Marva leads a workshop in French for Virginia high-school teachers on bringing Victor Hugo’s works to their students: Au-delà de “Demain, dès l’aube . . .”: L’Actualité de Victor Hugo (in English: Beyond “Demain, dès l’aube . . .”: Victor Hugo for Today’s Students). During this day-long, interactive workshop sponsored by the UVa Center for the Liberal Arts on November 15, 2008, Marva engages over thirty French teachers in thinking about how their students could read and enjoy Hugo’s work beyond his famous poem “Demain, dès l’aube . . . .”
Workshop description:
Victor Hugo’s lyrical poem of grief and love, “Demain, dès l’aube . . . ,” highly comprehensible to French language learners, is popularly and effectively taught in high-school and college courses. Written in generally simple language about a subject everyone can understand (a daughter’s tragic death), this poem is deeper and richer than it first appears, which makes it a memorable lesson in the power of poetry.
Yet Hugo’s work provides an even richer source of texts, themes, and contemporary relevance for teachers who wish to help their students connect their personal interests and values with French culture and literature. Since, like most Romantics, he not only wrote about his personal feelings but also deeply considered the meanings of life, death, and God. Because he also fiercely debated social justice issues, Hugo offers ideas about topics of concern today. Since both his poetry and prose are vibrantly direct, students can find his writing lively and fascinating.
In this workshop, teachers learn more about Hugo’s personal and social beliefs and read and discuss some of Hugo’s texts that intrigue students. Working together, they design appropriate pedagogical activities for poems, speeches, and novel excerpts that will engage their students in thinking about such important life issues as love, social justice, and God. They leave with a broadened knowledge of Hugo’s work and practical activities they can use in the classroom.
Colleagues engage directly with these texts, which also work well with first-year and second-year UVa students:
- Le Dernier Jour d’un condamné (excerpt from Hugo’s highly modern novella written from the perspective of a murderer facing the guillotine)
- “Éclaircie,” Les Contemplations VI, x (a famous, accessible poem about the presence of God in the world)
- “La Misère,” excerpt of Hugo’s 1851 speech against poverty
- “Puisque mai tout en fleurs dans les prés nous réclame . . . ,” Les Chants du crépuscule XXXI (a lyrical love poem)