Another year in the PLP program comes another winter exhibition… yay! During our first months back at school we were learning about the first World War, and that is the basis of our Exhibition. This exhibition though was a bit different then the ones we have done in the past, it was meant to be an immersive experience. There was 5 groups, Pre War, Trenches, Conscription, Depression, and Post War. The public walked from group to group through each section while learning about what life was like during the war time, and the overall theme Canadian’s emerging identity.
When we were choosing the groups we were asked to rank in order of favourite to least favourite. I am pretty sure not one person who ended up in my group picked it as one of their top three favourites but anyways… I was put into the Conscription group along with Matthew S, Chris, Cashel, and Zak. At the beginning of this project our group saw no hope… and we had what we saw as the worst topic. Once we started getting out ideas down and into place it began to start to look better, until we got to the exhibition. When everyone was setting up we realized we had barley any props compared to the other groups. But somehow we pulled it off.
Our section for the exhibition started off being greeted by two québécois protesters (Zak and Cashel) they were against conscription and lead you throughout the entire conscription section. Next you met a British General (Matthew S) who was for conscription. After you listened to his little spiel you moved on to Sir Robert Borden (Chris) who did a speech on why conscription was a good thing, meanwhile the two québécois protesters were trying to get you to go to their side on how conscription was not fair! Next you moved into me, I talked about Women during this time and how the conscription allowed mothers, sisters, and wife’s of soldiers the right to vote in Canadian federal elections. Then you went to the British General again who told you the conscription act had now been past, and finally the two french protesters would gives you way of getting out of this. For example saying your a farmer, or its against your religion, or that you are way to sick to fight.
Here is my script if you would like to read it…
“Before the war started I was considered inferior to men, I was controlled and it was decided by men how I functioned in my daily lives. I had very little freedom and no rights. Since the war broke out ours rolls changed from mothers to munitions workers. Us women are now needed for help with the war effort by filling the gaps left by the men who went to fight. The Wartime Elections Act has now awarded us wives, mothers, and sisters of soldiers to vote, this is the first time women are permitted to vote in Canadian federal elections. The Conscription is necessary to support my husband overseas.”
It may have taken us a few tries to get it down, and for me to shalt off the nerves, but in the end i feel that we had a strong story line that was easy for the people walking through to follow and they were kept entertained and learning throughout the whole thing.
If i was to do this over again which i guarantee that we will have to do, i would do quite a few things differently. First of all I think that the second time we do this it will be a lot easier because now we know that it will look like and how everything will run. My group spent quite a bit of time at the beginning trying to figure out what it will look like and we also complaining about how bad our groups topic was. If we had just gotten straight into working we could have had more time to prepare and rehearse. Also next time I would have liked to have had more props to make it feel more like you were walking through that time.
I like how you used pictures to help enhance your reflection. I think that it would have been cool to add in a video if you had the chance to but overall it was a necessity to make or break this post. The only thing I can really say needs improvement is a few capitalization errors and some spelling. Good Job