French Day, Spring 2024 (Dates TBA)
Join us for a half-day program of interactive workshops in French. Intended for students with at least two years of experience in the language, this immersion program incorporates interactive learning techniques designed to build vocabulary and improve comprehension skills.
Spring 2024’s competitive events will consist of two ways for students to engage with French language and culture: “Tableaux vivants” is geared toward advanced secondary-school students and “La Poésie en images” for beginning and intermediate students.
Prizes will be attributed to the strongest submissions in both categories during a public screening.
Tableaux vivants (for Advanced Students)
Riffing on “tableaux vivants”—a late nineteenth-century parlor game—and the twenty-first-century Instagram pandemic painting challenge (@tussenkunstenquarantaine), participants will bring life to a painting by a French-speaking artist by writing a scenario and dialogue based on the characters and tensions represented in the painting. The filmed performance of this “living painting” should last no more than 5 minutes, including credits. Good sources for selecting French paintings include the Musée d’Orsay, The Morgan Library, and The Metropolitan Museum of Art, among many others.
View the “Tableaux vivants” submission form for more details and registration information.
La Poésie en images (for Intermediate Students)
Individuals or teams of students should select any poem written in French and create a filmed adaptation of that work (no more than 3 minutes including credits), using still images, animation, or live action (people, puppets, animals, paper cut-outs, etc). Wheaton College’s “Vive Voix” site provides a selection of poems with accompanying readings. This activity is inspired by France Télévision’s En sortant de l’école series. Thirteen examples of the infinite variety of materials and methods that have been used to adapt poems by Jacques Prévert can be studied here.
View the “Poésie en images” submission form for more details and registration information.
For more information about French Day 2024: msufrenchday@gmail.com
Archived French Day Programs
French Day 2022
French Day 2020
French Day 2019
French Day 2018
French Day 2017