By Gerri (Madame DeFarge), Kelly (The Malevolent Fairy), Josiah (Chubdaddy), and Kendall (Squirtle)

What happened: Pre, mid, and post exercises. The pre-practices were done in groups of four. In the presets we got background info about France and prefaced vocab in  the story with a memory game. French pronunciation of difficult words in the story was also practiced. Students were asked to discuss polemic moral questions with respect to the story were as part of the preset.

During the actual reading, pairs chose a role in the story (male or female) and read aloud their respective dialogue and descriptive paragraphs. After completing the first two pages of reading, the team was asked to answer reading comprehension and predictive questions about the story. This was discussed as a group.The teacher then handed out the final two pages, which could be read aloud as before, or silently. During the post reading, students were asked to reflect on the predictions and reflect on their previous responses to the polemic moral questions. Alternate follow-up activities included drawing, role playing, personal writing, and reflection.

Observations:

1st activity (putting dates in order): If we were to use the background framing activity, background discussion would possibly be needed. If learning was content based, the events could have been shuffled. If previous history knowledge is unknown, or not  the goal, leave it alone and keep events in order.

2nd activity (vocabulary memory game): The game masked learning vocabulary, and got students to memorize vocab. Instructions for the game need to be clear and explained beforehand, as any discrepancies in game play can distract from learning (and fun).

3rd activity (pronunciation review): While we found this useful as native speakers of English, in a classroom where French is not the target language we thought that reviewing the pronunciation of a third language could be confusing.

4th activity (discussion questions): This activity supports opinion based discussion. People are more likely to take more risks and speak when a topic is controversial.

5th activity (mid reading predictions): Reading out loud allowed from pronunciation practice, reading, speaking, and allowed students to critique and support each other. Prediction questions were useful in checking group comprehension and facilitating discussion.

6th activity (post reading comprehension): Reading comprehension was checked through reflections and predictions. The question brought to light the Figurative speech and irony in the text, which is not easily recognizable with language learners.