While I aspire to create engaging lessons for my students, I rarely use suspense as a hook. The 2010 movie Une Vie de chat (A Cat in Paris), however, instills a sense of excitement in its very plot line - a quality that I find rare in films for children. There are some interesting characters (a police captain mom, a silent daughter, a "good" thief) and lots for beginning students to discuss: what will happen next? why does the daughter get her voice back? how can the police captain fall in love with the burglar? There are some great resources at this site which inspired my mini-unit and I've pinned all resources here. I spent 6 days on this film, which is a squeeze. My student Can-Dos for the unit are: I can name and describe the main characters in this film I can describe the overall story arc of the film I can summarize key scenes from the film I can talk about themes in the film My essential questions are: What makes someone good or evil? How do families change over time? I've made a packet with all my student materials for this unit here. It includes: 1. Listening guide for the trailer (regrettably, I can no longer figure out where I got this activity from - please let me know if you find it so that I can provide proper credit!) 2. Important vocabulary - words kids need to know in order to talk about the plot 3. Table to record information about key characters (I assign one character per student; then we do a jigsaw share at the end) 4. Activity from this site with descriptions of characters to match to their pictures 5. Just a few key questions about the film You can see my daily lesson plans here if you're interested. I spend the whole first day setting the scene, studying the trailer, and making predictions. I assign each student 1 character to "follow" and take notes on during the film and they share these notes in a jigsaw activity at the end of the unit. The next 3 days we watch about 20-25 minutes of the film each day (my classes last 45 minutes), stopping to discuss and ask questions. Days 5 includes mapping the story and making a fortune-teller to ask one another key questions about the film. Fortune-tellers are so easy to make using this template - I really recommend them and have Valerie Shull at Proficiency From The Start to thank for this idea! We watch an authentic video about how to fold a fortune-teller (thanks to Creative Language Class for the inspiration here) and then kids work in concentric circles, changing partners and asking each other the "big" questions about the film. The unit concludes on Day 6 with 3 stations, the last of which is an assessment:
1. Jigsaw share about characters using table in the packet 2. Play Celebrity (basically a combo of Taboo and Charades) with the vocabulary and characters 3. Write a paragraph about how Dino is the same and different from "regular" cats OR how Zoé changes during the film OR the main events of the film (for students who are still working on narrating in the past). We call this a fluency count and students try to write as much as possible in 10 minutes; they save all their writing in a folder to review throughout the year. The other film I teach in French 8 is Les Choristes. You can read about my mini-unit here.
11 Comments
Nicole
4/29/2016 07:54:43 am
Merci beaucoup! C'est fantastique!
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Lise
11/10/2016 08:27:12 pm
Merci beaucoup! Just out of curiosity, do you show the film with French or English subtitles?
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Hi Lise! I show all films in French with French subtitles (if available). Personally I don't see the motivation for the kids to listen to the French if there are English subtitles available. That said, I need to limit my choice of films to those that are readily understood through visuals and I need to pause frequently to make sure everyone's sticking with the big plot points (still in French, but I paraphrase and simplify). Bon courage!
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Donna Augusta
3/28/2018 08:54:59 am
Great packet to accompany the video! I used 2 pages just to check comprehension since I found it after the fact. Next year, I think I will use this unit in full. It works well with D'Accord 3 units 4 and 5, but at a level low enough for my non-honors French 3 students.
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Samy
5/1/2018 03:19:42 pm
This is awesome... I wonder if you have the smartboard file you use with your class?
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Isabelle
3/10/2020 04:06:30 pm
Bonjour tout le monde! C'est fantastique tout ce que vous partagez avec nous! Ou pouvons nous nous procurer le film? Merci
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3/10/2020 06:37:57 pm
Bonjour Isabelle! Le DVD est actuellement disponible sur Amazon avec des sous-titres en anglais. Bon visionnement!
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Isabelle Chaudoir
3/11/2020 01:50:23 pm
Merci 1000 fois!
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Margaret
2/23/2021 10:34:05 am
Beautifully put together! My students enjoyed working on this very much. However, I noticed that you have not linked the answers to the packet. If you could do that it would be a great help!
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