Canada

I: BACKGROUND

Part 5: History of Canada with a Spotlight on the Province of Québec

Introduction:
By using postage stamps, this lesson adds an engaging visual component to the study of Canadian history, thus reinforcing the facts found on a timeline. This lesson focuses on history, but it could easily be adapted to focus on art, literature, science and technology, nature, or popular culture.

Overview:
Postage stamps are a visual medium through which to explore history. Janet Hoaglund created a lesson (see resources section), geared toward junior high and high school students, based on a series of stamps commemorating Japan 's history during the years 1940-1945. Her lesson, which explores the concept of national memory, serves as a jumping off point for a study of Canadian history. In her lesson students begin by discussing the difference between private and public memory, then they will examine a U.S. stamp series and a Japanese stamp series to explore the way a country memorializes events in its history. Her lesson inspired the lesson that follows, which utilizes stamps to examine history and culture in a broader sense.

Procedure:

1. Students should begin by considering (perhaps through a freewriting activity) who determines the important events in a country's history. How are these events chosen? What criteria are used? In their opinion, what are the most significant events of U.S. history? Of the past year's history? Of their school or community's history? Once students have discussed their choices, ask them to discuss their decision-making process. What criteria did they use?
2. You may want to explain to students that stamps often commemorate the most important historical events, cultural icons, natural wonders and popular culture of the United States. Have students look at the Smithsonian Institute's Postal Museum (see resources section) Web site to view the stamps pictured there. Have students compare the most significant events they chose with the United States Postal Service's selections. What criteria does the postal service seem to be using to choose stamps? How does the postal service handle controversial events or people?
3. Next, have students look at a timeline of Canadian history (see resources section). You may want to have students get into groups and divide up the timelines, giving each group a segment. As students look through the timelines at the events included, which would they choose as most significant? If they were on a committee to create stamps of Canadian history, what events would they select? Ask each group to pick three events that they would commemorate in a stamp. Ask them to also prepare an explanation, either oral or written, to defend their choices of events and an explanation of how they arrived at this decision. Teachers may also want each group to create a stamp for one or all of the events selected, or in an interdisciplinary project, the stamps could be created in an art class.
4. In order for the whole class to learn more about Canada 's history, groups should present their choices and explanations (and stamps if they created them) with the class. Once students have finished teachers may want to explore some follow-up questions that ask students to consider whether, given that they have less knowledge about the history of Canada, it was easier or more difficult to choose the significant historical events. Did they apply the same decision-making process to the U.S as they did to Canada ? Do they think that there are cultural differences in national memory? If students actually created a stamp, they might want to talk about the difficulties of condensing a historical event into a small space. Did students show multiple perspectives of an event? How did they deal with controversial events?
5. As a follow-up activity, students can look at images of Canadian stamps to see how the Canadian postal service has selected and depicted events from Canadian history (see resources section), or they can discuss how the subjects of Canadian stamps differ from the subjects of stamps in the U.S. An interesting comparison might occur between U.S. and Canadian stamps from the years 1940-1945. (See Janet Hoaglund's lesson for further exploration of this topic.)

Extensions:
Depending on time and age level, students could

• research the U.S. Postal Service's criteria for stamp selection
• create a stamp or series of stamps based on significant events or people in Québec 's history
• create a stamp of an important event in U.S history
• create a stamp or stamp series of important events in the school, community, or state's history
• write a letter to the U.S. postal service asking for a particular event to be considered for commemoration as a stamp
• begin collecting stamps from other countries
• invite a community member who collects stamps to present his or her collection to the class

Resources:
(Links will open in new windows.)

Timelines of Canada
Four timelines of Canadian history prepared by Christine Hastie, which contain links within sections to expanded information and images:
Prehistory to 1710
1711-1811
1812-1910
1911 to present

A timeline of the 100 Greatest Events in Canadian History.

The Web site for the CBC's seventeen episode series “Canada: A People's History” includes a timeline of historical events included in each episode.

Spotlight on Québec

Three timelines of Québec's history
New France (1524-1763)
Lower Canada (1763-1867)
Province of Québec (1867 to present)

Images of Stamps from the U.S. and Canada
The Smithsonian Institute's United States Postal Museum site contains many images in the exhibition section.

The educator resources page from the United States Postal Museum, which includes many unit and lesson plans involving stamps and letter writing.

The Canadian Postal Archives contains images of stamps from 1851 to the present as well as a history of stamp usage, art, production, and preservation in Canada. Several thematic collections of stamps images are contained in the Exhibition section.

DGL Philatelics: a Web site devoted to early Canadian stamps with several image collections.

The Web site of the Royal Philatelic Society of Canada includes several virtual exhibits of Canadian stamps organized by subject.

Postcard Geography: this lesson uses postcards, not stamps, to teach geography and culture.