Project 1: Les Fêtes Françaises
The purpose of this project is to create a learning resource unit for core French and French Immersion students around the theme "French Holiday's and Celebrations". This theme arises from two objectives. First, the province's course of study for French at this grade level mandates that students be exposed to cultural aspects of French society. Secondly, as part of our school's intention as a Global School, we wish to broaden our students' perspectives of other societies and cultures. During this unit, students will study distinctively French holidays and celebrations in the Francophone world. They will collect information from a variety of sources including the Internet. From this data they will create information, graphics and video clips which they will post to a Web Page for this purpose. We are quite confident that a Web Page containing this information will be unique and of use to Core French and French Immersion students in our province, Canada, and indeed the world. Both the Core French and French Immersion programmes in grade VIII stress the appreciation of cultural values in French societies. In particular, the Core French text Entre Amis (Deux), chapter 5, has a section on celebrations. Some of the particular celebrations referred to are la fête des voyageurs, la fête de Sainte Catherine, Noêl, le temps de sucre and le jour de la Bastille. This unit also complements other subject areas the students are dealing with during the year. For example, in the English programme, all grade VIII students take part in a resource-based unit on "Boundaries" which is directly based on a section of the students' text. In this unit, students learn of divisions which occur between people. One part of this unit deals with cultural separations. In Social Studies, grade VIII students study the geography and culture of Europe, and in this section the study of France is stressed. At the end of this unit, the students should have learned a great deal about the Internet. In particular they will be proficient at narrowing their searches and at evaluating their "hits". They should be able to download text, still images and video clips. The students should also gain proficiency in planning and adding to a Web Page. It is also anticipated that the students will develop a sensitivity to the variety of French cultures and will broaden their perspectives on their own cultural celebrations. The resource-based unit will employ a large variety of resources including audiotapes, videotapes, study prints, regalia (such as costumes), books, magazines, newspapers and of course the Internet. Part of the purpose of the unit is the creation of a resource which can be accessed and used by other students locally and globally. The evaluation of the content portion of this unit will be prepared as part of the resource-based unit and will follow the guidelines given in the course of study. The students' facility with the Internet will be assessed through observation while working with the students. The evaluation of the students' contribution to the Web Page will be based on both content and process.
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