It’s finally the end of grade 8 and I have to say I’ve had a great year. The end of the year does mean another unit completed however so please enjoy as I talk all about this one. For our last humanities unit we had to set Shakespeare’s play “The Tempest” in the times of New France, and then perform that in a tableau. To make this possible it was a group project and my group was Ben, Kiera, and Emerson.

The Tempest

Since none of us knew very much Shakespeare the first thing we did for this unit was to start reading it. We used an app called the Tempest that had the script and a side bar showing what was happening if you couldn’t understand the writing. Every group was also given an act to focus on and my group got act 1. After every group read their own act we started watching a play version and a movie version. Personally I prefered the movie version. We’d spend every class sitting on the couch, watching the movie, and following along. It was super fun to do in class and also the story was really interesting. The next thing we did was probably the most useful later on in the project. On the whiteboard we wrote down the top 3 points of every act, except for act 2 which only had 2 points. When brainstorming for our tableaus later this board was one of the most important things.

New France

When we weren’t confusing ourselves with Shakespearean English, we were learning all about New France. We began with learning about the French sailors who sailed to colonize new lands. They happened to have found what is modern day Quebec.

The next stage of New France was settlement and trade. This time was when all the french people and first nations people decided to get along and to start a civilization. Shortly after making agreements to be friendly they began to trade with each other. The First Nations would give beaver pelts and furs in exchange for the European’s guns and weapons.

Stage three was all about the major players. This is when they started to create the class system that was used in New France. To remember how the class system worked we had to create our own diagram of it and below each person explain what their job was in New France. Here is my diagram.

Stage 4 was all about the rivalry between the fur trading companies. The two companies were the Hudson’s Bay Company and the North West Company. The Hudson’s Bay Company began by waiting for the First Nations people to come to them with quite a few beaver pelts and then a celebration would begin where the Europeans would give the First Nations European clothing in exchange for the pelts. Where as the North West Company went to the First Nations looking for pelts in exchange for clothing. The two trading companies battled it out and ended up merging into 1 which was the Hudson’s Bay Company.

The last stage of New France was sadly it’s fall. When the English found out about New France they wanted to take it. As they had been colonizing land all down the east coast of modern day USA. They began by attacking Louisberg which was a Fort on Acadia, a place in New France. This fort was battled over many time until finally England got total possession of it. Once this had happened they deported all acadians out of their land to go somewhere else or they would be killed.

The Project

As I mentioned earlier the idea for this project was for every group to perform their act of The Tempest set in New France by doing tableaus. I can understand how this may seem confusing to you as it was for most of us when we were told what to do. One of the things that was so important that we did well wasn’t actually mentioned in the big idea. We had to create moving backgrounds that would help enhance the story we were telling. Since we weren’t allowed to speak or move the backgrounds had to say what we couldn’t about the tableau. This was very hard to do. We didn’t know what would help tell the story and we couldn’t think of how to bring it to life. But after a long week of pitching and critiquing ideas we had our final backgrounds. Every group did three tableaus, one for each main point in the act. My group was given act 1 to show. During the week of the performance we spent our class time in the theatre practicing how it would work, and on the last rehearsal we picked out costumes. All of our work was then out together and out on display for the night. Please enjoy our performance.

https://youtu.be/oWCMY6vHVaM

Overall this unit was a lot of fun. Although I wasn’t very interested in New France I was so happy that I was able to read, watch, and somewhat perform a Shakespeare play. I’ve always loved acting and sort of considered myself a actress and thought that Shakespeare was such a cool figure in the theatre world. However I had never been able to get myself to read or watch any of his work. This project truly showed me how magnificent his writing was. This project did also get stressful at some points, mainly when creating the backgrounds, but I think it led to a very fun night and I believe most of the audience enjoyed it.