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"A fourth-year high school French class composed of six senior students wrote, created photography for, and published a humorous booklet which compares French and American teenage lives in situations requiring the use of reflexive verbs," reports their teacher Patricia Peterson of Havre, Montana. "The students wrote the 48-page booklet in French and created accompanying grammar explanations, exercises, and tests. They then presented the booklet to three second-year level French classes for whom it was designed. The fourth-year students taught the second-year classes, using the booklet as the text. The text booklet will remain an integral part of the second-year French curriculum in future years."
"Havre High School is a four-year high school of 700 students in a town of 12,000 population in rural northern Montana," explains Ms. Peterson, French teacher for grades nine through 12 and chairman of the foreign language department at Havre. "The six fourth-year, senior French students, an academically talented and creative group, voted for the teacher to apply for the Kodak grant to produce a photographic text booklet. From the outset, they committed themselves to the task of writing, photographing, publishing, and presenting the booklet they would create.
"In the process, fourth-year students perfected their own booklet: makeup, layout, typing, proofing, printing, and final assembly. Students obtained suggestions and advice from professional photographers and publishers as well as from a foreign exchange student from France. However, 95 percent of the work was done by the students. Most of the work was planned and executed in the French language -- from brainstorming ideas to the discussion of the use of photographic equipment and the collating of the final product. Second-year French students enjoyed learning reflexive verbs from the booklet and from the senior students who became their instructors.
"The role of the teacher in the project was that of organizer, troubleshooter, as well as French language resource person and expert. For the senior students, the finished booklet became the perfect culmination of and visual reward for four years of French language studies.
"My decision to make this a class-directed project proved beneficial. The class voted to do it. Then, they took my initial proposal and creatively expanded it to include a cultural comparison dimension. They even improved the back cover of the booklet with 'crazy' testimonials. The quality of the booklet witnesses to the high performance of the students who produced it.
"The many hours devoted to producing the text were spent mostly in French -- brainstorming in French, shooting photographs in French, joking about the troublesome press in French, etc. In measurable time, each student spent an average of 30 hours communicating in French.
"On the French IV pre-test of photographic terms, the average score was 20 percent. On the post-test, the average score was 96 percent. On the French II pretest of reflexive verbs, the average score was n percent while the average post-test score was 86 percent. In both cases, significant learning took place."
"Dick Keeney, a photographer for Havre Daily News, demonstrated proper photographic techniques and the method of printing photographs with a screen for publication. Hill County Publishing printers, Ray and Clyde Floren, gave professional advice innumerable times. They also produced photomechanical transfers for the high school press when it was determined that the high school master producing machine could not do an adequate job on pages with photographs.
"Steve Newman, English teacher and newspaper sponsor, presented makeup and layout suggestions and made available the newspaper supplies for this project. Dennis Rick and Cindy Soloman of the school audiovisual center helped with printing suggestions and assisted with the printing of the booklet. Nelly Raoult, an American Field Service student from France, was interviewed by students regarding ideas for the project. She also posed for photographs and answered students' French language questions."
"They used two 35 mm cameras and eight rolls of ISO 125 black-and-white Kodak film along with developing solution, Kodak paper, and a darkroom with adequate equipment for developing and printing black-and-white photographs. One 85-dot screen was loaned to the students without charge by the Havre Daily News. The students also required paper for 100 copies of the 48-page booklet, paper for layout masters, a waxing machine, and wax for laying out photographs and text, and a heavyduty stapler. They also used equipment for making electrostatic masters and a press for publishing the booklet.
"The most significant accomplishments are not quantitatively measurable. They are reflected in the pride of the fourth-year students in their booklet and the comment, 'I haven't even graduated from high school, and I'm already published.' Or another senior who said, 'Working on this booklet is the only thing keeping me coming to school.' One student while proofreading caught an obscure grammar mistake missed by both the teacher and the French exchange student. The French II students were eager to learn from the French IV students which made this an ideal end-of-the-year project for everyone involved. For the seniors, it was the ideal culmination of four years of French study."
"I believe it would be hard to carry out such a project with a large class because of difficulties in organizing 30 simultaneous but coordinated tasks. Classes of 15 or fewer would be ideal; six was an absolute minimum. The project would have been less demanding for each senior had the class been larger with fewer tasks for each individual. However, the commitment of our six more than compensated for the lack of numbers."
"Having seen what French IV students can accomplish, I plan on using fourth-year students each year to prepare and teach materials to younger students. The project is adaptable to other foreign language classes, to other verbs, to other grade levels, and to other subjects. The first component calls for motivated, committed, and creative students who have the foreign language or other subject skills to undertake such a project. The second component is the availability of a darkroom, photographic equipment, and press. The third component is a teacher willing to organize the tasks into specific measurable units so that each student knows what is expected of him. The teacher must also anticipate problems, meet and solve them, and organize activities so that each student is occupied with a particular job during each class period and after school.
"I hope to encourage other foreign language teachers in the state to undertake such projects," says the veteran of 16 years of foreign language teaching. "I hope to address a sectional at a state foreign language teachers meeting to this end. I would like to see other booklets produced such as one combining photography and original poetry in French. With second-year students, I could use a photographic French text on comparative adjectives and verbs, for example. The possibilities are limitless."