|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|||||||||
|
|
|
|
|
|
|||||
|
|
|
|
|
|
|||||
|
|
|
||||||||
|
|
|
||||||||
|
|
|
||||||||
Syllabus & homework assignments
|
 |
|
Calixthe Beyala, La Petite Fille du réverbère.
Azouz Begag, Le Gone du Chaâba.
Simone Schwarz-Bart, Pluie et vent sur Télumée
Miracle.
Mouloud Feraoun, Le Fils du Pauvre.
All 4 novels should be available at Georgia Tech's bookstore.
Your WebCT account.
Your syllabus and detailed assignments at http://www.prism.gatech.edu/~nc44/.
Présentations des étudiants en Power Point.
Recommandé mais pas obligatoire:
Larousse Chambers Français Anglais English French CD Rom PC
Petit Larousse 2003 sur Cd-Rom
|
|
The main feature of this class is reading, as you may expect. Reading a foreign language is an efficient way to become more proficient in that language. It also allows you to discover the culture(s) where that language is spoken. It will help you develop all 4 skills: not only reading, but also writing, speaking and listening. You will write essays, which will improve your writing skills and help you use the words you discover during your reading, helping you make the transition from passive understanding to an active use of the language. This will improve your speech as well as your oral comprehension.
You will be asked to read and write for each class. Failing to read the texts would sabotage you from the start, so make sure you plan your readings in advance. Don't expect to be able to read 30-50 pages and write an essay the night before we meet. It would set you up for failure and frustration. Try to read between 12 and 20 pages at a time, on a daily basis — and enjoy it! All page numbers are clearly indicated on the syllabus. I would suggest that you try to get some of those readings done in advance, when you still have the time.
Each day of class, you will turn in an assignment and participate in group discussions as well as class discussions. Once again, make sure that you have read the texts to be ready to engage in such discussions. Via these discussions, you will have the opportunity to improve your oral skills.
Participation: 10%
Assignments: 30%
Online Chats: 5%
Presentation: 5%
Exam 1: 12.5%
Exam 2: 12.5%
Exam 3: 12.5%
Exam 4: 12.5%
Participation. You are expected to volunteer and be eager to participate. Above all, you are expected to speak FRENCH ONLY. Leave the English language at the door. There are 168 hours in a week. We meet three hours a week, i.e., a 56th of your time! Now, if you don't use the opportunities you have, or if you use English among yourselves instead of French, you further reduce the time you have to speak French! Class participation will be graded on how much you speak, not how well you speak. So don't worry and just speak up!
Homework. You are expected to read the texts as indicated on the syllabus. You are also expected to turn the assignments in at the beginning of class (just leave it on my desk as you come in. It will save me several minutes of class time). To encourage you to do your work on time, and thus to help you succeed in this class, there will be a 20 point deduction per day of class that the homework is late. If the work is turned in after the class, even that same day, you will lose 20 points. If it is turned in after the next class period, you lose 40 points. Late homework is not accepted any more after one week. In the assignments, there will be two types of questions: 1) Short answer questions designed to check that you have read the texts and also designed to guide you in the text. Don't waste your time giving me long answers for those. Just be specific to show that you have read the text. 2) A couple of long answer questions to check that you have understood the text and some of its less obvious meanings. For these, do your best (write more) but don't worry. I want to see how you're thinking. There is no correct answer to those questions. Just your mind at work.
Each one of you will have to do a presentation. Priority for dates will be given to those who are willing to do the presentations during the first 6 weeks of classes. For all others, names will be drawn at random. Those presentations are designed to help you:
This is an important assignment that will count for 5% of your total grade. Here's the schedule for your presentation:
Chats. Chats will give you the opportunity to communicate in French with a classmate, outside the class and at the time and location of your convenience. There are 4 chat rooms in our WebCT site. Use any of them, I will later download the script and give you a grade. BUT DON'T USE THE GENERAL CHAT ROOM: there is no script for that room and I wouldn't be able to give you a grade. All you have to do is make a virtual appointment with somebody from the class and meet them online, in any one of our 4 chat rooms, at the time of your convenience, before the deadline. Make sure that you complete the chat before the deadline. After the deadline, you lose 20 points a day up to one week. After one week, all chats will be downloaded.
Exams.There are 4 exams this semester and no final exam. The material is not conducive to comprehensive examination: our course is not a survey, it's rather an in-depth look at puzzling and challenging contemporary novels and at equally challenging literary theoreticians. We will therefore have 4 lengthy exams: expect each one of them to take a full hour. Make sure your wrists are in good shape those days because you will have to write quite a bit. But it should be fun as well as intellectually stimulating. As you may know, if you miss any of those exams, you also miss on those points (20% of the final grade each) unless allowed by a Dean. So mark them in your calendar now, and don't plan on doing anything else on those days.
You will be able to earn extra-credit points during the course of the semester (but not during the last week of classes or thereafter).
Extra-credit chats. Expand on the discussion with a classmate. All you have to do is clearly indicate "extra-credit chat" on the first entry in the chat room, and also indicate which part of the book under study or which themes for that book you are discussing.. Each extra-credit work assignment will be graded as follows:
Three extra points for outstanding work
Two extra points for excellent work
One point for good work
No extra points for so-so work
These points will be added to your participation/homework/chat grade (45% of the final grade). You can do as many as one per week, and none the last week of classes. 3 points of 45% is more than one full point towards your final grade. You can easily jump a full letter grade if you do them regularly. Note, however, that they will count only if you are turning your assignments on time.
Cultural events. At some point in the semester, we will plan on going to at least one cultural activity: movie, exhibit, depending on what Atlanta has to offer us at that point. It will be entirely optional and just a nice way to discover a little bit more about the French culture while socializing (en français, bien sûr). For those of you who choose to come, you can earn a few extra-credit points, and a couple more if you decide to do a follow-up project.
No make-up tests of examinations will be given without an official excuse (a written medical excuse of the permission of a Dean). Daily class attendance is expected. If you turn in your assignments late, 20 points will be substracted per day that the assignment is late. More than two absences will affect the final course grade. 1.5 points will be substracted for each daily absence in excess of two. Please arrive to class on time. If I already called the roll, you will be marked absent, unless you tell me after class, in which case you will be marked late.
Do make sure you arrive on time. Not only do you lose points for coming in late, but also, you lose participation points (5 minutes late means 10% of the class, 20% of the "talking time," thus minus 20 points for participation that day).
Hopefully, you will love this class so much that you won't want to miss a minute of it...
|
|
Make sure now that you will be able to attend all exams as no make-up tests of examinations will be given without an official excuse (a written medical excuse or the permission of a Dean).
Homework is to be done before coming to class.
|
INTRO |
20 aout Lire: jusqu'à "Vous êtes prévenue" (Chapitre I: Genèse, 9-31). page numbers are in reference to the "J'ai Lu"edition. Any other edition will have different page numbers. Please use the quote to locate the right page numbers that you have to read. Essai: Answer to online questions, Beyala day 1. Type (preferably) or write your answers, and turn the work in at the beginning of class (leave it on my desk as you come in). It will be graded. |
22 aout Lire: jusqu'à "En attendant, je retournai à nos bâtons de manioc". (35-61) page numbers are in reference to the "J'ai Lu"edition. Any other edition will have different page numbers. Please use the quote to locate the right page numbers that you have to read. Essai: Answer to online questions, Beyala day 2. Type (preferably) or write your answers, and turn the work in at the beginning of class (leave it on my desk as you come in). It will be graded. |
|
25 aout Lire: jusqu'à "La roue du destin tourna et le jour descendit aux pieds des hommes" (61-81). page numbers are in reference to the "J'ai Lu"edition. Any other edition will have different page numbers. Please use the quote to locate the right page numbers that you have to read. Essai: Answer to online questions, Beyala day 3. Type (preferably) or write your answers, and turn the work in at the beginning of class (leave it on my desk as you come in). It will be graded |
27 aout Lire: jusqu'à "J'ignorais encore que le conducteur du train aurait un rôle à jouer dans mon destin!" (81-108) page numbers are in reference to the "J'ai Lu"edition. Any other edition will have different page numbers. Please use the quote to locate the right page numbers that you have to read. Essai: Answer to online questions, Beyala day 4. Type (preferably) or write your answers, and turn the work in at the beginning of class (leave it on my desk as you come in). It will be graded |
29 aout Lire: jusqu'à "J'aimais les femmes et, de ces amours, on ne se débarrasse jamais" (109-136). page numbers are in reference to the "J'ai Lu"edition. Any other edition will have different page numbers. Please use the quote to locate the right page numbers that you have to read. Essai: Answer to online questions, Beyala day 5. Type (preferably) or write your answers, and turn the work in at the beginning of class (leave it on my desk as you come in). It will be graded |
|
NO SCHOOL |
3 septembre Lire: jusqu'à "J'étais prête à tout accepter, pourvu que disparaisse cette horrible souffrance" (137-163). page numbers are in reference to the "J'ai Lu"edition. Any other edition will have different page numbers. Please use the quote to locate the right page numbers that you have to read. Essai: Answer to online questions, Beyala day 6. Type (preferably) or write your answers, and turn the work in at the beginning of class (leave it on my desk as you come in). It will be graded |
5 septembre Lire: jusqu'à "Je les écoutais comme s'ils parlaient d'une autre" (165-184). page numbers are in reference to the "J'ai Lu"edition. Any other edition will have different page numbers. Please use the quote to locate the right page numbers that you have to read. Essai: Answer to online questions, Beyala day 7. Type (preferably) or write your answers, and turn the work in at the beginning of class (leave it on my desk as you come in). It will be graded |
|
8 septembre Lire: jusqu'à "il y aurait des instants-rires dans des matins sans rancune" (185-202). page numbers are in reference to the "J'ai Lu"edition. Any other edition will have different page numbers. Please use the quote to locate the right page numbers that you have to read. Essai: Answer to online questions, Beyala day 8. Type (preferably) or write your answers, and turn the work in at the beginning of class (leave it on my desk as you come in). It will be graded |
10 septembre Lire: jusqu'à "pour nous convaincre définitivement que tout n'est pas si mal dans ce qui est réellement atroce" (203-222). page numbers are in reference to the "J'ai Lu"edition. Any other edition will have different page numbers. Please use the quote to locate the right page numbers that you have to read. Essai: Answer to online questions, Beyala day 9. Type (preferably) or write your answers, and turn the work in at the beginning of class (leave it on my desk as you come in). It will be graded |
12 septembre EXAMEN 1 |
|
15 septembre Lire: jusqu'à "J'étais riche, et c'est surtout cela qui importait" (7-29). page numbers are in reference to the "Virgule"edition. Any other edition will have different page numbers. Please use the quote to locate the right page numbers that you have to read. Essai: Answer to online questions, Begag day 1. Type (preferably) or write your answers, and turn the work in at the beginning of class (leave it on my desk as you come in). It will be graded. |
17 septembre Lire: jusqu'à "De 8h du matin jusqu'à 11h30, on accumule le savoir dans le plus grand des silences" (29-58). page numbers are in reference to the "Virgule"edition. Any other edition will have different page numbers. Please use the quote to locate the right page numbers that you have to read. Essai: Answer to online questions, Begag day 2. Type (preferably) or write your answers, and turn the work in at the beginning of class (leave it on my desk as you come in). It will be graded. |
19 septembre Lire: jusqu'à "--Faut quand même apprendre, conclus-je" (58-83). page numbers are in reference to the "Virgule"edition. Any other edition will have different page numbers. Please use the quote to locate the right page numbers that you have to read. Essai: Answer to online questions, Begag day 3. Type (preferably) or write your answers, and turn the work in at the beginning of class (leave it on my desk as you come in). It will be graded. |
|
22 septembre Lire: jusqu'à "Nous sommes rentrés tranquillement aux baraques, comme d'habitude" (83-107). page numbers are in reference to the "Virgule"edition. Any other edition will have different page numbers. Please use the quote to locate the right page numbers that you have to read. Essai: Answer to online questions, Begag day 4. Type (preferably) or write your answers, and turn the work in at the beginning of class (leave it on my desk as you come in). It will be graded. |
24 septembre Lire: jusqu'à "Ma mère et mes soeurs pleuraient. Je pleurais aussi, désorienté!" (107-132). page numbers are in reference to the "Virgule"edition. Any other edition will have different page numbers. Please use the quote to locate the right page numbers that you have to read. Essai: Answer to online questions, Begag day 5. Type (preferably) or write your answers, and turn the work in at the beginning of class (leave it on my desk as you come in). It will be graded. |
26 septembre Lire: jusqu'à "après les derniers murmures de mon père, épuisé par le rythme infernal de ses ronflements" (132-160). page numbers are in reference to the "Virgule"edition. Any other edition will have different page numbers. Please use the quote to locate the right page numbers that you have to read. Essai: Answer to online questions, Begag day 6. Type (preferably) or write your answers, and turn the work in at the beginning of class (leave it on my desk as you come in). It will be graded. |
|
29 septembre Lire: jusqu'à "Mais je suis mal barré pour les prochains jours" (160-190). page numbers are in reference to the "Virgule"edition. Any other edition will have different page numbers. Please use the quote to locate the right page numbers that you have to read. Essai: Answer to online questions, Begag day 7. Type (preferably) or write your answers, and turn the work in at the beginning of class (leave it on my desk as you come in). It will be graded. |
Lire: jusqu'à "Mais je ne les crains pas. J'ai un peu honte, c'est tout" (190-220). page numbers are in reference to the "Virgule"edition. Any other edition will have different page numbers. Please use the quote to locate the right page numbers that you have to read. Essai: Answer to online questions, Begag day 8. Type (preferably) or write your answers, and turn the work in at the beginning of class (leave it on my desk as you come in). It will be graded. |
3 octobre Lire: jusqu'à la fin du roman (220-240). page numbers are in reference to the "Virgule"edition. Any other edition will have different page numbers. Please use the quote to locate the right page numbers that you have to read. Essai: Answer to online questions, Begag day 9. Type (preferably) or write your answers, and turn the work in at the beginning of class (leave it on my desk as you come in). It will be graded. |
|
6 octobre EXAMEN 2 |
8 octobre Lire: Chap. 1 et 2 de la première partie. Jusqu'à "La route file, tourne, se perd dans la nuit" (11-41). page numbers are in reference to the "Points"edition. Any other edition will have different page numbers. Please use the quote and chapters to locate the right page numbers that you have to read. Essai: Answer to online questions, Télumée day 1. Type (preferably) or write your answers, and turn the work in at the beginning of class (leave it on my desk as you come in). It will be graded. |
10 octobre Lire: Chap. 1 et 2 de la deuxième partie (41-65). Jusqu'à "qui semblaient posées là par erreur, comme tout le reste" (65). page numbers are in reference to the "Points"edition. Essai: Answer to online questions, Télumée day 2. Type (preferably) or write your answers, and turn the work in at the beginning of class (leave it on my desk as you come in). It will be graded. |
|
13 octobre NO SCHOOL
|
15 octobre Lire: Chap. 3 et 4. Jusqu'à "... conduisant mon cheval." (67-98) page numbers are in reference to the "Points"edition. Essai: Answer to online questions, Télumée day 3. Type (preferably) or write your answers, and turn the work in at the beginning of class (leave it on my desk as you come in). It will be graded. |
17 octobre Lire: Chap. 5 and 6 (99-127). Jusqu'à "... à la cadence d'un navire que la brume engloutit" (127). page numbers are in reference to the "Points"edition. Essai: Answer to online questions, Télumée day 4. Type (preferably) or write your answers, and turn the work in at the beginning of class (leave it on my desk as you come in). It will be graded. |
|
20 octobre Lire: Chap. 7 et 8 (129-156). Jusqu'à "... et le vent qui passait sur moi rencontrait un autre vent" (156). page numbers are in reference to the "Points"edition. Essai: Answer to online questions, Télumée day 5. Type (preferably) or write your answers, and turn the work in at the beginning of class (leave it on my desk as you come in). It will be graded. |
22 octobre Lire: Chap. 9 et 10 (157-186). Jusqu'à "... au bout de l'horizon, ce jour-là." (186). page numbers are in reference to the "Points"edition. Essai: Answer to online questions, Télumée day 6. Type (preferably) or write your answers, and turn the work in at the beginning of class (leave it on my desk as you come in). It will be graded. |
24 octobre Lire: Chap. 11 et 12 (187-211). Jusqu'à "... que j'accepte la proposition" (211). page numbers are in reference to the "Points"edition. Essai: Answer to online questions, Télumée day 7. Type (preferably) or write your answers, and turn the work in at the beginning of class (leave it on my desk as you come in). It will be graded. |
|
27 octobre Lire: Chap. 13 (213-230). Jusqu'à "... je fouettai la tombe de l'homme Amboise, la fouettai" (230). page numbers are in reference to the "Points"edition. Essai: Answer to online questions, Télumée day 8. Type (preferably) or write your answers, and turn the work in at the beginning of class (leave it on my desk as you come in). It will be graded. |
29 octobre Lire: Chap. 14 et 15: jusqu'à la fin du roman (231-255). page numbers are in reference to the "Points"edition. Essai: Answer to online questions, Télumée day 9. Type (preferably) or write your answers, and turn the work in at the beginning of class (leave it on my desk as you come in). It will be graded. |
31 octobre Discussion. |
|
EXAMEN 3 |
5 novembre Lire: Chap. 1, 2, 3 (9-26). page numbers are in reference to the "Points"edition. Essai: Answer to online questions, Feraoun day 1. Type (preferably) or write your answers, and turn the work in at the beginning of class (leave it on my desk as you come in). It will be graded.
|
7 novembre Lire: Chap. 4, 5 (27-45). page numbers are in reference to the "Points"edition. Essai: Answer to online questions, Feraoun day 2. Type (preferably) or write your answers, and turn the work in at the beginning of class (leave it on my desk as you come in). It will be graded. |
|
10 novembre Lire: Chap. 6, 7 (46-62). page numbers are in reference to the "Points"edition. Essai: Answer to online questions, Feraoun day 3. Type (preferably) or write your answers, and turn the work in at the beginning of class (leave it on my desk as you come in). It will be graded. |
12 novembre Lire: Chap. 8, 9 (63-79). page numbers are in reference to the "Points"edition. Essai: Answer to online questions, Feraoun day 4. Type (preferably) or write your answers, and turn the work in at the beginning of class (leave it on my desk as you come in). It will be graded. |
14 novembre Lire: Chap. 10,11 (80-102). page numbers are in reference to the "Points"edition. Essai: Answer to online questions, Feraoun day 5. Type (preferably) or write your answers, and turn the work in at the beginning of class (leave it on my desk as you come in). It will be graded. |
|
17 novembre Lire: Intro, chap 1 et 2 de la 2e partie (103-116). page numbers are in reference to the "Points"edition. Essai: Answer to online questions, Feraoun day 6. Type (preferably) or write your answers, and turn the work in at the beginning of class (leave it on my desk as you come in). It will be graded. |
19 novembre Lire: Chap. 3 et 4 de la 2e partie (117-130). page numbers are in reference to the "Points"edition. Essai: Answer to online questions, Feraoun day 7. Type (preferably) or write your answers, and turn the work in at the beginning of class (leave it on my desk as you come in). It will be graded. |
21 novembre Lire: Chap. 5, 6 et 7 de la 2e partie (131-146). page numbers are in reference to the "Points"edition. Essai: Answer to online questions, Feraoun day 8. Type (preferably) or write your answers, and turn the work in at the beginning of class (leave it on my desk as you come in). It will be graded. |
|
24 novembre EXAMEN 4 |
26 novembre Discussion. |
28 novembre NO SCHOOL |
|
Activités audio-visuelles et discussion des romans |
3 décembre Activités audio-visuelles et discussion des romans |
5 décembre Activités audio-visuelles et discussion des romans |