Like many of you, I have spent the weekend processing how to address Friday evening’s terrorist attacks with my students tomorrow.  Although I consider myself a planner, this is not a lesson that can be planned.  As of this time, I do not know how much my students will understand about what happened, what questions they will have, and to what extent they have been affected by these horrible events.  So, although I won’t have a plan, I will have some resources available, and will decide how to implement them based on the needs of my students.

In order to show my students the extent to which people around the world have been affected by the events in Paris, I’ll probably show them these pictures:

http://www.npr.org/2015/11/14/456045436/photos-the-world-responds-to-the-paris-attacks?utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=npr&utm_term=nprnews&utm_content=2040

Depending on their interest, I’ll also show this video of Francois Hollande speaking (with English subtitles):http://www.nytimes.com/video/world/europe/100000004036880/french-president-on-paris-attacks.html?playlistId=100000004037210

I think that my students would also benefit from seeing Cecily Strong speak French, in Saturday Night Live’s intro:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJ_hoMig06M

In addition to these audio-visual resources, I have prepared both a French 1 and a French 2 comprehension guide  for this Astrapi article: Attentats-Paris

Finally, I will also encourage any interested students to express their condolences here: http://franceintheus.org/spip.php?article7170

In addition to curating these materials for my Novice students, I’ve chosen this post by Rick Steves to share with the families of the students who plan on traveling to France with me in March: http://blog.ricksteves.com/blog/dont-be-terrorized/

Image Credit: Jean Julien