{"id":415,"date":"2015-02-21T14:51:37","date_gmt":"2015-02-21T19:51:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/madameshepard.com\/?p=415"},"modified":"2016-02-22T14:01:34","modified_gmt":"2016-02-22T19:01:34","slug":"imperfect-unit-castles-novice-high-learners-part-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/madameshepard.com\/?p=415","title":{"rendered":"An \u201cImperfect\u201d Unit on Castles for Novice High Learners (Part 1)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"chateau\"<\/a>For most of my teaching career I’ve included a unit on castles in either French 2 or French 3.\u00a0 Most students seem inherently interested in this topic, and each year when I put up the bulletin board the older students comment on how much they liked the unit.\u00a0 When traveling with students, I often choose an itinerary that includes the Loire Valley so that the students are able to visit some of the castles that they learned about.<\/p>\n

While a lot of my former activities focused on teaching students to identify various Loire Valley castles and memorize facts about them, I changed the focus this year.\u00a0 Instead, the students will begin by learning about medieval\/fortified castles and what life was like during the Middle Ages.\u00a0 Time permitting we\u2019ll also study the Renaissance and the Loire Valley castles, but having five snow days has really taken a chunk out of the time that I had planned to spend on this unit.<\/p>\n

As you will see, I am also using this unit to introduce my students to the imperfect tense.\u00a0 These students worked with the pass\u00e9 compos\u00e9 during their school and Martinique unit, so I feel like they\u2019re ready for an introduction to the imperfect.\u00a0 At the same time, I want to give them additional opportunities to become more accurate with the pass\u00e9 compos\u00e9, so I\u2019ve included activities that will enable them to use each tense, although I won\u2019t be focusing on using them together quite yet.<\/p>\n

Here are the lessons that I’ve prepared so far:\u00a0Castle Unit<\/a><\/p>\n

#1 Fortified Castles<\/strong> (2 days) Students will read a few pages from a French children\u2019s book (p. 4\/5<\/a>,\u00a0p. 6\/7<\/a>,\u00a0p. 8\/9<\/a>)\u00a0and complete an IPA-style interpretive task.\u00a0 After a short \u201cFocus on Form\u201d activity designed to focus their attention on the verbs in the reading, they will interview a partner about his\/her childhood using the verbs that appeared in the reading. They will then complete a Venn diagram comparing their childhood to their partner\u2019s.\u00a0 Next, they will watch an authentic video about medieval castles and complete a true\/false interpretive activity.\u00a0 Due to the difficulty of the video, this will be a whole class activity in which I project the video and pause it when necessary to discuss the responses.<\/p>\n

#2 Castle Life<\/strong> (2-3 days) In this lesson the students will read another section from the same children\u2019s book (p. 10, 11<\/a>,\u00a0p. 12\/13<\/a>, pp. 18,19<\/a>)\u00a0 and complete another IPA-style interpretive task, along with a corresponding \u201cFocus on Form\u201d activity.\u00a0 They will also interview a partner using the new verbs that were presented in the text.\u00a0 As a follow up activity, they will fill in a Venn diagram comparing their own childhood to that of a child in the Middle Ages.\u00a0 Next, they will watch a video and complete a true\/false activity.\u00a0 As with the previous lesson, this will be a whole group activity.\u00a0 Due to the content of the readings in this lesson, I included an additional presentational task in which the students will write a journal entry for a medieval teen who has attended a feast.\u00a0 I hope that by including this activity the students will begin to develop an idea of the differences between the two tenses.\u00a0 I will answer questions as they come up, but will not inductively present a lesson on these differences.<\/p>\n

#3 Castle Defense<\/strong> (2-3 days) This lesson will also begin with an IPA-style interpretive task over pages from the children\u2019s book (p. 20\/21<\/a>,\u00a0p. 22\/23<\/a>,\u00a0p. 24\/25<\/a>p. 26\/27<\/a>)\u00a0. They will then use the information they learned to write a journal entry for a lord whose castle has just been attacked.\u00a0 Next, they will watch another video and complete an information gap<\/a> in which they describe a series of knight portraits.\u00a0Following this activity, they will write another journal entry, this time for a knight who has just won a jousting match.<\/p>\n

I think these lessons will increase my students knowledge about the medieval period and they might even learn a bit of grammar along the way.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For most of my teaching career I’ve included a unit on castles in either French 2 or French 3.\u00a0 Most students seem inherently interested in this topic, and each year when I put up the bulletin board the older students comment on how much they liked the unit.\u00a0 When traveling with students, I often choose […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[27],"class_list":["post-415","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-french-2-units","tag-castles-imperfect"],"yoast_head":"\nAn \u201cImperfect\u201d Unit on Castles for Novice High Learners (Part 1) - Madame's Musings<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/madameshepard.com\/?p=415\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"An \u201cImperfect\u201d Unit on Castles for Novice High Learners (Part 1) - 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