Welcome to the final project of the year. This project was presented at the 2021 Winter Exhibition. This is this is my recap of the Revolutions on Trial project. The driving question for this project is: How might we as legal teams determine the effectiveness of a revolution. 

I will answer this question at the bottom of my post. For this project we had to present a mock trial in the Winter Exhibition. We putting a revolution on trial. The four revolutions that we were split into were the French Revolution, the American Revolution, the Haitian Revolution, and the Xinhai Revolution. The group that I was in was the French Revolution. My group members were Dana, Carter, Makenna, Cole, Theryn, Brooke, Clare, Dylan, Ben Y, Landon, and Zach. 

Here is the recording of my mock trial.

This is how me and my group created our mock trial presentation. First, we learned about of revolutions. We did this by watching various YouTube videos, reading textbooks, and listening to podcasts. Then we created a graphic organizer to demonstrate to the teachers our understanding of the revolution we were assigned. Here is mine.

We also did an experiment where the class is split up into 4 different groups and we had to act out our parts through a very broken governmental system. This taught us about why revolutions happen. Here is my reflection on the experiment.

Although I missed the first day of Nation X, I think I understand what we were trying to do. The day that I was there started out pretty rough. Group C was arresting people and taking all of their money, groups A & B were living pretty miserably and group D wasn’t doing anything substantial. Things only started to happen when disease struck the lower classes. Everyone was scrambling to survive, and all of the food in the nation was gone. The king had a cure and started distributing it to most of the infected people. The King(Fraser) and the rest of group D voted the former king(Colton) out of the nation. After most people were cured, people started complaining about the lack of food, and the worthlessness of money. 11 of the people stormed the capitol. This resulted in a splitting of the nations. The 11 people in the capitol pushed back everyone else until a river separated the 2 nations. Nation Z, the nation of the former capitol, created laws and systems to ensure fairness and functionality. The New Republic of Nation X created a society that was basically anarchy. So with this knowledge in mind, I think that we both created a fair and functional society and failed at doing that exact thing. We created two separate fair and functional societies, which was not the original goal. As a whole, we miserably failed at creating a fair and functional society. I think that there are many things needed to create a fair and functional society. I think that the one thing that you need above all is equality. Equal chances, equal rights, equal pay, all of that jazz. That is why I think that we created 2 separate fair and functional societies. Both of the societies would have functioned fine on their own. But let’s be honest, they were both going to go to war within the first five minutes.

The next big thing we did was the Animal Farm written response. After reading the book Animal Farm, by George Orwell, we connected it to Crane Brinton’s Anatomy of a Revolution. Crane Brinton’s Anatomy of a Revolution Theory is explained in a creative diagram that I made, as well as a short video that my group member, Carter made. Here is the video and diagram.

Here is my Multi-Paragraph connecting Animal Farm and Crane Brinton’s Theory.

Animal Farm Written Response

Did you know that pigs are the smartest animals on a farm? Have you ever wondered what would happen if pigs took over a farm? Well this is a story about a farm that is completely run by animals, and led by pigs. Animal Farm is a book written in 1944 by George Orwell. It is an analogy for the Russian Revolution. All of the characters in Animal Farm are real people or things that happened in the Russian Revolution. In this multi-paragraph, I will be explaining Crane Brinton’s anatomy of a revolution theory by examining the novel Animal Farm.

Here is a summary of Animal Farm.Animal Farm starts off by telling the reader about all of the animals on the farm. We follow an old pig, Major, who starts giving a speech. The speech is all about freedom and rebellion. Major teaches the animals a song, ‘Beasts of England’, a song about rebellion. The animals take it up as sort of a national anthem. The animals rebel and force the humans out of the farm. They write 7 commandments to follow. The humans who previously lived in the farm return and try to take back the farm. They fail, and the animals set this day to be an anniversary of their victory over the humans. The two main leaders of the farm are Snowball and Napoleon, two pigs on the farm. Napoleon is more concerned with preparing the farm for more attacks, and Snowball is more concerned with innovation and education. Napoleon and Snowball are constantly arguing. Snowball comes up with a plan to build a windmill to bring electricity to the farm. Napoleon doesn’t like another pig leading beside him, so he chases Snowball out of the farm. Napoleon is a tyrannical leader. Over time, the pigs start becoming more and more like the humans. Napoleon steals Snowballs idea for a windmill and starts construction of it. Snowball knocks down the windmill, and a bounty is put on his head. Napoleon viciously murders anyone who had contact with Snowball. ‘Beasts of England’ is outlawed and replaced with, ‘Animal Farm, Animal Farm, Never through me shalt thou come to harm!’ The windmill finishes construction, and is named ‘Napoleon Mill.’ One of the neighbouring farms scams Napoleon for timber and knocks down the windmill. The animals fight off the humans, but not without great casualties on both sides. After nearly finishing the construction of another windmill, one of the hardest working horses, ‘Boxer’, is fatally injured. Napoleon tells the animals he is sending him off to a vet, but really sends him off to a horse slaughterer. Years pass, and most of the animals die. The pigs start walking on two legs, which was against the commandments. The pigs play cards with all of the staff from neighbouring farms. The pigs become more and more like the humans until the two are nearly indistinguishable. The pigs revert the farm back to it’s original name, Manor Farm. The pigs and the humans start fighting, and it is uncertain wether or not there will be peace or war.

The Incubation Stage of this revolution starts with old Major. He is an example of Intellectual opposition. He gives the other animals new ideas of freedom.The humans are weak rulers because they treat the animals poorly, and are greatly outnumbered by them. The animals also feel a sense of government injustice because of the way the humans are treating them. The Moderate Stage is when the animals start planning out the revolution. They do things like convincing the other animals to join them and singing ‘Beasts of England’. There is not a clear line between Moderate Stage and the Crisis Stage, because many of the signs of the moderate stage are not there. They did not peacefully protest, and almost immediately their actions, especially the pigs actions, start becoming more and more radical. The only moderate animal that ever has any influence over the farm was Snowball. The Crisis Stage starts when Napoleon forces Snowball out of the farm. The pigs actions then become more and more radical, with them murdering animals, changing commandments, and becoming more and more like the humans. The Recovery Stage starts when Boxer dies. This stage doesn’t start because of this, but it is a clear point to mark it. The pigs are basically the same as the humans, which is a sign of the Recovery Stage. The new government is similar to the one they replaced. When the humans and the pigs start fighting is the other sign. War or peace is unsure, and that is often how revolutions end, with the start of other wars. But the real question is, if there was war, who would’ve won? The humans? Or the animals? And how much longer would the animals put up with he tyrannical leadership of the pigs before they rebelled?

Now it was time to start building our presentation and script. The first thing we did was an Affidavit. If you don’t know what this is, the definition is linked right here. Here is the one our group came up with. 

AFFIDAVIT

Now for our script. We were given a script template and told to fill it out using our evidence and questions we created. After all of that was finished, our script looked like this. This is what we used in our presentation.

FINAL SCRIPT

That is all of the steps we took to create our presentation. Again, here is the video if you want to watch it.

I think that the presentation represents my learning appropriately and I am very proud of how it turned out.

The Curricular Competencies for this project are:

1. Continuity and Change: identify continuities and changes to make sense of the complex flows of history. Compare and contrast continuities and changes for different groups at particular times and places.

(What you did well for this competency, what you did not do well, how you did well or did not, and how you will fix your mistakes) I think that I demonstrated this competency really well. I understand how things changed before and after the revolution and I demonstrate this in my graphic organizer. I think that I understand this because I looked at the underlying meanings of things instead of just the things on the surface.  

2)   Connecting: use strategies to connect with text. Set a personal goal for reading that builds on works personally enjoyed. Speak and listen appropriately in a variety of contexts for a variety of purposes.

I think I did this well. I think this because I read Animal Farm fully and participated in our class discussions about the book. I also think that I did pretty well in my Animal Farm written response. 

Now for the answer to the driving question(How Can We As Legal Teams Determine The Effectiveness Of A Revolution). The truth is, we can’t really do it properly. We were not able to see a world where this revolution didn’t happen. We also were not there during the time of this revolution, and we probably don’t know the full story. But I guess the answer is, ‘by presenting a mock trial the brings the effectiveness of a revolution into question.’

I learned a lot about revolutions in this project and because of that, I learned more about history in general.

Once again, here is the recording of the mock trial.

Don’t forget to check out my classmates blogs.Dana, Carter, Makenna, Cole, Theryn, Brooke, Clare, Dylan, Ben Y, Landon, and Zach. Thank you for taking the time to read my blog, and have a great day.