Intro
The big idea for this project is that “collective identity is constructed and can change over time.” Since nationalism was a key focus in this project we researched quite a bit about it, which then led into our group video. Let’s get into it🇨🇦
Researching Nationalism
We watched videos, took notes and learned about nationalism history and consequences. Learning about the positive and negative impacts of nationalism, understanding the history and how it shaped countries all led to the final video about Canadian confederation.
I’ll add the notes I made below.
https://s.craft.me/6mqY94nFHfpeiN
American nationalism presentation
We were given groups to research about the nationalism in different counties, for example, my group and I talked about America. This wasn’t necessarily a hard project since it was a small presentation answering a few questions. The Idea was to to learn how to take notes, reviewing case studies and know how to present that to the public in a way that can be understood.
The final product
All the the researching, note taking and presenting led up to the final video. Now you may be wondering, what final video? As a group, we were tasked to create a persuasive promotional video, advocating for a territory to either join Confederation OR remain sovereign. My group and I chose Quebec! Thee next few days were used to research, and create a script for this video.
I’m very proud of 1. How our video turned out, and 2. The script. The idea of our video was that it was going to be a debate between two people, and why or why not they wanted to join confederation. I had the idea for two important people to appear from the future (with a magic button of course) and give important insight on the debate. The idea came to life and with a comedic aspect! (Hint.. Donald Trump🟠)
My group
My group for this video were Sven and Evelyn, I’ll add their blogs below
Evelyn: https://www.blog44.ca/evelyns/
Sven: https://www.blog44.ca/svenz/
Our video:
Response to the driving question
The driving question for this project was “how has Nationalism’s influence shaped the global structure? Moreover, how has Nationalism impacted the establishment of Canada as a nation?”
Nationalism has shaped the global structure by motivating European powers to expand their empires and spread their influence. It led to colonization in places like Africa, Australia, and New Zealand. In Canada, nationalism played a key role in uniting British and French settlers and forming a shared identity that led to Confederation in 1867. It helped build Canada into an independent country, separate from British rule. However, this nationalism focused mainly on European settlers and excluded Indigenous peoples. Laws like the Indian Act and policies such as residential schools were created to erase Indigenous cultures and force them to adopt the settler identity. So, while nationalism helped establish Canada as a nation, it also caused long-term harm to Indigenous communities.
Conclusion
Throughout this project, I learned a lot about the effects of nationalism and Canadian Confederation. I always find projects like these helpful, since they’re not usually topics I’d explore on my own. But learning about them made me realize how important they are to understanding the world today. Nationalism has shaped so much of our history, for better and for worse and it helped my understand how identities and countries are formed. I also think our group worked really well together. Everyone did their part, which made things way smoother and more fun to work on. Overall, this project taught me a lot, not just about history, but about working as a team and thinking more deeply about the different perspectives and events that shaped how Canada became a country.
