Category: History

Hey, hi, and hello. Welcome back to my blog where not all those who wander are lost (J.R.R Tolkien). In this post I will be focusing our latest project. This project was one of the most fun projects ever. The driving question was: “How might we craft a compelling vision of “Macbeth” set in the 1950s?” Our end goal for this project was to be able to create a film that combines the gruesome tale of Macbeth and the Cold War. The stages we went through to lead up to this final project were to analyze the story of Macbeth and different versions and to learn the history of the Cold War. At first I thought that we wouldn’t be able to acheive our end goal due to the teachers telling us tht no PLP class has been able to complete this project. However my thoughts were soon to be altered.

When we first started with the learning of Macbeth I found myself more enthusiastic than my fellow classmates. Back in elementary school, grade 7, I became so interested in Shakespeare and learning how to understand his work. I am always looking forward to when we incorporate Shakespeare into our projects. We started by getting a textbook copy of the play and started to read. As we read we would analyze and ask questions. We would also look a one or two different film adaptations to be able to get visual representation and see how different directors in vision this tragic tale of madness.

I found that we as a class were lacking on the knowledge of the Cold War and what happened during it. We only had two quick lectures and I think that we could have spent more time delving into it to then be able to have included it more into our final project. During this project we had to make a weekly literature note about something interesting we learned in class or something that sparked an idea in our head. One of the literature notes I was really proud of was the one I did after we analyzed the witches in Macbeth.

Once we had our knowledge on macbeth and the Cold War we then started into our final project. The first step was to assign roles, not casting but the roles like director or producer, even in my case, wardrobe manager. When we applied for a role we had to hand in a vision for the role and a resume tailored to that role. I applied for wardrobe manager and added in my experience of helping with the costumes at my dance studio into my resume.

The first thing I started to do was put together a Pinterest board of my vision. I collaborated a lot with Kaia, the director, on what her ideas and vision so I could stick to an idea. I had a rough idea of what Kaia had in mind for the story and used that to start planning costumes. Once we got the actual story and the class had collectively written it I formatted my final ideas. The next step was getting them. I went down with the rest of the wardrobe team (Natalie and Liam) to our school’s theatre to find some costumes. I was able to find quite a lot of costumes that would work with the time period of our film (the 50s) and any missing things would be brought in by the actors.

Now due to the timing of editing this film I will not have the film on my blog until a later date but once I do have the film available a link will be below.

Now as usual I will be not only evaluating how the project went but how I personally think I did and how I can improve. I think that we were able to achieve our goal in being able to create a vision of macbeth that was set in the 1950s. I did wish that we were able to learn more about the Cold War aspect of the 50s but due to our previous knowledge of the 50s I think we were able to execute this project well. Now before I began writing this post I asked myself some questions. What did I do? How well did I do? What should I do next? After answering these questions I collected one conclusion. This project was amazing. Not only did it go well but it allowed me to realize what my true academic aspirations are. This project helped me achieve a realization that I really want to become a costume designer for theatre or film. I think that this project was one of the best by far because it allowed me to use my creative and critical skills and helped me build on them. The best thing about this project was what I was able to take away from it and this is what is important in projects. I hope we get to do a project more based around my second career choice (creative writing) and that the next project will be able to help me focus on building my writing skills.

Stay tuned for the next post.

Peace ✌️

Hey, hi, and hello. Welcome back to my blog where not all those who wander are lost (J.R.R Tolkien). In this post I will be continuing on the topic of historical significance and the Manhattan Project. I will also be adding in the idea of conceptual art and how we used it to convey different perspectives on what we learned throughout this project. Now lets dive in.

Near the beginning of this project we focused on historical significance and what makes something significant. Our main assignment for that section of the project was to take a historical event and create a post. You can find that post at [this link]. Along with learning about the Manhattan project we were assigned to read a book called “Hiroshima”. We participated in Socratic seminars and posed questions as we read. At the end we wrote a post of our opinion on the book. You can find that post at [this link].

Just like every project we have a driving question, however in this project we had 3 sub questions. One for historical significance, one for the bomb, and one for conceptual art. I was able to answer the first two in my past two posts however i still need to answer the third and the driving question. 

Now to answer the conceptual art question (How can we express ideas through art?) I need to talk and reflect on our trip to downtown. In the middle of November we went to two museums. I went into this project thinking that conceptual isn’t art and that it is pointless. After experiencing the Yoko Ono exhibit my feelings changed. I now think that conceptual art is art, however i still dislike ready made art. With this new view i am more able to answer the question. I think that the best way to express ideas with art is to add some sort of element to the piece that will keep the viewers wondering so that they will try to find the meaning, idea, or concept behind the piece. 

To answer the driving (How did the development of the atomic bomb change the world?) I will explain me and Fraser’s project. For winter exhibition we had to create a piece of conceptual art, either on our own or in groups. Our art piece had to somehow reflect an aspect of the Manhattan project and to fit under one of four categories. Politics and warfare, ethics and morals, technology and science, and society. Fraser and me created a piece that was balloons filled with sand suspended above pins creating the idea of tension and anxiety that the balloons could pop at any moment just like how nuclear weapons could be fired off at any moment. Each balloon is filled with the same amount of sand to represent that each balloon has the same amount of impact however the bigger balloon the more of an obvious threat compared to the smaller balloons. The closer to the pins the balloons are the closer to the decision to set of the weapons. 

In conclusion I think that the development of the atomic bomb has made nations more cautious towards other nations with not knowing if they posses these weapons or not. Over the years with new developments in technology the tension and anxiety grows between nations. I quite enjoyed having the three different sub questions in this project and i think it helped build up to answering the driving question.

Hey, hi, and hello. Welcome back to another post. Recently my class has been reading the book Hiroshima to aid in our learning of the Manhattan project, or as its more commonly known as the “Atomic Bomb.” This event cannot even be explained as tragic or devastating due to it being far worse than those words. Let’s jump right in.

When I was first told to write a literary criticism on Hiroshima many ideas flooded my head. Many thoughts and questions, “what do I write?” “Should I focus on one idea or many?” All of these thoughts and more, however one stood out to me. “What is my opinion?” I have many opinions on many things and they are constantly being changed. For example I used to think that contemporary art was not art until I went to a Yoko Ono exhibit. It only takes one thing to change someone’s mind. My opinion on this book and specifically different aspects of this book has changed over reading it.

Before reading this book I had thought that the Americans made a smart move to end the war. After reviewing this I realized that I was looking though one viewpoint, this book allowed me to see through another. In this book we read through the view of 6 survivors and their experience. This allows you to sympathize and remember that there are always two side to a story. At the end of this book I had one main question, “Can we blame the US for making the atomic bomb and not taking the time to test for long lasting effects if they were just trying to get there before the Germans did?” The US might have made a smart move in saving their own men by bombing the Japanese, however it was not ethically the right thing to do. Let’s look at this through the trolley problem.

“There is a runaway trolley barreling down the railway tracks. Ahead, on the tracks, there are five people tied up and unable to move. The trolley is headed straight for them. You are standing some distance off in the train yard, next to a lever. If you pull this lever, the trolley will switch to a different set of tracks. However, you notice that there is one person on the side track. You have two (and only two) options:
Do nothing, in which case the trolley will kill the five people on the main track.
Pull the lever, diverting the trolley onto the side track where it will kill one person.
Which is the more ethical option? Or, more simply: What is the right thing to do?”

Is it more ethical to end the war and save your men by bombing innocent Japanese civilian lives or to continue fighting and lose more lives? In the book, John Hersey wrote “Mrs. Nakamura and her relatives had been quite resigned and passive about the moral issue of the atomic bomb, but this rumour suddenly aroused them to more hatred and resentment of America than they had felt all through the war.” This showed that even a survivor of the event questioned the morality of the bomb.

After pondering my original question (Can we blame the US for making the atomic bomb and not taking the time to test for long lasting effects if they were just trying to get there before the Germans did?) I remembered a quote from my favourite musical (which happens to be Newtons Third Law), “Hamilton.” As Daveed Diggs (Thomas Jefferson) said “Every action has an equal opposite reaction.” There were clear consequences to the bomb being dropped wether the US decided to ignore them or just didn’t pick up on them.

In my opinion everything we do has equal consequences, the US might not have considered the consequences or the ethics if they felt a rush to get there first however they have learned their mistake and I hope that there will be more consideration in the future. This book has left behind an impact on the minds of many Americans and I hope that more historians and journalists consider writing in this method.

Stay tuned for my next post.

Peace ✌️

Hey, hi, hello. Welcome back to another post. This post is going to be talking about something I have talked about in the past. Historical significance. Now as most people know, the past is everything that has ever happened. Whereas history is specific significant events from the past that have left great impact. Now with this in mind lets dive into the post.

Now talking about historical significance I thought I would give an example of a significant event that impacted communication and technology. The invention of the telegraph and morse code. Before the telegraph was invented communication was different. It was different for each culture, for example civilizations in China, Egypt and Greece used drumbeats of smoke signals to communicate over long distances. Then the telegraph was developed in the 1830s and 1840s. Samuel Morse (the inventor) sent the first telegraph message in 1844 from Washington D.C to Baltimore Maryland. Until the early 19th century telegraphs were not wireless causing weather to effect to communication. The electric telegraph was then created allow contact with ships, trains, and places of longer distance. 

With the invention of the telegraph came the creation of morse code. Samuel Morse and Alfred Vail assigned letters to certain sets of dots and dashes. More commonly used letters got simpler codes compared to those less common. Nowadays we may no longer have telegraphs however we still use morse code. One of the main ones is SOS signalling. There are two main ways I know of to do this. One is three whistle blasts, this will usually get someone’s attention and someone will help. The second is to do the morse code for SOS (3 dots, 3 dashes, 3 dots) with a flashlight.

Before I delve into why i think this event is significant I want to explain what makes a historical event. A historical event is determined by historians. These events need to leave an impact over both time and distance (geographically). For example the creation of the atomic bomb is significant whereas buying chocolate milk instead of eggnog isn’t significant. 

Now, with the knowledge of what makes something significant I think that the creation of the telegraph and morse code is a significant event. Without the telegraph we would probably not have developed phones or a well known way of signalling for help. Now knowing this it’s strange to think what our lives would have become without Samuel Morse and many great inventors. 

Thanks for reading this post. If you want to learn more about the telegraph click this link. Stay tuned for my next post. 

Peace ✌️