Understanding historical significance, learning rhetorical analysis, following the writing process, and writing of a multi-paragraph composition, are the steps I took to answer the driving question “why is it so important to preserve the Juno Beach Centre?” 

Have you ever heard of Juno Beach? Well I certainly didn’t. As it turns out this was one of the five beaches the Allies stormed on D-Day, June 6, 1944. More specifically it was the beach Canada was in charge of reclaiming. A few years ago a development company in France bought the land to build luxury condos and this was not only disrespectful it was making access to the Juno Beach memorial Center harder to get to. Lucky Canada bought the land around it and the condos weren’t built but this is the reason we started this project. Why should we preserve this Centre? 

To start we continued our understanding of historical significance that we have been building for the past few years. We defined the word and after a lot of research wrote about the 3 most important reasons why WWII was significant. We had the choice to write about why WWII was significant for us as a nation or why Canada’s impact was significant elsewhere. I chose to talk about why it was important for us as a nation. Through this process I saw a lot of similarities to WWI especially with the job opportunities for women. In both of the wars women joined the work force but in this war women could do jobs that involved a degree. For example I learned That the world’s first female aeronautical engineer was in Canada! She was in charge of producing fighter jets called hurricanes for the war effort. I also learned that social security and unemployment insurance was created during WWII. This assignment showed my deep understanding of the analysis competency which is about accessing the significance of something over time. I never understood how much WWII connects to Canada policies until this project.

Our next step was learning about rhetorical analysis or actually more about how we can use certain words or phrases to get our point across to the reader in different ways. To do this we learned about different transitions and writing choices. We also reviewed and learned about pathos, logos, and ethos. I really enjoyed the exercises we did at this point as we would take the same idea but change it for different audiences. Next we read an article and in groups did a rhetorical analysis. For that Rhetorical analysis, we first had to identify where the author uses pathos, ethos, logos. Then we had to figure out what the author implied in a certain sentence and how it built their main message. While, I didn’t have a problem with that part I found the class discussion we did the next day difficult. I do not enjoy talking in front of large groups of people and so even when I did have an answer, I found myself just sitting there. I enjoyed the writing questions from the day before, but didn’t really find anything useful in the class discussion.

Then it was time for us to do our own rhetorical analysis of this really well written article called “Thank you for not killing my son”. I thought I showed a really good understanding of rhetorical analysis for this Keystone because I wrote a lot and explained how the tone is kind of ironic, and how I thought the author used logos really well in the beginning followed by a strong emotional pull (pathos). I also showed my skills in the questioning competency when I engaged in the text and showed my extending understanding of rhetorical analysis. We then wrote our own rhetorical analysis for the multi-paragraph composition we were about to write for our final product. I found this a tricky part of the Keystone, because I hadn’t really thought through my idea and how I was going to communicate it before then. This exercise did help me think of how I was incorporating pathos and led me to the idea to talk about my great-grandfather.

A multi-paragraph composition can mean different formats and so I decided I was going to be writing an essay and I knew I wanted to have in connection to my great grandfather who fought in World War II. Even though my great grandfather wasn’t on Juno beach on June 6, 1944 he was in the area three days after D-Day giving supplies to those who fought and I wanted him to prove my point that it wasn’t just military people fighting in this war, it was every day people you just see walking down the street. So to understand more about him, I asked my grandparents to send me over some of the scanned images and war items that they had kept from him. Unfortunately there was a problem and they weren’t able to send them in time. I was able to use the information that they told me over the phone. I learned the story of my great grandfather, and incorporated that in my writing. The writing process also involved a lot of revisions. I actually found this process really helpful, as I would come to class with a new draft and send it to a bunch of my classmates, ask them for their opinion and that they thought I could improve and then I would go home and look through what they said, and change my draft to be better.  I also really enjoyed critiquing other people’s work I was able to see some things that I thought could be incorporated in some way in my writing. I could tell which essays I enjoyed reading, and which ones needed a better hook at the beginning or something, and I was able to use that to improve my own composition. 

My final product was a two page essay that I am proud of, and I believe it tells my points of why I think that the Juno Beach centre should be preserved. This is where I used my understanding of the communicating to thoughtfully tell what happened in a form that fits my audience. I have never known much about World War II and I didn’t even know Juno Beach existed until this project. I enjoy learning more about WWII’s history and I think it’s important that future generations do as well which made this project meaningful.