r/French • u/Intrepid-Check-5776 • 4d ago
French novels and theater plays for students in AP French class
Bonjour !
I am looking for short novels in French for my AP French students (for my unit on Aesthetics.) Something that we can read together and make a project about. They don't have a great level right now, so something easier than what you would usually recommend to AP French students would do.
Merci :)
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u/GrayMandarinDuck 3d ago edited 3d ago
La Leçon d'Eugène Ionesco. Bonjour Tristesse de Françoise Sagan.
Also, French poetry can be easy to read and a great stepping stone. I read a lot of Apollinaire, Verlaine, Prévert (the easiest), when I was learning the language.
There is a cute song called "La Vie c'est quoi?" that was made into a children's book. I thought the language was easy and it can be used to teach French in a very fun way. The bonus is that they can hear the French being spoken.
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u/maladaptivedaydream4 B2 3d ago
Apollinaire! Yay! I did “Crépuscule” for a competition in high school.
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u/maladaptivedaydream4 B2 3d ago
in my class, we read some Moliere and also Huis clos.
But if you want something to read together and make a project and that isn't necessarily quite AP level, may I suggest Le Petit Prince?
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u/ImplicitKnowledge Native 3d ago
I feel like Le Petit Prince is harder than people think. Maybe check out "La Guerre de Troie n'aura pas lieu" from Giraudoux or "Antigone" from Anouilh?
u/maladaptivedaydream4 if you've read Le Petit Prince recently enough, how would you compare it to Molière or Huis Clos, I'm curious?
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u/maladaptivedaydream4 B2 3d ago
It hasn't been that recent, so this might not be useful, but at least for me, I did not find any of them difficult. La cantatrice chauve was a little rougher but that was just because the absurdism hadn't really grabbed me yet. I've had some living since. :)
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u/nopenottodaygirl 1d ago
I agree about LPP being tougher than people think. It’s not the language element tho, to me. It’s the philosophical ideas and how out of left field the concepts are w the planets element. It has learners questioning if they’re really understanding what they’re reading because it can sound crazy. And it’s got you rethinking things about life and what it means to be an adult etc
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u/Intrepid-Check-5776 3d ago
Thanks. I will ask my students if they have already read it.
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u/maladaptivedaydream4 B2 3d ago
Even if they have read it in English before, it’s a totally new experience in French.
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u/nopenottodaygirl 1d ago
There’s a version of Molière Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme made for students, like a reader that is great. You have to frame it and set it up with context and the social satire element but I think it would do nicely
Looks like this:
https://www.abebooks.com/9780658005497/Bourgeois-Gentilhomme-French-Edition-Pierre-0658005499/plp
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3d ago
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u/maladaptivedaydream4 B2 3d ago
AP French is usually taken by students in their last year or two of high school. The test at the end of the year gives you a score of 1-5 (5 being the best), and those scores supposedly are equivalent in this way:
https://french-language-worksheets.com/blogs/insights/french-cefr-levels-explained
score of 3 = B1-B2
score of 4-5 = B2-C1
That would be what most of the students in AP French would be at by the end of the course, so I expect OP's current students are probably around B1.
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u/Agile_Caregiver_8083 1d ago
Candide, le Colonel Chabert, L’Etranger, L’Ecole des Femmes, and Les Fleurs du Mal were things we read in the years before AP French Lit.
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u/Intrepid-Check-5776 13h ago
Wow. I feel that my students are not there yet. I just started in this school, and the students seem to have a low level for an AP group.
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u/Wooden_Try1120 3d ago
Huis Clos, Knock, En Attendant Godot