IEW en français!

Img by Jonathan Reyes, used under attribution-noncommercial license

The curriculum we use for the writing program at Veritas is called Institute for Excellence in Writing (or IEW) and the program steadily teaches children how to write by having them rewrite paragraphs incorporating stylistic techniques as they go. In this way, the program teaches students the style and technique of writing while removing the pressure to invent original, creative content simultaneously. As students mature, less content is supplied by the teacher (or article or whatever) and more content is generated by the student. It’s a very useful program that makes writing easy for kids, especially boys who are primarily concerned with fort-making. 

Since I have to teach this program to my students, I’ve been immersed in it for the last couple of weeks, trying to wrap my mind around the concepts and then how to divide them up into teachable chunks. (The joys of lesson planning!) One of IEW’s primary techniques is the keyword outline (KWO). To make a KWO, one simply writes down three (3) key words from each sentence of the assigned paragraph on a piece of paper. When finished you discard the original paragraph and write a new paragraph using only the key words you wrote down to remember what it was about. Some sentences you may remember perfectly, while others may come out quite differently from the original. Then you add in pretty little techniques called “dress-ups” which give your writing a little flare. Between the dress-ups and the key words, students often write better, more interesting paragraphs and stories than the originals they were given! The whole technique is fascinating.

But it didn’t occur to me until today, “Hey! I wonder if the same techniques can be applied to foreign languages!” The answer is: yes, they can! With a little google searching, I found some Aesop’s fables written in French and made a KWO of "D’un Rat de Ville, et d’un Rat de Village" which I then rewrote in French. The result for any fellow French-learners was the following:

via Shanaweb.net

D’un Rat de Ville, et d’un Rat de Village

                Un jour, un Rat de Ville est allé du chez de un Rat de Village pour un repas. Le repas a été frugal et modeste, avec seul racines et noisettes et un peu légumes. Quand Rat de Ville est parti, son hôte promit visiter la maison de Rat de Ville. Rat de Village est arrivé à chez de Rat de Ville, mais il n’a pas habité dans une maison, il a habité dans un palais !! Rat de Ville a présenté un magnifique repas de très cher confitures et fromages, mais ses valets a continué interrompre le repas encore et encore, causaient Rat du Village beaucoup d’angoisse et de crainte. Malheureusement, le Rat du Village n’a pas plu l’extravagant repas alors il dit, « Je préfère un repas frugal avec paix et liberté contre abondance avec les dangers d’estrangers venaient et allaient. » 

Of course there are a few errors, but that is okay ! There are three things I am most proud of in this piece:

1) Use of passé compose with être (which is what I'd set out to practice today)

2) "Mais il n’a pas habité dans une maison, il a habité dans un palais!!" (“But he didn’t live in a house, he lived in a palace!” This detail was not in the original; I made it up!)

3) the adjectives in this phrase, “très cher confitures et fromages” 

I must say, I am elated to find new applications for this curriculum! For if you think about it, literary techniques are similar in use and purpose across many languages; they just look different. (For example, the dress-up “-ly adverb” would be a “-ment adverbe” in French, which there is one in the story above.) I am very excited to explore this new avenue of French and writing and I can’t wait to do more with it!