In recent years, the percentage of young people enacting on their right to vote has dropped reasonably sharply. Many of these people asked the question: Why should I vote? We were tasked with creating a 10 minute long presentation engaging enough to captivate the shortening attention span of this demographic, while also being informative enough so that they understand why it’s important to vote.
At the very beginning, we decided to read a book all about society and young people, Lord of the Flies.
Although I didn’t necessarily agree with the book’s narrative, I liked the book overall and the thought provoking style it took.
I did a full analysis of the book here if you want to read it.
https://garlics-make-uam.craft.me/lTKjd6xLT4yibQ
From this point on we began to learn about the structure of the Canadian government, and we were put into groups to begin working towards our final product, the 10 minute presentation.
https://garlics-make-uam.craft.me/6BBywRwp5fmASe
(My notes)
Our video
What we did
In our groups, I was with Declan, Ines, and Faith, and we began working on our video for our presentation shortly.
Not long after we completed our video we found four major issues to cover in our presentation.
Then we made a pitch of what our presentation should look like.
Finally, we made our script and prepared for our presentation
My contributions
After reading Lord of the Flies, we had an in class discussion where I was a heavy participant, and spent lots of time delving into the deeper meanings of the book, enacting on the Success Behaviours: Agency (taking responsibility for my learning), Engagement (actively participating in the class discussion, demonstrating enthusiasm), Integrity (listening while others are speaking, being present while learning is occurring, taking pride in my original work and thoughts), Self Regulation (managing distractions and staying on topic), and Communication and Collaboration (giving and taking feedback and opinions).
In our groups, I did all of the video editing for my group and touched up the animation where necessary. I acted on the Agency (setting realistic goals, accepting and applying feedback), and Collaboration (getting my group work done on schedule to be a reliable team member, using digital tools professionally) Success Behaviours.
When we began our research for our presentation, I was away on a trip, but I still got my research properly finished on time for my group, utilizing the behaviours: Agency (completing work to standard and on time), Engagement (helpful to my group mates), Preparation (managing time effectively to meet deadlines) and Communication (proactively communicating with my group outside of school).
Finally, we made our script and prepared for our presentation
When making the script, I wrote all of my own lines and some extra information, and I created about half of the presentation itself. I worked to use the behaviours of: Preparation (working effectively to meet deadlines), and Collaboration (supporting my group through my work).
During the presentation I performed my role properly, even when we had a hiccup that I worked to solve with my group, performing the Agency (showing resilience and persistence in the face of setbacks) and Engagement (helpful to other students in solving issues) Success Behaviours.
Reflection
When it comes to what I can improve on for further projects, I need to focus on making sure I’m on track with my work, especially reading, as I fell behind a few times while reading LOTF. I also need to be more prepared next time, as although my group and I did rehearsals, we never caught the issue of the video not functioning properly in the presentation, leading to a large issue during our presentation itself. I also need to work on being more prepared when it comes to blog posts, because this is the most major issue that I had during this project. I am currently finishing my project blog post that should’ve been done exactly one month ago today.
What I plan to improve
For future projects I am going to improve on these above issues by allocating my time better to make sure I’m always on top of due dates, especially large sized showcases of learning like blog posts, which I never seemed to allocate enough time for. I also will make sure to go over every aspect of my product before submitting it, to work out minor and major issues similar to what happened in my presentation.
In conclusion
To conclude this blog post, I’d like to thank you for taking the time to read it (especially so late), and as an answer to the driving question: How do we convince young people that they should vote? Young people can be convinced to vote if they fully understand the impact they make at the voting booth, and how important the voting system is to let the people decide who should solve major issues that shape the future of our entire country, and possibly the world.