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23 octobre 2007

Anglais Bac Pro : "Girl, 15 Charming but Insane" de Sue Limb : jeux d'écriture

GIRL, 15 CHARMING BUT INSANE

OBJECTIFS : étudier la description physique, faire produire des écrits variés, faire découvrir une œuvre de littérature de jeunesse (inciter à lire l’œuvre intégrale en français).

Références :

Limb, Sue. Girl, 15 Charming but Insane.

Bloomsbury

Publishing, 2004, 284 p. 9,33 €.

Limb, Sue. Quinze ans, charmante mais cinglée. Gallimard Jeunesse, 2005, 231 p., 12,00 €.

1. Présentation de la couverture du livre (montage : illustration figurant sur la couverture Gallimard + titre anglais + extrait (adapté) de la quatrième de couverture Bloomsbury : Like any girl her age, Jess wants to be gorgeous, popular and intelligent. But her best friend Flora has beaten her to it. Jess is in love with Ben Jones. Is Ben in love with her too ?

Commentaires à l’oral sur le document : Do you find this girl (Jess) « charming » ? Do you think she is « gorgeous » ? Why ? Why not ? Imagine what Flora looks like. (prettier, nicer hair, more smiling …) Imagine why Jess is considered « insane ». For example, what does she do at home ? What does she do at school ?

2. Lecture du premier chapitre réécrit.

I.

VIRGO : A VERY FAT MAN WILL SIT NEXT TO YOU ON THE BUS AND HE WON’T HAVE HAD A

BATH

SINCE CHRISTMAS.

Eyes, nose, lips. Jess was drawing a face on her hand. She should have been making notes for her history essay : a list of ‘Reasons why King Charles I was Unpopular’. But instead she was drawing a love-tattoo of the beautiful Ben Jones. A touch of Leonardo Di Caprio, a hint of Prince William, a suggestion of Brad Pitt . . . Oh no ! It didn’t look like Ben Jones at all. It looked like an iguana.

Art wasn’t Jess’s strong point. She coughed in a signal to her friend Flora that communication was desired. A cough in the rythm of the latest Justin Timberlake single. Flora looked up from the next desk, and Jess held the tatoo up to her. Flora smiled and immediately glanced furtively at Miss Dingle and went back to her work.

Miss Dingle – Dingbat to her fans – was glaring from the teacher’s desk. ‘Jess

Jordan

! What’s your pwoblem ?’

‘Oh God, Miss, there are so many,’ sighed Jess.

‘Get on with your work,’ shouted Miss Dingle, trying to sound terrifying, even though she had a little voice and couldn’t pronounce her ’R’s.

Everybody hid their faces in their books and laughed – as silently as possible, of course. ‘And the west of you !’ shouted Miss Dingle. ‘Be quiet and get on with witing your List of Weasons. I’m quite tempted to put the whole gwoup in detention ! Don’t push me too far !’

Nobody wanted to stay behind after school. Jess picked up her dictionary and tried to look intelligent. She turned the pages, hoping for a rude word. Suddenly she had an idea. Hey ! Maybe you could consult the dictionary, a bit like the Tarot. Think of a question, then open it at random. Jess closed her eyes and concentrated. Will Ben Jones and I ever be in love ?

Her finger jabbed at a word. Parsley. A well-known garden herb, used for flavouring soup. Maybe there was a hidden meaning. Perhaps you could make a boy fall in love with you by rubbing parsley behind your ears, or putting parsley in his pants while he was swimming.

___________________________________________________________

Jess suddenly caught Dingbat’s eye again. A dangerous moment. Quickly she copied down the title of the history essay. ‘Reasons why King Charles I was Unpopular.’ All she had to do was read chapter six of the history book. First she looked at the pictures. Charles I had sad, haunted eyes and a stylish goatee. Flora had told her he had been only about five feet tall. Some kind of Hobbit, obviously. And then he had had his head chopped off.

‘Reasons why King Charles I was Unpopular.’ Jess looked at Flora, who had written three pages already. She picked up her pen and let her imagination run away. This was always dangerous.

Reasons why King Charles I was Unpopular

1 He never changed his pants.

2. He refused to grow.

3. He passed a law saying that everybody taller than him had to have their legs cut off.

4. He slurped his soup.

5. He used to bottle his farts and sell them to the tourists.

At this point Jess’s inspiration dried up and she began to think about Ben Jones again. She formed a plan to steal a bit of DNA from Prince William and Brad Pitt. She ought to be able then to genetically create a Ben Jones lookalike, in case the real didn’t want her.

Jess started another list : ‘Reasons why Ben Jones is Popular.’ This was much easier than the history list.

1.      Hair like golden grass (if only I could picnic on it).

2.  Eyes blue enough to swim in.

3.  A cute, slow smile that could defrost

Antarctica

. …

Suddenly, the bell rang. Everybody put down their pens. Jess’s best friend, the goddess Flora, was the only person in the class who hadn’t finished working yet. She was writing harder than ever, her golden hair glittering. One grain of her divine dandruff could make the blind see again.

‘Jess

Jordan

!’ thundered Miss Dingle in her little voice. ‘Will you come up here and show me your List of Weasons, please !’

(Adapted from Girl, 15 Charming but Insane by Sue Limb (2004)

Vocabulary :

Charles I (1600-1649)

a hint = un soupçon

to glare at someone = to look angrily at someone

to sigh = soupirer

at random = au hasard

to flavour = assaisonner

to rub = frotter

haunted eyes = des yeux hagards

a goat = un bouc ; a stylish goatee = un bouc (barbiche) élégant

five feet = environ

1,50 m

he had had his head chopped off = il avait eu la tête tranchée

farts = pets

cute = mignon

to defrost = dégivrer, décongeler

to glitter = briller

a dandruff = une pellicule

3. Questions de compréhension globale :

-Where does the scene take place ?

-What lesson is it ?

-Without looking at the text, do you remember what the essay is about ?

-Who’s Miss Dingle ?

Questions de compréhension détaillée (première partie) :

-What details show Jess is crazy about Ben ? She draws a tattoo of his face on her hand ; she thinks he is as gorgeous as celebrities like Leonardo Di Caprio, Prince William and Brad Pitt.

-Is Jess good at drawing ? No, because her drawing of Ben’s face looks like an iguana.

-What’s Miss Dingle’s problem ? She can’t pronounce her ‘R’s and she has a little voice.

-What shows Jess isn’t interested in history at all ? She thinks about Ben ; she plays with the definitions of the dictionary.

(Deuxième partie)

-What details show « Flora has beaten Jess to it » ? Flora is prettier than Jess ; she works harder and better too.

-Why do the pupils laugh at Miss Dingle ? She is ridiculous because she believes she has authority over them whereas she hasn’t.

-Do you think Jess will have good marks ? No, because she has written a humorous essay.

4. Les élèves relisent le texte et relèvent les parties du corps qui y sont évoquées :

eyes, nose, lips, face, hand, ears, goatee, head, legs, hairEnsuite, grâce à un dictionnaire ou à leurs propres connaissances, ils les caractérisent par des adjectifs.

ex : slanting eyes

5. Différents jeux d’écriture : les élèves se répartissent en groupes (il peut s’agir de groupes de niveaux)et, par tirage au sort, en utilisant des dictionnaires, réalisent les productions écrites suivantes :

-describe the following personalities : Charles I, Leonardo Di Caprio, Prince William, Brad Pitt, a Hobbit. Your friends will have to guess who is who.

-Use the Internet and find out the real answers to the history essay.

-Like Jess, write the answers to the following essays in a humorous way : ‘Reasons why Napoleon lost the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805’ ; ‘Reasons why  Shakespeare wrote Hamlet’ ; ‘Reasons why Leonard da Vinci painted the Mona Lisa‘ ; Reasons why fewer and fewer people read the paid press’ ; ‘Reasons why more and more children get fat’ …

-Like Jess, choose a question you are asking yourself at the moment (Will I pass my exam ? Will I receive nice presents at Christmas ? Will my parents help me pay for my driving lessons ?…). Draw one word among those proposed (giraffe, lorry, toothbrush …). Copy the definition and find out the « hidden meaning ».

-Ask a friend what sign he/she is and imagine a humorous prediction.

6. Mise en commun.

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Commentaires
C
Merci pour l'article, je mets le site direct en favoris ! :) En tout cas, je vais revenir vous rendre visite très prochainement. Bonne journée
E
It was a truly remarkable post! Thanks for sharing it keep it up
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