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Preamble
So many students who come through this course say something to the effect of, “why am I just learning about all of this now?”
This assignment invites you to share your knowledge with high school students who have been denied the opportunity to learn about Canada’s colonial past and present. YOU can help change things by researching a Call to Action and sharing your learning with others.
If you want to and are comfortable, you can share your project on a website called Nàbowàdjige: Our Calls to Action. The first time I taught Truth and Reconciliation, students helped me name the website. Since then, students from various semesters have helped me fill it with important information about the current progress of the 94 Calls to Action.
However, you are by no means obligated to contribute to the website. This is a personal choice and whatever you choose to do, I fully respect your decision. If working with a partner, it’s important that both of you are happy with the decisions related to sharing, so be sure to talk it out with them before completing the self-assessment for this assignment.
Before You Start
Here’s an overview of the pre-work / pre-thinking you’ll need to complete before you start actually writing the assignment:
- If you skipped reading the Calls to Action last unit, read them now!!!
- Pick one of the Calls to Action that you’re interested in exploring further. This might be one of the Calls that you identified in your Reflection #2, or you can pick a different Call entirely – follow your heart. If your Call to Action has multiple parts to it, you can pick one of the parts to investigate, or you can focus on the entire Call. Your choice.
- Your target audience for this assignment is high-school-aged young adults, persons aged 13 – 21. I suggest that you avoid fancy, technical words, and make an effort to incorporate images, audio, and video to help hold their attention. Not all young people are interested in reading long documents. Spend some time thinking about how to design your assignment in a way that will hold the interest of your youthful target audience. You are very free to create audio, video, and/or visual presentations for this assignment. If you prefer to stick to a written submission, that’s great too!
- Think about how public you want to be with the final product of this assignment. Your options include:
- Sharing just with me via the assignment drop box
- Sharing anonymously via our public-facing website
- Sharing using a false name(s) or alias via our public-facing website
- Sharing using your actual name(s) via our public-facing website
- If you decide to contribute to our website, I also want you to think about the types of permissions you are comfortable attaching to your assignment. Can people who find your project on our website:
- Read, watch, or listen to it; changing nothing
- Read, revise, remix, and redistribute your work as long as they give you credit for the original and don’t use your work to make money
- Read, revise, remix, redistribute and profit financially from your work as long as they give you credit for the original
Writing the Assignment
Okay! Now that you’ve thought through some of the larger questions, let’s move on to the specific requirements of the project. To keep things cohesive, and to help you manage your workload, I’d like everyone to follow a similar outline, as follows:
Give it a Title!
Please give your assignment a title. It can allude to the specific call to action, or it can be something more creative.
Find a Cover Image
Please search for an open-source image to accompany your assignment. Look for something that’s a good fit for your topic. You can find open-source images on www.unsplash.com.
Section One: Introduce the Author (That’s You!)
Start your assignment by introducing yourself to your audience. You can achieve this by answering some or all of the questions below, adding whatever information you feel is relevant. Feel free to include personal photos, to record some audio, or to create a short video. The purpose here is to help your audience understand who you are as a person. Only share to the degree that you’re comfortable with.
- Who are you?
- What’s your background?
- What program are you taking?
- Why did you select Truth and Reconciliation as one of your General Elective courses?
- What are your future career aspirations?
- If you want, you can share other personal information too: kids, pets, interests, hobbies – you get the idea.
Section Two: Introduce the Call to Action
In this section, I’d like you to spend some time explaining which Call to Action you’ve selected and why it is personally / professionally important to you. Then go on to explain why that particular Call to Action should be important to all persons living in Canada, and how it connects to Canada’s legacy of colonial harm. Assume that your audience knows nothing about the TRC, Canada’s settler colonialism, or even about the residential school system. Explain the context as much as you think you need to in order for your audience to understand and appreciate the significance of the Call to Action.
Section Three: Progress Update
Next, I’d like you to review three different sources to get a sense of the progress that is being made (or not made) on your Call to Action. First, go to this website, called Beyond the 94, find the Call to Action that you selected, and see if the Call is considered to be “Not started,” “In progress – proposed,” “In progress – underway,” or “Complete”.
Next, compare your findings with the Indigenous Watchdog’s 94 Calls to Action List. Find your specific Call to Action, then select “Learn More” for an expanded list of statistics, updates, etc.
Finally, compare your findings from the Beyond the 94 website and from Indigenous Watchdog to the Yellowhead Institute’s Calls to Action Accountability: A 2022 Status Update on Reconciliation.
Please end this section with your personal opinion about the progress on your Call to Action specifically, and on all of the 94 Calls to Action more generally. Find your voice! Assert it here! Debwewin (truth)!
Section Four: Celebrate the Good Work
This is the section I’m most excited for! Finally, a celebration. I want you to do some web research to find a person, group, organization, charity, movement, or some other example of real humans who are doing good work to support the Call to Action that you selected. This doesn’t need to be a government organization; grassroots efforts are just as important (if not more so) to share and acknowledge. Use this section to celebrate and honour their work as you see fit. If you’re stuck here, don’t hesitate to reach out to me for ideas and guidance. I’m happy to help.
Section Five: Call for More
Okay, so I’m a high school student reading your assignment. You’ve told me about yourself, described a Call to Action, shared about the progress so far, and shared a specific example of how a person or persons are working to achieve the Call. Now what?
I’d like you to end your assignment with a strong and direct call for more. Where can your audience go to learn more? Include some relevant links to readings, videos, websites, etc. Please don’t just dump a bunch of links on a slide, explain to your audience why they should spend time learning more, and what those particular resources can offer them.
Additionally, describe what actions your audience can take to get personally involved. Include specific suggestions. Since this assignment is all about learning about the Calls to Action, it seems appropriate to end with your own Calls to Action!
For your conclusion, feel free to share a personal reflection related to what you’ve learned about the Call to Action you researched. If you’d like, you can also include a direct statement to the Canadian government or other agencies or organizations named in your Call to Action, urging them to do more. Get critical. Don’t hold back! You started with your personal voice. Let’s end the same way.
Success Criteria
I’ll grade the assignment out of 30 marks. Do 8 things to earn 16/30. Do 10 things to earn 20/30. Do all of the things to achieve a perfect mark. Try to go big on this one! It’s worth 30% of your final mark.
| Mark | Action |
| Includes a complete list of references (this is mandatory though ungraded)! Completes the self-assessment associated with this assignment (mandatory as I need to know your preferences for sharing) | |
| 2 | Includes an introduction to the author(s) that is interesting and inviting |
| 4 | Enhances the self-introduction with a photo, illustration, audio clip, or video |
| 6 | Clearly identifies one specific Call to Action |
| 8 | Clearly explains why the selected Call to Action is personally and/or professionally important to the author(s) |
| 10 | Clearly identifies why the Call to Action should be important to all persons living in Canada |
| 12 | Explicitly connects the Call to Action to Canada’s colonial legacy, to the legacy of the residential school system, and/or to the work of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada |
| 14 | Provides a progress update on the specific Call to Action, identifying whether the call is not started, in progress (proposed), in progress (underway) or complete |
| 16 | Identifies the work of one specific person, group, organization, charity, or movement that is working to support the selected Call to Action |
| 18 | Explains the significance of the identified person, group, organization, charity or movement in supporting reconciliation in Canada |
| 20 | Enhances section three with a photo, illustration, audio clip, or video found on the internet (appropriately cited – I can help with this part) |
| 22 | Includes a specific and direct call to action that invites high school students to learn more |
| 24 | Includes a specific and direct call to action that invites high school students to get involved |
| 26 | Writes in an authentic, personal voice (use of the first person is strongly encouraged) |
| 28 | Proofreads the submission to eliminate distracting errors like typos and spelling mistakes |
| 30 | Put some heart into it! <3 |
Submitting Your Work
- Complete the Self-Assessment, which includes important questions about your preferences related to sharing
- Submit your project to the Final Project drop box
Academic Integrity
Last but not least, please remember that Academic Integrity is important. You are meant to complete this assignment using your own skills. Copying from existing websites, from other students who previously completed the course, or using technology to basically do the entire assignment for you is not aligned with the learning goals of this course, or with Cambrian’s institutional values.
Let’s end our time together in a good, honest, respectful way! Meegwetch. <3