Welcome back to my blog today we are talking about our latest and last project of grade 9 WW1! This was my favourite project we did this year and I really enjoyed learning about WW1. Our driving question was “How Can I Create A Graphic Novel That Accurately Depicts An Event From WW1?”.
The Project
The first thing we did was have one class (1hr10) to create a comic on one event in WW1. Keep in mind most of us knew little to nothing about WW1 and we hade a few links to base our comics off. Mine turned out decent it is definitely not my proudest work but for the amount of time given it could have been a lot worse.
Here is my first comic:
After creating rough comics to understand a little more about WW1 and introduce us to the topic we started off by watching the award winning film 1917. It gave me a better idea on what the trenches and the life of a soldier. While watching 1917 we filled out a sheet with three questions What examples of WWI warfare and battle tactics are introduced within 1917? What are some of the realties of being a soldier, as introduced within this film? 1917 is filmed to appear as one continuous event. How does this way of filming impact your perception of war and what war is? I thought these questions helped me gain a deeper understanding and helped me think more about what I was watching.
After watching 1917 we practiced tracing because our finish line project was making a comic about an event in WW1 by tracing primary images. To practice our tracing we chose between two scenes in 1917 and used sketches pro to practice colour fill, shading, and texture. I chose the trench scene and here is how it turned out:
Next we talked about the causes of WW1 and how the shot that kickstarted a long coming war was the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand and his wife Sophie. In this lesson we learned about MAIN which were the Main causes of WW1. MAIN stands for (Military, Alliances, Imperialism, Nationalism). We filled out a worksheet where we listed how important we thought each MAIN was in terms of contributing to the war.
Because we are Canadian we talked about Canada’s role in WW1 which we talked about the battle of Vimmy Ridge, The Ypres gas attack, Pegamegabow, Wilfred Wop May, Soildiers of Soil, Women in The Workforce, and Canadian Nurses. When talking about Canada in the war we took a loot of notes and I am very proud of my notes.
Here are my notes:
To gain an even better understanding about WW1 and the different events we read a graphic novel called The War To End All Wars World War One 1914-1918. This graphic novel was super detailed and very informative but also a little confusing. We did three different activities for the three activities on the book. The last activity we did was a book review which was really fun to write.
Here is my final book review:
We next moved on too creating our graphic novels but before we could start drawing we made a story pitch. Once I had chosen the topic Canadian Medics and Surgeons in WW1 I got to researching and when I found out that the man that wrote “In Flanders Fields” was a surgeon I was hooked. I did the research and found out about his life in WW1 so from there I knew what my comic would be about.
Once our story was approved we moved onto storyboarding which was a crucial part of the process. Not only did we sketch out the drawings but I also was able to figure out the exact narration and dialogue I wanted as well as the size and format of the panels.
Here is my story board:
Once the story board was approved it was time to draw! With 8 days till exhibition and 27 panels to draw I got to work. At first it was overwhelming because I had to find primary sources and trace them. To help efficiently use my time and reduce stress I used things to plan out how many panels I would do a day. Using things was a great solution and I ended getting a lot of work done in class and out of class and got my comic done three days early! Overall I am really proud of my comic and the amount of effort and work I put into it.
Here is my Comic:
Now time to talk about exhibition because that is the main event. Before the exhibition because me and my friends were done early that meant we were tasked with building trenches. Together we cut up and taped cardboard rectangles to create a trench wall. On the second day we started painting and by the third we were still painting. On the day of exhibition we taped them up and then we had to set up our own tables with out topic groups. The exhibition itself was good everything went smoothly when people came and I was confident and proud of my work which helped me present. After the big clean up we all got ice cream sandwiches which was defiantly a plus.
Here is a photo from exhibition
Overall this was definitely my favourite project this year and I really enjoyed learning about World War One and the poet/medic behind the poem we hear every November 11th “In Flanders Fields”. Thank you for reading my blog I hope you enjoyed it and I hope you have a great rest of your day!