Reflections and Summary Final Examination Thursday, 8 December 2011 9:00 - 11:30 am Location: SJU 3014 Worth 35% of final course grade The final exam will be 2.5 hours long Section A consists of two short-answer identifications, to be selected from a list of options, drawn from the course material SINCE THE MIDTERM. (2 x 5% = 10%) In Section B, you will answer one long-essay question (from a list of four options), drawn from the course material SINCE THE MIDTERM. (10%) In class, I gave you the questions in advance for section C (worth 15% of your final grade).  You must write an essay based upon one of the following five questions (1/5) dealing with material covered in the entire course.  Be sure to develop a thesis and an argument. 1. Poet Irving Layton once remarked: "A Canadian is someone who keeps asking the question, 'What is a Canadian?'" Indeed, Canadian identity has been described as a "work in progress." How have different visions of Canadian nationalism shaped the country since Confederation? 2. Every individual possesses multiple, overlapping identities – some even live "dual lives." How have individuals' identities and personalities influenced Canadian public life (from politics to the arts) since Confederation? 3. "I think that an historians' chief interest is in character and circumstance. His [or her] concern is to discover the hopes, fears, anticipations and intentions of the individuals and nations he is writing about." Donald Creighton in Character and Circumstance (1970). Discuss this statement, using at least three examples from the course. 4. Based on the prime ministers that we have studied in this class, who was the most successful since Confederation? What did he achieve, and what characteristics made him successful? What makes this prime minister better than the others? 5. George Woodcock has written that "Canadians do not like heroes, and so they do not have them.  They do not even have great men [or women] in the accepted sense of the word." Charles Taylor has added that "More than most peoples, Canadians are prejudiced in favour of the ordinary.... It might also be said that something in us hates a hero.  Despite this reluctance to acknowledge greatness in our midst, it is nevertheless clear that we have produced some remarkable people whose qualities often verge on the heroic."  Do you agree with these assessments and explanations?  Why or why not?  Use the biographies of at least four people we have studied this term to justify your answer.  Students might want to review a brief overview of Canadian history from 1919-present taken from the Canadian Encyclopedia to get a broad sense of developments that we have explored through the biographies in class. It is available in PDF format. [LINK] An additional reading on Trudeau and Levesque can be accessed at: http://www.lackenbauer.ca/Hist103/cook.pdf Back to Lecture Outline