? 

I know what your thinking, whats up with all the Tik-Talk? *badum-tssss*

Curricular competencies for this project included: 

EN 9: Communicate- How do I share my own ideas when I write, speak and represent? 

SS 9: Establish Historical Significance- How do we evaluate evidence to decided if it is adequate to support a historical conclusion?

SS 9: Analyze Cause and Consequence- Who or what influenced events to occur and what were the consequences of those events? 

Well as you may have been enlightened, PLP 9 has taken on the responsibility of answering this driving question: How can we use memes to comment on the significance and consequences of nationalism? Now, you simply cannot answer this question in just one sitting, so thats why over the past month we’ve broken each part of this question down, starting with a meme. Wait, what really is a meme? That was our first question that we aimed to answer. 

 We explored and went into depth about what a meme was, I started to realize a meme is more than just a funny picture with a caption. I learnt that a meme is an idea, a unit of behaviour passed through and from society to society, person to person. What better example to show this through, than TikTok? The reason you can scroll through TikTok for hours and not get bored is because each creator, each user puts his or her own twist on a sound or video. 

Your probably wondering where historical significance comes into this, and when we were learning, we were wondering this as well. Now that we knew what a meme was, we started to talk about how we can tell what is significant and what isn’t. We did an assignment worksheet, that showed evidence that we understood and honestly my worksheet could’ve been better. We were asked to choose an event that we thought was significant and show evidence as to why we think its significant. 

I admit that I didn’t pick the best event, and the feedback was quite accurate. I believe that if I had chosen a different event, I think my argument could’ve been better. 

Around this time we started to merge into the concept of nationalism. We talked about what exactly a nation was, and this mind map was shown to us. 

I referenced this mind map whenever my thoughts got mixed up, just to remind myself about what the root word of nationalism means. We went through case studies, and tests and finally we were ready to mix the 2 concept together. Our final task? Milestone 5: We must create 3 memes that demonstrate the characteristics of a meme, but also include our knowledge of nationalism and its significance and consequence as a force around the world. 

Using 3 different situations that we studied in class, I created 2 TikToks and a Meme, (hopefully) showing how nationalism can be tied into this and which sides were nationalists! I think I demonstrated the competency Communicate very well, I knew what message I wanted to send and I think I did that through my meme and TikToks. I think the execution could’ve been better, but my ideas were in the right direction. I’ll get many more chances this year to work on my execution of projects, and thats a goal I’m setting until the end of the year. 

#1: This meme represents Germany becoming allies with Austria and both of them deafeating Denmark. After this event, Germany was on its way to victory, and they didn’t need Austria standing in the way. An unexpected twist can lead to fatal consequences in Austrias case. 

#2: A TikTok that represents the events and conflict between Africa and industrialized Europe? Rare, but here it is. After factories were produced in Europe, materials, labour, and supplies were needed to keep them running. Africa could provide all those things for Europe, and the opportunity presented itself and soon the Europeans took over Africa. 

#3: Our last TikTok of the day, similar to the Europeans and Africans, the British and the Indians had struggles of their own. Although the British didn’t barge in a take everything, they barged in and started colonizing the country, by adding British education, British schools, the English language and forcin people to convert to Christianity. 

Ending on a high note, I think I succeded at demonstrating 2 competencies overall, Analyze Cause and Consequence and Communicate. I understand what I needed to do for Establishing Historical Significance, and I’m not saying I completely bombed it, but I could’ve shown that I understood a bit better. Maybe choosing a different event, or making the British character look more, well, British! 

~Malaika