Vénus d’Ille: Police Enquiry

By Alexandre Limoges, John Abbott College

At a Glance

Discipline

Languages
General

Instructional Level

College & CEGEP

Course

Français langue seconde

Tasks in Workflow

Social Plane(s)

Individual
Group
Whole Class

Type of Tasks

Discussing
Solving problems
Analyzing
Reading
Presenting

Technical Details

Class size

Small (20-49)

Time

Single class period (< 90 mins)

Instructional Purpose

Preparation & knowledge activation
Application & knowledge building

Overview

In this activity, students are expected to identify 4 suspects to the murder in the novel (the conclusion to the novel is open ended, it is unclear whether or not the murder was caused by rational or supernatural causes). For each of the suspects, the students must discover their motive, must outline clues/evidence which incriminate them, and the way the crime was committed by each of the characters.

Before class, students are expected to read the text and answer questions in the dossier given by the teacher about the narrative strategies and broad themes (not directly related to finding suspects for the murder). In class, in groups of four, the students have to find quotes to back up their accusations, they fill out a document for each of their suspects in their groups. Once the students have compiled all the motives and evidence, each group presents their case to the professor who acts as the judge.

After the teacher has been convinced by their cases the groups come together and discuss the evidence they compiled and the stronger cases/most convincing suspects.

Workflow & Materials

Activity Workflow

View on CourseFlow

Document

Worksheet (French)

Alexandre Limoges

Contributor's Notes

Benefits

This activity helps students realize the tension between the rational and supernatural explanations in fantasy literature and helps students see beyond their expectations of always finding a rational or fantastical conclusion. Rather than assuming, because it is a fantastical knowledge, that the death in the novel was caused by the supernatural, students are forced to think as the narrator in the novel (expecting a rational explanation);
For a literary text, analysis is not an immediate process, this makes it difficult to monitor the way in which students read a text. This activity helps students approach it in a more playful/fun way.

Challenges

Sometimes the group work is not distributed evenly as they have not equally prepared;
The size of the class, it is sometimes difficult to monitor all of the groups to ensure they are on the right track.

Tips

Give them tips in order to make sure that the students do not get discouraged. Giving them a few passages to focus on to help feed them some information from which to springboard off of;
Giving students a dossier to guide their reading (things to pay attention to, aspects to focus on etc…) helps students prepare adequately for the activity;
Give each student the responsibility for coming up with one suspect before they help each other in order to make sure that everyone is participating in the group.

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Published: 23/09/2019

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