Hey PLP fans, what do you say? Nikan Dan is gonna win today. 

You know the dealio, another project, another blog post. In tonight’s edition, we’ll take at look at the recently completed project known as “Let’s Get Riel”, all about Louis “Real Deal” Riel. If you’re wondering “Who’s Riel”, like I was at the beginning of this project, no need to worry, I’ll tell ya. 

Louis Riel formed a militia in order to fend off the Canadian Government from taking his people’s, the Métis people’s, rightful land. Albeit, violently. Louis Riel was an example of courage, standing up for what’s right against the much bigger, much stronger Canadian Government.

You may be wondering why I titled this post “The Manitoba Moose”. First, moose have been very important to Métis people as a source of food and clothing. Also, in indigenous cultures, moose symbolize strength and resilience, which hold true to Louis Riel. But If I’m being completely transparent, I originally landed on “Manitoba Moose” because its the name of a cool hockey team. But it has good meaning now!

The basis of this project was to work on our writing skills. We split the project in 2 halves, Mr Harris teaching us the writing aspect, and Ms McWilliam teaching the history.

I’ve always enjoyed writing, so I was excited to start this project. 

The final piece of evidence in this project was to write a multi-paragraph response.

Over the course of history, Louis Riel has been perceived many ways, as a result of his rebellious views. The driving question of this project was “How have portrayals of Riel changed over time?”. I’m not gonna dive into the question, because you can read my answer in my aforementioned multi-paragraph response.

In order to get evidence to answer the question, we looked at many sources of information, ranging in respect for Riel, and analyzed them. Again, I’ll get into that in my response.

Over the last 3 weeks, we learnt about paragraph structure, as part of our writing studies with Mr. Harris. We were taught about topic sentences, and how paragraphs should flow. After careful consideration, my topic sentence for my response landed on “Perceptions of Louis Riel have increased in positivity over the course of time as result of a change in upbringing, education, and the constantly progressing world around us.” 

I landed on this sentence because I wanted to talk about how the world changed over Riel’s reign, and not just about how portrayals of him did. I wanted to draw a correlation between the progression of the mindsets of people, to the progression of popularity of Louis Riel, and I spent majority of my 1st paragraph doing so.

I’d like to think my paragraph came out well. I took lots of notes during class, and inputted critiques from peers. 

Let’s not waste anymore time, and ladies and gentlemen, my paragraph:

And that wraps up my post for today, check back next project for Nikan’s takes! Take care, Nikan- out!