Glastonbury Foreign Language Program
Curricular Unit: Literature in the New World (French)
Grade: 9
Subject/Topic Area(s): Quebec , Haiti , Guadeloupe, Martinique , poetry, legends, novels, short stories, nursery rhymes
Key Words: Conte, conteur, poète, poème, vers, strophe, rime, auteurs, histoire, récit, raconter, narrer, comptines, la negritude, Aimé Césaire, Patrick Chamoiseau, Maryse Condé, Franz Fanon, Léon Damas, créole, Edwidge Danticat
Standards:
Major standards— 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, 2.1, 2.2, 3.1, 3.2, 4.1, 4.2, 5.1, 5.2
Supporting standards—
Brief Summary of Unit (including curricular context and unit goals):
The major goal of the unit is to read literature from the New World . Students will read, discuss and recite.
Number of days for activity: 15
Materials and resources (including technology and multimedia):
• Poems: “Neige” Anne Hébert, Tous les poèmes , Longman
• “Les soirs d'hiver” – Leclerc
• « Ma Louisianne » - Zachary Richard
• Song: “Mon pays” – Vigneault in Le grand cerf-volant, Nouvelles Editions de l'Arc, p. 159
• Légendes du Québec , Fondation des Economusée du Québec
• Websites www.poesie.com
• Fleur de Lis, Antologie d'écrits du Canada Français, Toronto: Copp Clark Pitman LTD
• Littérature Québécoise, Textes et Méthodes, Montreal: Editions Hurtubise HMH Ltée, p 216-217 ( Mon Pays , Gilles Vigneault)
• Discovering French, D.C. Heath, “Deux Martiniquais célèbres” pp. 336-337
• “Hoquet” (poem by Léon Damas): Bravo!, third edition, Heinle & Heinle, p. 80-84
• “Les Damnés de la Terre” F. Fanon
• Open Gate: An Anthology of Haitian Creole Poetry, Dr. Leslie Desmangles (Curbstone Press)
• Novel (extracts): Breath, Eyes, Memory, Edwidge Danticat (Haitian memoire in English)
Identifying Desired Results
• What essential questions will guide this unit and focus teaching/learning?
What recurring sources of inspiration do we see in the literature of the new world?
How is Francophone literature similar to or different from that of the USA ?
What does the literature reveal about the Francophone people from the new world?
• What enduring understandings are desired?
Student will understand...
How the literature of the Francophone new world is a reflection of its geography and national character?
How literature is important in expressing French cultural heritage?
• What key knowledge and skills will students acquire as a result of this unit?
Students will know…
Names and works of important literary figures
Some common themes in French literatureStudents will be able to…
Read and understand literary samples
Read and pronounce accurately poems from France
Vocabulary:
Conversational French
Slang
Children's vocabulary, expressions
Grammar:
Re-introduce passé compose and imparfait in text and in listening
Practice passé compose with être and avoir
Review object pronouns
Introduce plus-que-parfait and passé simple for recognition
Review partitives (6-8 th grade)
Placement of adjectives (before and after noun)
Introduce gerund
Review reflexive verbs
Conditional
Prepositions
Future
• What do they already know that will help them learn new information? Where and when did they learn it?
Present tense (6 th -8 th ) passé compose (8 th ), imparfait (9 th ), indirect object pronouns (9 th )
Knowledge of poetry in English (7 th , 8 th grades)
Determining acceptable evidence
• What evidence will show that students understand?
Performance Tasks:
Read and recite rimes
Read and discuss poems, short stories, scenes from play, extract of novel
Answer questions on the play
Record rimes and poems after listening to native speaker
Quizzes, Tests, Prompts, Work Samples:
Work sample: Students record themselves reciting/reading the rimes, poems for proper pronunciation
Unprompted Evidence (observations, dialogues):
recognition of rimes
discussion
Student Self-Assessment:
compare their pronunciation of poem with the voice on the tape
Lessons:
• Reading , comparing of rimes, listening and recitation, taping
• Reading and discussion of poems, recitation
• Read and discuss short story, answer questions in French
• Read and discuss scenes from play, do questions, write a short scene using expressions from the play, satirizing an everyday situation in a different place (post office, school, café)
• Participation in COLT Poetry Contest (one student)
• Read and discuss selection from Deux Martiniquais and answer questions
Links to Relevant Web Sites:
Assessment Blueprint (Performance Tasks)
Task Title:
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Standards:
Purpose: check those that apply Formative – Summative –
Description of Task:
Evidence of desired understanding:Criteria of judgment:
Evaluative Tools: check those that apply
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Holistic Rubric –
Criterion (performance) list –
Checklist –
Assessment Blueprint (Other Evidence)
• What is being assessed?
• Describe the assessment.
• What is the purpose of the assessment?
• Criteria of judgment/evaluative tools: