History Lesson Plan: 75 Minutes

The Winnipeg General Strike

Specific Objectives:
Attitudes: The student will:
-Develop a sympathetic understanding of the labour plight of the working
class in Canada after WWI.
Skills: The Student will:
-Discuss central issues around labour unions and strikes.
Knowledge: The Student will:
-Recall facts about The Winnipeg General Strike.
-Understand the various players in the labour movement and the resistance
to labour rights, and understand that these are common themes in history
that have played out time and time again.
Resources:
-Computer
-PowerPoint presentation on flash drive
-Students need pen and paper to take notes for class

Introductory Activity: 10 minutes

-Show various pictures on a PowerPoint slide of the protests during The
Winnipeg General Strike, but dont tell the students what they are of. Have a
classroom discussion about what these pictures might be showing?
Some questions to ask the class include:
1. What is happening here?
2. Who are these people?
3. What might they want?
4. Who are they upset with?

Development Strategies:
1.

10 minutes

The first slide I will show them will locate Winnipeg on a map and discuss the
lead up to the strike, including the term OBU (One Big Union), and why that
would become such an important strategy for the strikers.
2.

5 minutes

The first slide will outline the first of three major causes of The Winnipeg
General Strike. The soldiers will be the first point, and because we talked a
lot about them in the previous class, I think it is not too important to linger
on this point. A quick overview of the challenges they faced.
3.

25 minutes

-The second slide will be more interactive and include a group activity. I will
outline that working conditions was the second major contributing factor in
the case of the Winnipeg General Strike. -I will show a case example of the
conditions that cigar factory workers had to endure at the time.
-ACTIVITY:
I will then put the students into groups of around four. In their groups they
must make a list of demands they want their employer to change about their
working conditions and anything else they think they may want from their
employer. They are imagining that they work for the cigar factory that we
discussed earlier.
-After they are finished in their groups discussing and brainstorming what
changes they would like in their workplace, each group will share what they
came up with.
-After they are finished I will outline the main demands of what the workers
at the time wanted.
4.

5 minutes

I will then put up the next slide and talk about the third contributing factor of
Communist influences
5.

15 minutes

I will then show a YouTube video of the strike dramatized from the
series Canada: A Peoples History. I will show 10 minutes of the video and
then take up the answers using PowerPoint. I will put a graphic organizer on
the screen and get the students to fill it out collectively as a class.
Concluding Activity: 5 Minutes
I will ask the class a few questions to wrap up some of the ideas we
talked about. For example:
-Were the workers justified in their decision to go on strike?
-Was it worth it?
-Would you ever consider going on strike for working rights?
Methods of Evaluation:

Informal evaluation by observing students responses during class.

Evaluate how they work as a group during the labour conditions

activity. Do they actively participate in the generation of ideas to challenge
their corporate bosses?

Observe who gives answers while we take up the questions from the
video.
Follow Up:
The next class we will begin to look at brighter times as things started to look
up economically and how Canadian society was transformed in the 1920s.

Post Delivery Self-Reflection:

I am really pleased with how the opening discussion went. By showing a
bunch of pictures on my first PowerPoint slide of the Winnipeg General Strike
and getting them to guess at what they were seeing, we had some
interesting conversations. By asking some guided questions I felt we were
able to figure out not just what was going on, but understand what makes
people protest and resist power. However, they were a little quiet at first. My
associate insisted I keep pushing them before moving on, and sure enough
they did come around with a bit of prodding. My initial instinct was just to
leave it after not getting a lot of answers. I think I need to be a bit less fearful

of silence. My associate mentioned that they just need time to think. As well,
my associate mentioned that I should keep pushing them with rephrased
questions.
I was fairly happy with how this class went but there were a few things that I
was unsatisfied with. First I found that I should have put more information on
what a union was and explained a little on how labour unions work. I found
from the discussions that it was clear they were lacking some fundamental
knowledge that would have helped illuminate the issues if they had a firmer
grasp on the basics. I also want them to understand the powerful and
political act that is was for people to unionize. Just adding one extra slide
with some information should help address some of these issues.
I found that the activity on the fifth slide where they look at real working
conditions in a factory at the time and brain storm some demands they
would make on their employer was a fairly effective activity. However, I
found some of the students struggling to make it relevant to their lives. One
of the issues they seemed to be confused by was the rule at the cigar factory
that forbade hair combing. My associate teacher mentioned that maybe I
could compare it to checking your smartphone when you are not busy.
Maybe I could get them to imagine working at McDonalds and how they
would react to these rules and working conditions. Keep the same rules; just
change the workplace to help make it a little more familiar for the activity.
When we watched the video, I decided this time to not give them a graphic
organizer, but get them to take notes on the video. When it was over, I asked
them some questions and filled out a class graphic organizer on my
PowerPoint slide page. I really didnt think this was an effective strategy. A
lot of them had no idea of what to take notes on. There was too much
information coming at them from the video to self-select the most important
information. I think keeping it simple, giving them a graphic organizer and
then just taking up their answers is an easier and more fluid method.
My follow up questions were too hard on the last slide. The questions on the
final slide seemed to be a little too demanding. The questions were probably
a little too broad and it asked them to apply information that was just
delivered without much time to critically reflect.

History Lesson Plan: 75 Minutes

(Revised)

The Winnipeg General Strike

Specific Objectives:
Attitudes: The student will:
-Develop a sympathetic understanding of the labour plight of the working class in
Canada after WWI.
Skills: The Student will:
-Discuss central issues around labour unions and strikes.
Knowledge: The Student will:
-Recall facts about The Winnipeg General Strike
-Understand the various players in the labour movement and the resistance to
labour rights, and understand that these are common themes in history that have
played out time and time again.
Resources:
-Computer
-PowerPoint presentation on flash drive
-Students need pen and paper to take notes for class
-Graphic organizer to accompany video
Introductory Activity: 10 minutes
-Show various pictures on a PowerPoint slide of the protests during The Winnipeg
General Strike, but dont tell the students what they are of. Have a classroom
discussion about what these pictures might be showing?
Make sure to asked flexible guided questions here beyond what is just on
the slide. If pushed a little they should be able to come up with some
information that can be useful for the lesson. Dont just abandon this part
if there is a little bit of silence keep asking.
Some questions to ask the class include:
1. What is happening here?
2. Who are these people?
3. What might they want?
4. Who are they upset with?
Development Strategies:
1. 5 minutes
The first slide will provide some vital background information about
unions and their power. I will define what a labour union is and will
also include a chart that has some figures. The students will be

required to look at the chart and draw some conclusions based on

the information provided. The key to the chart is to get them to
make the link to between union membership and wages, the higher
the membership in Canada, the higher the wages. As membership
goes up, wages follow, when membership goes down, wages go
down.
Questions to include on the slide:
In which years was union membership the highest?
In which years were hourly wages the highest?
What do unions have the power to do?
2. 5 Minutes
In the second slide I will locate Winnipeg on a map and discuss the lead up to
the strike, including the term OBU (One Big Union), and why that would
become such an important strategy for the strikers.
3.

5 minutes
Because some of the information in this slide will have been
discussed yesterday, a quick check to see how much they remember
could be useful here. In this way you can adjust your lecture. If they
seem to remember most of it you can quickly go over this part, or
otherwise maybe spend a bit of extra time here if they seem to have
forgotten the core points.
The third slide will outline the first of three major causes of The Winnipeg
General Strike. A quick overview of the challenges they faced.

2. 25 minutes
-The second slide will be more interactive and include a group activity. I will
outline that working conditions was the second major contributing factor in
the case of the Winnipeg General Strike. -I will show a case example of the
conditions that cigar factory workers had to endure at the time.
-ACTIVITY:
I will then put the students into groups of around four. In their groups they
must make a list of demands they want their employer to change about their
working conditions and anything else they think they may want from their
employer. They are imagining that they work for McDonalds, but they
have the same working conditions as the cigar factory workers in the
1920s. Everything is the same except the rule prohibiting hair
combing is now replaced with a rule that forbids checking smart
phones.
-After they are finished in their groups discussing and brainstorming what
changes they would like in their workplace, each group will share what they
came up with.
-After they are finished I will outline the main demands of what the workers at
the time wanted.

3. 5 minutes
I will then put up the next slide and talk about the third contributing factor of
Communist influences
5.
15 minutes
I will then show a YouTube video of the strike dramatized from the series
Canada: A Peoples History. I will show 10 minutes of the video and then take
up the answers using PowerPoint. Hand out a graphic organizer that they
should fill out during the video.
Concluding Activity: 5 Minutes
I will get the students to do an exit ticket asking the following
questions instead of answering the questions as a class.
For example:
-Were the workers justified in their decision to go on strike?
-Was it worth it?
-Would you ever consider going on strike for working rights?

Methods of Evaluation:

Informal evaluation by observing students responses during class.

Evaluate how they work as a group during the labour conditions activity. Do
they actively participate in the generation of ideas to challenge their
corporate bosses?
Observe who gives answers while we take up the questions from the video.
Look at their exit tickets to see how they handled the questions and
see if the next day could warrant a little more discussion on the
issue.

Follow Up:
The next class we will begin to look at brighter times as things started to look up
economically and how Canadian society was transformed in the 1920s.