Socials 10Victorian Era Project

INTRODUCTION

In Ch. 2 of your Horizons textbook, you learned about the Victorian era. The Victorian era was a very important time in both British and North American history, as many monumental historical events occurred during this time. Confederation was achieved in Canada on July 1st, 1867, and other provinces followed suit, jumping on the “Canada bandwagon”, eventually becoming the Canada we know today. Our neighbours south of the border were caught up in their own historical event, the Civil War, in which the Union North led by Abraham Lincoln fought abolish slavery. At the same time, the Industrial Revolution was in full swing in Europe by the latter half of the 19th century, with exponential growth and advancements in scientific, medical, and technological development.

You will be working in groups of four (maximum five) for this group assignment. Your group’s task is to create a newspaper on the Victorian era. Of course, the events and ideas you discuss in your newspaper aren’t “news” to us, but you’ll have to put yourself in the shoes of a newspaper publisher during the reign of Queen Victoria.

ASSESSMENT BREAKDOWN/RUBRIC

THE NEWSPAPER/ 80

1. Visuals (pictures, design, and generally how much effort you put into the paper) / 5

2. Cover story (randomly assigned, see below)/ 20

3. Confederation Timeline/ 10

4. Victorian era “Entertainment” section/ 10

5. Victorian era merchandise/housing ads (minimum of 3)/ 10

6. Victorian era “Sports/Activities/Games” section/ 10

7. Editorial/Opinion section/ 10

8. Sources properly cited/ 5

TOTAL:/ 80

PEER REVIEW:/ 10

* Your peer review mark will be incorporated as part of your participation mark for the term.

PROJECT DUE DATE

* THE PROJECT IS DUE ON JULY 25, 2013. THERE IS NO PRESENTATION COMPONENT INVOLVED WITH THIS PARTICULAR PROJECT.

DETAILS & TIPS

Paper Visuals: As with your posters, I expect that you will put some effort into the visuals. I don’t expect super artistic work, but I do expect to see effort. Some word processing programs, such as Word, may have newspaper templates that you may use. I will show you some newspaper layout/designs in class. Pay attention to the spacing and organization of the paper. For example, it shouldn’t be cluttered and your cover story should, obviously, be on the cover!

Cover Story: Your group will be randomly assigned a particular topic to focus on for the cover story. The topic is very broad, so you’ll have lots of room for creativity and personal preferences to come into play. The topics are: Britain’s colonies worldwide, advances in the scientific field, advances in the medical field (closely linked with science), advances in transportation, or exploration of the globe. Length: 250 – 400 words maximum (roughly the length of an in-class essay)

Confederation Timeline: Obtaining the dates and corresponding events should not be difficult at all, considering you have a very good source of information in your textbook (make sure to reference)! You will also be required to include dates after 1867, because other provinces joined our nation (including our own British Columbia). You won’t need to look outside of the class much for this section, but I’m expecting brief notes about each important event (important people, parties, facts etc.). Attention to detail will earn you marks here. Length: It may vary but you should have around 8 – 10 date entries with corresponding notes on the timeline.

Entertainment & Sports: If you open a newspaper today, you’ll usually find an entertainment section and a sports section. Entertainment and sports were not as widespread and “mainstream” as it is nowadays, and newspapers were often filled with local gossip more than anything else. However, we have the luxury of doing this while looking back in time. Research famous entertainers, magicians, circuses, sports figures and events. Length: 1 – 2 articles for each “page” with accompanying pictures, with each article running a few paragraphs long.

Merchandise Ads: Design a minimum of 3 ads for products you’d find in the Victorian era. Remember, put yourself in the shoes of people living at that time. Things that are completely ancient nowadays were very new and advanced back then.

Editorial Piece: The editorial can be found in any newspaper and it’s a more refined name for an opinion piece. The editorial piece is NOT OBJECTIVE, which means that it may contain a lot more emotion than your standard news report. For example, an editorial piece published by William Lyon Mackenzie’s newspaper (remember him?) would’ve contained lots of reform and quite possibly outright rebellious comments. Put yourself in the perspective of either an English or French speaking editor (in Canada West or East) and pick a certain political party to associate yourself with. You may also write from the perspective of someone from a particular province after Confederation has been achieved and offer your own thoughts and opinions on the union.