Although power play is taunting, and showcases power over one another, this project rarely reflects it. But why?

 

Introduction

Can we learn from the past and why is it important to us today? The short answer is yes! But in this project, we had to dig a little deeper. What did we do? First, we read “The Book Of The Lion” By Michael Cadnum, (which wasn’t a very good book.) We even had to make a portrait of ourselves in medieval times?! Let me explain.

The Book Of The Lion

The Book Of The Lion By Michael Cadnum is about a young boy named Edmund who was a slave but then got freed to fight in a crusade and a bunch of medieval stuff. Basically it’s just a regular book which feels like it took way too long to finish. I did not enjoy the book at all but it did help me answer our driving question of “What can we learn from the past? And why is it relevant today?” It helped me find the answer to this question by giving me a perspective of roughly how it was in the medieval times which is useful because it helped my build up my answer from “yes” to something much bigger. Just like our last project novel study, there were role sheets. My favourite role sheet I made for this project was probably the illustrator role, this is what my role sheet looked like for that:

Artwork Choice chart

This is the artwork choice chart which we made, it has 7 different aspects of worldview which we have to connect to medieval times and today and why we chose the artwork for each aspect, this is a photo of the chart here: (keep in mind that this photo is only about one of 7 aspects)

Here is one short example of this which I wrote for the economical aspect based on merchants “Merchants would transport resources, peasants would produce resources, guards would… guard? But the kings and leaders would order and receive the harvest they have bought or requested. They have their peasants and servants protect it, transport it, and produce it. Which makes the peasants arguably more important than the guards!”

Why we did the chart

The artwork choice chart we filled out in this project is very similar to the MindNode from our last project which you can view on my blog here. Just like our MindNode from the last project, it was a very helpful tool which we would end up referencing throughout the project. For example; the very first block in the choice chart would be a main image which you can answer the driving question with, you would use this photo later on in the project and incorporate yourself and every other image in you chart.

Main artwork, and how it helps us answer the driving question

With our artwork choice chart, we used our main artwork along with every other picture from the chart, to add onto this, we also had to put our face over the main image! Here’s what it looks like, illustrated over three steps:

This artwork helped us answer the driving question of “What can we learn from the past, and how is it relevant to us today?” By making us put thought into why we are incorporating these aspects of worldview into our art piece. After considering these things, my answer to the driving question is the following: We can learn many things from the past, especially wrongdoings and first drafts. We can reflect on our wrongdoing and see what we could’ve done differently, and can use a first draft as a building block for the next step. It is also completely relevant today for a few reasons, for instance: we can look back and reflect, see alternatives, recognize failure, and improve on previous attempts. So in short, the past is relevant to us today because we can reflect on it to better our society or inventions.

What else?

On top of everything I have already listed, there are a few small things I haven’t mentioned, such as our “artwork explanation” which explains everything about our final artwork draft which looks like this:

Also our “sketch and tell” which is about how societies gained and lost power! Here is what my sketch and tell looked like:

As you can see, in this project we also went and looked at some medieval societies, their systems, how they gained and lost power, and some important leaders and people in medieval times such as Salah Al Din, Genghis Khan, and more. We had to make a tribute for one of  these leaders with a group of three, my group was of Sam, Cole and I, and we made a tribute to Genghis Khan with a drawing.

We also learnt quite a bit about the crusades as well, and how some leaders were really powerful in these crusades for various reasons.

 You can read about one society called the Haudenosaunee peoples which we researched in this project here.

Conclusion

Overall, the past most definitely is relevant to us today. As a quick recap, I showcased: One of 7 aspects from the artwork choice chart (society), the book we read, explanations for the chart and main artwork, examples of researching societies and powerful medieval leaders, and a sketch and tell. 

Thank you for reading, and I encourage you to read my other posts!