2.5 Critical Challenge: Rethinking History
Completion requirements
2.5 Critical Challenge
How did Canadian society develop as a result of historical globalization and imperialism?
Our ancestors viewed the world differently than we do today. Indigenous and non-Indigenous people made assumptions about one another based on what they knew and how they understood the world.
When we look at historical documents and images, we must consider the position, attitudes, and background of the writer or artist.
Consider an account of First Nations people written in 1681 by anthropologist André Thévet:
What do you think about this explanation? Consider the terms the writer used to describe the Aboriginal people: strange, savage, without faith, brutishness. With our present knowledge of North America's First Nations, is it true that Aboriginal people had no laws, religion, or civility? Did they live like "unreasoning beasts"? Did they need more contact with Europeans to become more "humane"?
Thévet, a French man in the new world, was an outsider. He did not understand First Nations people because or their culture. His view of them was based on the world he knew; he was using his own worldview.
What of this 1762 account by Nicolas Denys, the first permanent French settler of Cape Breton Island?
Although Denys describes the Aboriginal people more positively, is it accurate? He interpreted what he saw based on his own understandings. Because he did not see the kind of doctor that he knew or the diseases with which he was familiar, he assumed the people were never sick and were never treated by any form of medicine other than a sweat lodge.
When we read historical accounts, we see one point of view. When someone is writing a first-hand account of any event, his or her views are based on how he or she saw what occurred. The experiences of the other people in the story are not told. This often means that we do not see the views of the others characters in the story.
In this critical challenge, you will use your imagination to tell a story from another viewpoint.
In Part One of the following assignment, you will read an account of an event in Canadian history as told from a particular perspective. You will answer some questions about this account.
In Part Two of this assignment, you will rewrite the account in story form.
Your revised story must ...
Use one of the following accounts as your source:
When we look at historical documents and images, we must consider the position, attitudes, and background of the writer or artist.
Consider an account of First Nations people written in 1681 by anthropologist André Thévet:
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America is occupied by marvellously strange and savage people without faith, without laws, without religion... ever naked, until perhaps such time as they will be frequented by Christians, from whom they will little by little learn to put off this brutishness
to put on more civil and humane ways.
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André Thévet,
Les Singularite de la France antarctique, autrement nomé Amérique et de plusieurs Terres, et Isles descouvertes de nostre temps (Paris, 1681) |
What do you think about this explanation? Consider the terms the writer used to describe the Aboriginal people: strange, savage, without faith, brutishness. With our present knowledge of North America's First Nations, is it true that Aboriginal people had no laws, religion, or civility? Did they live like "unreasoning beasts"? Did they need more contact with Europeans to become more "humane"?
Thévet, a French man in the new world, was an outsider. He did not understand First Nations people because or their culture. His view of them was based on the world he knew; he was using his own worldview.
What of this 1762 account by Nicolas Denys, the first permanent French settler of Cape Breton Island?
| They were not subject to disease, and knew nothing of fevers. If any accident happened to them, by falling, by burning, or in cutting wood through lack of good axes, they did not need a physician. They had knowledge of herbs, of which they made use and straightway grew very well. They were not subject to gout, fevers or rheumatism. Their general remedy was to make themselves sweat, something which they did every month. |
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William F. Ganong, ed.
The Description and Natural History of the Coasts of North America (Acadia) by Nicolas Denys (Toronto: 1908), pp. 445-446 |
Although Denys describes the Aboriginal people more positively, is it accurate? He interpreted what he saw based on his own understandings. Because he did not see the kind of doctor that he knew or the diseases with which he was familiar, he assumed the people were never sick and were never treated by any form of medicine other than a sweat lodge.
When we read historical accounts, we see one point of view. When someone is writing a first-hand account of any event, his or her views are based on how he or she saw what occurred. The experiences of the other people in the story are not told. This often means that we do not see the views of the others characters in the story.
In this critical challenge, you will use your imagination to tell a story from another viewpoint.
In Part One of the following assignment, you will read an account of an event in Canadian history as told from a particular perspective. You will answer some questions about this account.
In Part Two of this assignment, you will rewrite the account in story form.
Your revised story must ...
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include accurate details (You cannot change the actual occurrence!)
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be written entirely from the perspective of the other group
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provide a believable interpretation of how people from this group might view the event
Use one of the following accounts as your source:
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Micmac Chief Addresses the French ( 1000 words, reading level grade 9)
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A Slave Addresses His Former Master (540 words, reading level grade 8)
- Champlain Introduces Firearms to Native Warfare (1000 words, reading level grade 9)
| Click the link to download the assignment. You may use any of the three formats. The assignment is the same in all three formats.
Save your assignment to your computer or external device. |
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You may wish to review your paragraph writing skills by looking at tutorials:
How to Write a Paragraph How to Proofread for Common Errors |
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| See an example here. | |
| After you have reviewed and edited your assignment, submit it on the next page. |