July 1, 2013 11:12 pm
(We’re talking the movie, as I don’t think anyone is actually a fan of mean people, regardless of gender.)
It’s not that I disliked it, per se, but given my choices for high-school film satire, I prefer 10 Things I Hate About You, She’s The Man, Easy A, or even Clueless to Mean Girls. Recently, however, I’ve been shown the (somewhat dubious) light by a fervent group of persuasive students in my French Classes. After listening to them unanimously extol the virtues of this film, I subsequently decided to integrate it into my class as a year-end part of a unit on story-telling.
Some of you (particularly if you are a teacher) might think that this is playing with fire. . . as Mean Girls is more than a little bit inappropriate.
So, in order to navigate this, which I decided would be okay since all of my students had already seen the film in English AND because it got them excited about French Class even in late June, I made a permission slip for all students to get signed prior to showing the film. (Download a modify-able copy of it by clicking THIS, if you’d like!) I did this right at the beginning of my Comment Raconter Une Histoire unit, so that by the time students had an opportunity to learn/work with basic storytelling vocabulary, we could watch the film (en français, bien sur!). After showing the Canadian-French version of Mean Girls (Méchantes Ados), we rounded out the year with a final “story-telling” project; the making, and subsequent sharing of our very own “Burn Books”.
I set it up a little differently, because I didn’t want any truly nasty things being written in my class… just juicy secrets, or as the French might say des secrets explosifs/croustillants! HERE is the link for my project prompt, if you’re interested in integrating this in your own French 2 class! With that set up, students began to engage in the process towards their final creation! As always is the case when I let my students be creative, I was ridiculously impressed with the outcome!
Awesome Student Burn Book 1: Written by “Polar Bear“
Awesome Student Burn Book 2: Written by “Happy-Go-Lucky”
Posted by Abby
Categories: Scholarly, Silly, Stories
Tags: burn book project, comment raconter une histoire, French class project, French class story project, French Movie Permission Slip, French Project Mean Girls, French storytelling project, making burn books in school, mean girls, Mean Girls French Class, mean girls in school, Mechantes Ados, Storytelling Project, Teaching French with Mean Girls, teen satire, un secret explosif
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This is a brilliant project. Just what I’ve been looking for to wrap up a year full of l’imparfait et le passé composé. Thank you for generously sharing.
By Karen Oberlander on May 9, 2015 at 4:32 pm