Collection d’articles

By Geneviève Caron , John Abbott College

At a Glance

Discipline

Languages and Literature

Instructional Level

College & CEGEP

Course

French Language Level 4 Block B 602-203-AB

Tasks in Workflow

Social Plane(s)

Individual
Group
Whole Class

Type of Tasks

Collecting & seeking information
Discussing
Creating & designing
Reading
Writing
Presenting

Technical Details

Useful Technologies

Laptops for Mad Magz

Class size

Small (20-49)

Time

Part of a semester (4-6 weeks)

Overview

Students collect articles from magazines/newspapers throughout the semester (from francophone sources). During the project, each student takes on a specific role for the production of a virtual magazine, a collection of interesting information articles and opinion pieces that come from various sources. The roles are: leader, artistic designer, content specialist, and proofreader. Each student in the group ideally comes from a different academic background.

The first activity requires the students to craft a cover page for a mock-magazine, using material provided by the teacher. The 2nd activity is to write collaboratively a reaction to an article of their choice. These preliminary tasks allow the students to get to know each other and divide the different roles among themselves.

The bulk of the project is then to research articles and organize them with coherence on an online platform. Each student has to bring a minimum of four relevant, well-sourced articles to submit as a biography list. All together students then write an editorial of 500-600 words and begin to put together their magazine. Using an interface like Mad Magz students create the visual product, with each of the articles, the editorial, the critique, and their cover page.

In front of the class, students present their magazines in 5-10 minutes. Then, each student completes both a reflection and an evaluation of the other members of their group.

Instructional Objectives

This task fosters a habit of reading in French, especially relating to current events in their field of study
It opens up a discussion into ways of finding, evaluating, and using reliable sources
It helps students develop the vocabulary linked with their field of study

Workflow & Materials

Activity Workflow

View on CourseFlow

Contributor's Notes

Benefits

Students are more engaged as it is more active and they are motivated
by a group dynamic
The final product is creative and unique and groups take pride into
surprising classmates.
Students learn to debate and negotiate when exchanging material

Challenges

Group dynamics are sometimes a difficulty
There are also some students who prefer to work individually which can interfere with motivation

Tips

Have intermittent deadlines to make sure the are on track during such a long activity
Make sure the groups are even in terms of skill level, it helps to do this activity at the end of term when it is easier to gage everyone’s level better
Give students time to work together in class, it is often hard for students to coordinate group work in collaborative projects outside of class especially when each student comes from a different program

Feedback Cancel reply

Published: 19/12/2020

Copyright: © 2025 Caron. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication on this website is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.