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Shannon Rankin's Museum Display Project helps students reflect on First World War
9 Plays5 days ago
Shannon Rankin's First World War artifact project requires students to create and compose critical reflections on and interpretations of Canada’s First World War story.
This episode of the Teaching Canada’s History podcast is part of our series speaking with the finalists of the 2023 Governor General’s History Award for Excellence in Teaching. This award recognizes excellence and innovation in the teaching of Canadian history. To learn more, visit CanadasHistory.ca/Awards.
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Transcript
Introduction to the Podcast and Awards
00:00:03
Speaker
Welcome to another episode of the Teaching Canada's History podcast. I'm your host, Brooke Campbell, and today we are speaking with the finalists for the 2023 Governor-General's History Award for Excellence in Teaching.
00:00:14
Speaker
Created in 1996, the award recognizes best practices in teaching Canadian history and is an opportunity to highlight the important work that teachers and students are doing to interpret and share the stories of the past.
00:00:26
Speaker
For more information about the Governor-General's History Awards, visit canadashistory.ca slash awards.
Introduction to Shannon Rankin
00:00:32
Speaker
Today I'm speaking with Shannon Rankin, a high school teacher in Shelburne, Ontario.
00:00:36
Speaker
Thanks so much for joining me today, Shannon. Thanks for having me, Brooke.
World War I Project Overview
00:00:41
Speaker
Well, let's start with my first question, which is if you can provide us, you know, an overview of the project that you've designed and maybe some of the the main steps that your students have taken to complete it.
00:00:56
Speaker
course. So this is a project that we do for World War I, and we do this at the end of the unit after having explored the war through a variety of lenses, looking at the experiences not just of soldiers at the front, but of women on the home front, the different experiences of marginalized communities and their experiences with enlistment, um indigenous soldiers, and people of color. And so at the end of the unit,
00:01:25
Speaker
I asked students to create a theme, a string that they've seen kind of carried throughout the World War I unit that interests them. And my hope with this project is to zoom in from the the macro, the big idea of World War I, which is, you know, colossal in the numbers and the scope. um And I want this project to help students zoom in onto the micro and to some of the individual
Developing Themes and Artifacts
00:01:55
Speaker
experiences. So to do that, I actually asked them to create a museum display.
00:02:01
Speaker
And this display is um bound together by the theme of their choosing. And they are to create artifacts that represent a person, a place and a thing connected to their theme. um And so students right away, anything that interested them in the unit, anything that they felt like they could maybe see themselves or had more questions about, they're welcome to choose a theme around that topic that then they'll explore and create a museum display for. um Students can work individually or in pairs and the goal is that at the end of the project there will actually be a museum day where all of the artifacts and all of the displays are set up around the classroom and we actually do a museum walk. um So the first thing that students do is they create a theme and the themes that students chose and created were so dynamic. um Some chose things like Canadian successes Others chose Canadian failures. um Some chose things like you know problems with enlistment, protecting our soldiers.
00:03:16
Speaker
um And that way they were able to then zoom in on some of the items and the individual experiences connected to those themes. um I made sure that they were themes and not topics um in order to make sure that there was the ability to critically analyze what items they were choosing to
Hands-on Learning and Creativity
00:03:39
Speaker
research. So if someone in my class said, well, I want my topic to be on weapons, I would say, well, that's, you know, a topic. Maybe our theme could be something like protecting our soldiers or something like that so that then they could hone in on the experience of individual soldiers, but also different soldiers, different Canadians, um
00:04:01
Speaker
and review the variety of experiences because nothing in Canada is ever a monolith or happens uniformly. And so I i try to get the students to be able to, you know, say, okay, so it's not just weapons or or women or enlistment for everyone. What did that look like for some key individuals? Um,
00:04:28
Speaker
And I try to do that with everything in history because I really want them to be able to see that history is relevant to themselves as one person. Right? Sometimes history feels too big. So I have them hone in on this theme.
00:04:41
Speaker
I have them choose a person, place, and thing that is going to represent and tie into this theme. um And then they start into their research. Our students use lots of primary source ah evidence for their research. They love digging into the attestation papers. of the World War I soldiers and um The, you know, the archives and and what is available publicly now is just incredible.
00:05:08
Speaker
um I also have to go through a little bit of a handwriting, ah cursive writing lesson with them. um And I love that, though. I love that that's like an additional type of literacy that they get out of this.
00:05:21
Speaker
But even things like some of them chose, you know, overcoming adversity. And so they might have chosen Francis Pegamagabo as one of their indigenous soldiers who overcame adversity and then they actually looked at pictures of the medals that he received but they zoomed in on every detail. So even if they didn't have the primary sources in their hands they were really really um looking at the intricacies of of the research and the the pieces that they wanted to recreate for their artifacts.
00:05:50
Speaker
um And then once they're done their research, ah they get to creating, which I love. It's probably one of my favorite parts of the project is watching them literally do a little bit of craft time. which, you know, history, I find it it can be very, you know, paper and pen if you let it be right.
00:06:08
Speaker
But it's so much more dynamic than that. We got to get our hands in there. We got to get our hands dirty. And i just love watching them troubleshoot and, you know, the pipe cleaners out and the hot glue gun and, and everything. And so i had so many different artifacts recreated. um They were recreating metals. They were recreating artillery shells, Um, one student actually transcribed a piece of music that was written by a soldier who was interned, um, that actually became a famous composer. And so he actually wrote out that music and then he did the whole, you know, like tea bag stamping. And, uh, my favorite thing is that every time they want to have something on paper, that's a historical artifact. The edges are always burned. I'm like, wow, that piece of paper came really close to being destroyed. Um,
00:07:00
Speaker
But I think it's really important too, because I do this class with my academics and oftentimes in academic, they're like, you know, get them writing essays and get them researching, but they got to get their hands dirty too.
Museum Day and Student Achievements
00:07:11
Speaker
And even in my senior grades, I get them creating something because I tell them, you know, my, my information I've shared with you is like Plato. I need to see that you can mold that into something and work with it and manipulate it.
00:07:23
Speaker
And there's no job in your future where you're not going to be required to be creative. Right. You might go into math or whatever and you think that's very black and white. No, you need creativity skills no matter what.
00:07:35
Speaker
So I get them to create and they create these amazing artifacts. um And then they have to put a paragraph together for each artifact. I've taken the PPE, the point proof explanation model and modified it for this where they would do um a point is, you know, this is my artifact.
00:07:54
Speaker
Your proof is tell me about it. Tell me information. And then your explanation is how does it relate to your theme? How does this artillery shell demonstrate Canadian successes or Canadian failures or women on the home front? Or how have you taken something and you've interpreted that ah to connect to your theme? And how does it support your theme, which I tell them is pretty much their thesis that they have to groove.
00:08:20
Speaker
And then finally the museum day ah is, you know, their their D-Day for this project. And um yeah, we rearranged the classroom and there's something, you know, they're teenagers, they're, you know, 15, 16, something about rearranging a room and walking in and all the desks are around the edge and, you know, they get to set up their their corner and they get to set up their artifacts and then they stand in front of them, you know, ready to talk about them. Yeah.
00:08:49
Speaker
you know It's like rearranging your room and you feel like a whole new you. So we rearrange the room and we do the walk around and everyone sees everyone's artifacts and um everyone has a chance to speak to them. I invite admin in to come and see and other teachers and that always makes it really nice and kind of formal.
00:09:07
Speaker
um Yeah, and that's how we go from picking an abstract kind of theme to hands-on and talking about it you know a couple of weeks later.
Historical Thinking Concepts
00:09:17
Speaker
There's a lot of opportunities in this project, I think, to have students engage both with content and with concept. um So can you speak more to the aspects of historical thinking that your students were utilizing and strengthening throughout their work?
00:09:35
Speaker
Yes. So this project almost came up with more questions at the beginning than answers, right? Because it was like so many options that, ah you know, coming up with a theme is so broad. And so um they really had to work with, okay,
00:09:53
Speaker
Let's start with, you know, we were grounded in the historical thinking concepts throughout the whole course and they're so, you know, intertwined. It can be hard to tease them away from each other. But okay, what is significant?
00:10:06
Speaker
What are three important key demonstrative items that you can create? Because you only have three shots to support your theme, right? um And so right away, historical significance. but then the nuances of what is important to who, um what was seen as important then versus now, what has more recently become significant. um And they find that with their research too, actually, um and searching for, if we skip to, you know, the primary evidence that they use, and that is a historical thinking concept.
00:10:44
Speaker
The primary source evidence is really important, but they also... get to see that history is constantly being revisited from different angles because those that were researching themes around LGBTQ soldiers, um you know, the the mistreatment of Black and Indigenous and ah immigrants um that tried to enlist, first of all, maybe couldn't, maybe were discouraged, that then were utilized when we needed troops. um
00:11:18
Speaker
you know, they see that those are stories that have been revisited more recently. And so that goes into a lot of what we talk about with that history is a story and a crafting of a narrative. And we have to be very wary of who's crafting that narrative. So their research skills have really been, you know, okay, you can look from the time and look for primary sources, but at the same time, who and where and when has revisited this subject that you can also get information from.
00:11:44
Speaker
And just because it might be newer takes on it um you know, doesn't make it less valid than something that you might be finding right from, ah you know, from the time of the war. um I mean, cause and consequence, I find is something that kind of flips to write, like they might find a consequence and go, but why was it like this? um And so cause and consequence um really played into, especially looking at Canada through the war, just from 1914 to 1918, right?
00:12:17
Speaker
Why were things different? Why did things start that way? um And then that really gets into historical perspective of, you know, who experienced the war in different ways. And, know,
00:12:33
Speaker
I kind of tell my class, you know, Canada gives ourselves this big shiny gold star for everything, you know, Vimy Ridge, stamp, we did it, birth of a nation. um And those are just really big paintbrushes to use, right? And so I tell them we got to get in there with the fine brush. We got to get in there and look at individual perspectives, individual experiences, the reasons why different people were treated differently, better, poorly.
00:13:03
Speaker
um And then for continuity and change, like, was there improvement? um Is Canada known for growing and maturing and learning from mistakes? Or did Canada just seem to perpetuate, you know, these ethically problematic decisions throughout the war? And so these were all questions that students asked.
00:13:25
Speaker
And then they explored the resources and they decided how they wanted to present their findings and how that supported their theme. And so there might be one event, you know, like um women getting the vote could be an event that's interpreted from many different angles because they have different perspectives, different um sense of that being a positive or a negative consequence and for who. um
00:13:59
Speaker
And so I think there's a lot of historical thinking ah going on because they they really are shaping their view of of the raw data coming in and they've got to interpret that.
Connecting History to Personal Stories
00:14:12
Speaker
And I really encourage them to get off the beaten track with these questions and these themes in this project too. um And think of, well, whose voices are harder to find evidence of, right? Whose voices have been silenced or, you know, pushed to the fringes and let's find out how to research and find those resources. Yeah.
00:14:43
Speaker
And so historical thinking in that, it's not always just the narrative, you know, we got to get our blinders off and we got to say, okay, any story you tell, any theme that you choose, you've got blinders on and you're focused on that. If we take those blinders off, what is on the periphery that is sometimes ignored or overlooked, forgotten or silenced?
00:15:07
Speaker
And so that is kind of the elasticity that I want with their historical thinking. It's not just regurgitation. um It's really, and not the big, big, big, you know, the big numbers and and the big stats.
00:15:25
Speaker
That to me, I want to know about what it was like for this person or that person to go through the war. And so that's what I try and get them down to. Your students were asking a lot of questions, I think through all steps of this project. um And so once everything had culminated, what do you think was the impact and and what were some of the outcomes for your students and and for your community?
00:15:50
Speaker
I really think first and foremost, this project helped to just humanize. his You know, so long ago, everyone's gone, everyone's passed, everyone...
00:16:03
Speaker
seems almost fictitious at this point sometimes, right? When we talk about history, it's like, because you can't meet them or touch them and it becomes very abstract. And so I think one of the the successes of this project is looking at people's pictures, reading their words.
00:16:24
Speaker
A lot of students actually were able to dig into their own personal family archives through the attestation papers. Um, and then And then subsequent conversations with family.
00:16:37
Speaker
And so I think this project... really really brought a heartbeat um to a lot of these kind of grand narratives. So I really loved that. It got so many students so passionate about their family history.
00:16:53
Speaker
um I actually start world my World War One unit starts with this story and I won't go too much into it but long story short um when my Nana passed and we were clearing out her apartment I found a picture of who turned out to be a great uncle who fought in the war, died in a prisoner of war camp, is buried in Cabaret Rouge in France. And I had been to that cemetery and did not know I had a family member there on my grade 12 trip.
00:17:23
Speaker
And it wasn't until later that we found out this story. And I had to piece that story together through all of the digital and primary source evidence because there was no one left.
00:17:36
Speaker
And so I really encourage my students to go home and start these conversations with parents and grandparents if they're you know willing and available.
00:17:47
Speaker
And so, so many students brought back, well, yeah, you know, my grandma had this picture.
Challenging Traditional Narratives
00:17:52
Speaker
um Look what, you know, i have got I've got these badges and I've got these. And so i really think there was like a connection to the course and the content and the subject, but there was a connection at home.
00:18:05
Speaker
Honestly, one of the artifacts that a student brought in was a poem that his great grandma had written about losing a son in the war.
00:18:17
Speaker
And I was a puddle. I was a puddle. And I, but I read it to the class. I cried in front of my class because this is the war. The war is not numbers. The war is this mother lost her son, right? Or this person fought and came back and continued to endure systemic discrimination. This woman went to a factory and then was expected to just get back into the home. Right? And so those stories really started to come out. The family connections came out um and the diversity. I think a big element of this was just the diverse histories of people in Canada.
00:19:01
Speaker
um You know, I tell my class, you know, you can teach this course. And I think for a long time it was taught as the history of old rich white men. And you know, you might think that sassy. And then I pointed a poster of our prime ministers.
00:19:14
Speaker
um And so i really think that this project helps to rewrite that narrative that no, it's, it's the everyday person's history is just as valid.
Benefits of the Project
00:19:25
Speaker
And how did that get us here? How can you relate? um And how are people a hundred years ago? How are we just like them? Or how would you react in this situation? so I really like this project for bringing it down to to the micro.
00:19:44
Speaker
um And just the class environment. I loved the class got a lot of bonding out of a project that they knew was all going to culminate on one day where they were all going to be adding their puzzle piece to museum day.
00:19:59
Speaker
And there was so much collaboration and, you know, oh, well I'm doing, you know, attestation papers too, but why are you saying that? So just more questions and the more questions, the more answers you get. Right.
00:20:13
Speaker
And so I loved that socially they got a lot out of it. um could larger community wise, family wise, they got a lot out of it. Academically, they definitely also benefit there. You know, they're doing the research, um,
00:20:29
Speaker
They're doing the writing, their paragraphs, they're proofing that, they're practicing their their sourcing and whatnot. All of those really practical things are woven in more so than like the explicit point, right? If when you do an essay, you know you're you know you're learning. It's so conscious, right? But this I just found because it was such an organic experience. rather than formulaic like an essay where you've got five paragraphs and, you know, check the boxes. I just found that this really helped them learn in a different way, which I really strive for, especially, you know, I think history has a bad rap sometimes for being, you know, the boring, the, you know, just memorization. And this was just the exact opposite of that.
00:21:19
Speaker
So yeah And even, and then pride in Canada too. um I think as a citizen, this ties, I also teach civics. And so everything's always inherently tied into citizenship too. ah What are your rights? What are your responsibilities? Well, who has not had those rights um historically? And how did they fulfill different responsibilities? And and how did Canada step up? So,
00:21:45
Speaker
You know, students also get to choose their lens. And I really liked that they were able to come up with something that maybe they personally identified with.
00:21:56
Speaker
You know, these are my ancestors um or or not too, you know, um and just explore something that has meaning to them rather than me telling them what that should be and whether it's a positive or negative interpretation.
00:22:12
Speaker
i think they're critical thinking skills. were really, really tapped into here. And they did amazing. The work they created just lifted my teacher soul. um They were painting pictures. They were, like I said, writing out music. um They were bringing in family artifacts. And I just really think it stitched so much of what we want in the classroom.
00:22:39
Speaker
I think it stitched a lot of that together really well, if I do say so myself.
00:22:46
Speaker
Thank you so much, Shannon, for sharing work and the learning that's been taking place in your classroom. Of course.