Vol. 33, No. 3 (January 2008) 25

When I was asked to teach the Grammarand Composition course at my institution, Iwas worried that students would not want toenroll in the course for fear of beingovercome with too many grammar rules. Idesired to make grammar as interesting as Icould, while still maintaining the focus of theclass, which was to promote the develop-ment of technical command of Frenchthrough grammar review, vocabulary ampli-fication, and writing exercises. Not only did Iuse a grammar review text, but I alsoincluded the text, L’immeuble, originallydesigned for a drama/conversation class.This book provides students with theopportunity to create characters and to actout dialogues that occur between neighborsin an apartment building. I use this text as astarting point for the grammar course, andrather than acting out the scenes of theapartment dwellers, the students write outthe scenarios, using grammatical structuresthat were relevant to each situation.

On the first day of class, the studentsspent time creating the characters of theapartment building: from native Frenchinhabitants to foreign immigrants, fromyoung to old, from single to married, fromdog to bird and everything in between.During the first week of the semester, weassigned each character a name, aprofession, an age, and an apartment.Some were joined with others to makeeclectic families (a 21 year old dancer andher pet snake living with a 50 year oldFrench pastry chef). Once the apartmentbuilding was established, we changed ourfocus to grammar. In an effort to preparestudents for the writing assignments, Iselected appropriate elements from thegrammar text. Class time was used tointroduce the structures and to check forstudent comprehension. Students werethen asked to manipulate the targetedstructures during guided activities (bothwritten and spoken). Homework assignmentsreinforced the grammatical structures. Aftertime was spent working with the grammartext and corresponding activities, I assigneda written composition that was linked to thegrammatical content. For example, oneassignment required students to select acharacter from the apartment building andto narrate a story about his/her life. UsingL’immeuble as a guide (p. 29), the com-position included a description of thecharacter, the age, profession, personality,hobbies, likes and dislikes. Studentsworked on the composition as part of thehomework assignment and continued tocomplete corresponding grammaticalexercises from the grammar text.

On the due date, students brought three

typed copies of the composition to class.Students submitted one copy to me for agrade, while the other two copies were givento peers in the class who worked one-on-one during a peer-editing session. Iprovided the students with a list of questionswritten in French that served as a guide forediting a fellow student’s composition. (Arethe verbs correctly conjugated? Is the tenseconsistent throughout? Are the professionsmentioned? Do you find errors with articlesand prepositions? Is the composition clearand organized? Is there an introduction anda conclusion? What do you want to knowmore about? Are there clear transitions?) Inthis way, students were guided during thepeer-editing. They discussed with oneanother the strengths and weaknesses ofthe composition. After the discussion withthe first student’s composition, they bothworked on the same editing process forsecond student’s composition. After the firstpeer-editing session, students switchedpartners and were asked to retrieve the thirdcopy of their composition. By implementinga second peer-editing session, studentsbenefited in two ways. First, each studentreceived feedback from two differentstudents. This allowed them to receivecomments and suggestions of varyingopinions that would then allow them to writea polished final draft. Second, each studentserved as the peer editor twice with differentcompositions, thus providing each studentwith the opportunity to be responsible forproviding constructive feedback and re-marks to their fellow classmates. By servingas peer-editor, students were made awareof their own grammar capabilities.

During the peer-editing sessions, Icirculated throughout the room in order toget an idea of the most common errors thatwere being made (subject-verb agreement,tense choice, word usage, article use, andsentence structure). I noted several errorsand wrote them on an overhead transpar-ency. After the peer-editing session, I askedthe students to correct their compositions.Some of them recognized that a specificerror listed on the board was taken fromtheir own composition, and so they wouldmark the correction. Before leaving class forthe day, I assigned students to rework theircompositions based on this discussion.

Because I wanted students to learn fromtheir mistakes, I required them to complete asecond draft of every composition. In thisway, the feedback they received from thetwo peer-editors was of value to thembecause they were required to use thosecomments to improve their composition.Additionally, they received a graded,

corrected draft from me and used mycomments as well in a final version of theircomposition. I did not provide them with thecorrect responses to their grammatical andvocabulary errors. Rather, I provided themwith coded comments so that they wererequired to investigate the nature of theirerrors and to come up with the correctresponses on their own.

This process was repeated throughoutthe semester as each composition providedan opportunity to explore the life of otherinhabitants in the apartment building. Inaddition, several compositions requireddifferent types of writing styles (narration,dialogue, interview, post cards, recipes etc.)which also targeted different grammaticalstructures. By the end of the semester, athorough grammar review had beencompleted, and students submitted theirfinal portfolio, which included the blue printof the apartment building, a list of all of thecharacters and a brief biography, 10 finalversions of the composition assignmentsand photos, magazine cutouts or otherrealia or documents that students includedto make their portfolio more attractive andvisually stimulating.

Looking back, I cannot say that teachinggrammar was boring, nor can I say that theclass was unappealing to the students.Based on the quality of the final portfoliosthat were submitted at the end of thesemester, it was clear to me that thestudents were engaged in the class, thatthey demonstrated creativity in their writing,and that they had gained a deeperunderstanding of French grammar, whichwas evident from their final compositions.Through the use of the L’immeuble, acreative component was added to a classwhose content has not been traditionallyembraced by foreign language students.However, because the grammar structuresserved as tools with which to create thestories of the apartment dwellers, thestudents were eager to develop the storiesin their writing. Students felt that they knewthese characters and their idiosyncrasies,and as the semester progressed, thecharacters’ lives became more complicatedand colorful as different events unfoldedand impacted them. Through the implemen-tation of creative writing assignments,students gained a deeper understanding ofcomplex grammatical structures of theFrench language and had fun while doing it.

Stacey AyotteUniversity of Montevallo (AL)[ayottesb@montevallo.edu]

ReferencesDebyser, Francis. L’Immeuble. HachetteFLE, Paris: 1996.

CREATIVE WRITING IN FRENCH