Courses Taught

Development of basic oral expression, listening, reading comprehension, and writing. I include several cultural activities using video clips and outside texts. The course focuses on vocabulary and simple grammatical structures, encouraging the students to express themselves in French from day one. By the end of French 101, students are able to talk and write about a variety of topics touching upon their everyday lives and can get the gist of many authentic texts and video clips.

See: Frn101 at F&M

Reading French for Graduate Students
UVa

An accelerated review of basic French grammar and vocabulary for graduate students in the arts and sciences. In particular, the course prepares students to take the French reading proficiency exam. In addition to presentation and practice of key grammatical concepts, I facilitate classroom discussion of methods and techniques of translation. Students learn to translate different styles and genres of texts, including literary criticism, newspaper articles and scientific and historical essays.

Designed for students with an elementary knowledge of French. The skills of speaking, listening, comprehension, reading, and writing are further developed.  As with French 101 I also emphasize cultural activities using texts and video clips. While learning more vocabulary and grammar, students are able to write and talk about more sophisticated topics, and express ideas in past, future and conditional modes.

See Frn102 at F&M

Intermediate French I
UVa, Penn State Altoona

Further development of the skills of listening, speaking, reading, and writing. In this course I provide a review of basic French grammar and teach idiomatic vocabulary expressions. We focus on reading skill development through readings on contemporary francophone culture, extracts from short stories and poems. Frequent small group discussions emphasize not only the content of the texts, but also encourage students to think about the texts critically. In the Spring of 1997, I also incorporated WWW activities into the coursework, allowing students to view, discuss and write about francophone web pages in a controlled setting. With regard to writing assignments, we work on style and organization as well as grammar.

Intermediate French II
UVa

Designed for continued development of the four skills at an advanced level. This is the course which usually prepares students for advanced grammar and composition. French 202 completes the grammar review started in 201. Readings, video-clips, writing assignments and frequent group discussion emphasize contemporary francophone culture, political and social issues.

Semesters: Spring 2002, Fall 2001 and Spring 1995 at UVa.

Intensive Intermediate French
UVa

Intensive course designed specifically for potential majors in French. Skills of listening, speaking, reading, and writing are thoroughly developed at an accelerated pace. Readings concentrate on literature and critical thinking without excluding cultural aspects of francophone civilization. Examples of readings assigned include: Baudelaire: "Enivrez-vous," Roch Carrier: "Une abominable feuille d'érable sur la glace," Colette: "L'autre femme," Boubakar Diallo: "Le mendiant," G. Klein: "Les villes," and Guy de Maupassant: "Aux champs." In addition, students write four short papers, including one requiring outside research, one film analysis and one paper analyzing one or more of the readings.

In the Fall of 1996, I piloted new technology in this course: every week 1 1/2 class hours were spent in an electronic classroom, where students used computer software to practice grammatical concepts, and participated in group activities using internet activities which I designed. Web activities were linked to cultural discussions, reading and writing assignments.

See French 232 Syllabus
232 Introduction to Electronic Classroom
232 Writing Assignment
232 Reading Worksheet
232 Sample Web Activity

Intensive French Conversation: French Cinema
Franklin and Marshall

This course is designed to improve skills in oral expression and aural comprehension.  Emphasis is on informed conversation and vocabulary acquisition, based on short readings pertaining to the theme, French Cinema. 

Intermediate/Advanced French Conversation
UVa

Weekly supplementary course in conversation and vocabulary development.

When I began teaching at UVa, there was no set curriculum, syllabus or requirements for this course and very few guidelines for instructors. My colleague, Candace Cone, and I designed a model for the conversation courses in 1992-93-- including a syllabus, course requirements and lesson ideas--which we presented during the French Department T.A. Orientation workshop for many years. The course is designed to give students maximum opportunity to speak with each other and the instructor. Classroom activities and vocabulary included practical units on food, professions, medicine and clothing as well as one film discussion session and one debate session on French and American educational systems.

Introduction to French Studies: Révolution et réaction, la France entre 1789 et 1958
Franklin & Marshall

This is one half of a two-semester required course sequence for French majors and minors at F&M. In addition to serving as an introduction to the literature, history and culture of the period, the course focuses on the "explication de texte," "la dissertation analytique" and the oral "exposé" Representative texts include: select poetry from Lamartine and Baudelaire, Zola's Thérèse Raquin, Sartre's Huis Clos and Duras's Hiroshima mon amour. Historical readings are taken from St. Onge et. al. La Civilisation française en évolution I.

See Frn306 at F&M

Literature of the 19th and 20th Centuries
UVa

An examination of selected works from the 19th and 20th centuries through close readings coupled with broader overview of the literary movements of the period. Introduction to the methods and texts of literary criticism. Readings include poems, essays, short stories, and plays and one novel by Balzac, Rimbaud, Zola, Anouilh, Colette and Mauriac.

Topics in Cultural Studies : Sleep and Dream in Modern France
UVa

Why do we sleep and why do we dream ? Do dreams have a meaning ? What is the relationship of sleep and dream to waking life? Who are we during this absent third of our lives ? Despite the twentieth-century discoveries of REM sleep and circadian rhythms, sleep still mystifies and intrigues, as it did over a century ago in French culture. Nineteenth-century France witnessed an explosion of writing on sleep and dream that flourished across the disciplines of science, literature, philosophy and history. Questions about sleep and dream intersect with a variety of issues and anxieties of the time period, including the nature of mind and body, madness and death. This course proposes an exploration of modern France's fascination with sleep and dreams through representative literary, historical and scientific texts. Course work will include several short writing assignments, oral presentations, papers and exam.

Topics in 19th Century Literature, Dreaming the Monster in Ninteenth-Century France
UVa, Franklin & Marshall

"Le sommeil de la raison engendre des monstres": Goya's famous painting of 1798 depicts the dreamer slumped over his desk while owls and bats swirl around his head. The suggestion is that the monster is not so much a threat from the outside as one from i nside ourselves, born in the innermost recess of dream. In the aftermath of the Revolution and the Terror, 19th-century France dreams its own monsters, from the criminal madman to witches, demons and vampires, figures which appear not only in literature and art, but also in medical and legal writings. How do these discourses understand the monster within? How do they attempt to contain it and how does it resist such limits? What is the power, the horror and the attraction of the monster? This course will address these questions through examination of the various images of the monster in 19th-century French literature, art and culture. As the monster itself is a creature who transgresses its own borders, we too will cross disciplinary boun daries, drawing on medical and historical texts, in addition to short stories, poems and paintings. Course work will include several short writing assignments, oral presentations, papers and exam.

He Said She Said: Gender and Writing in Modern French Literature
Franklin and Marshall

Do men and women write differently?  Can you tell the gender of an author from his or her choice of language, style and subject matter?  In what ways might gender inform writing, and how does writing attempt to inscribe gender difference?  This course will explore these questions through paired readings of male and female authors of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.  In addition to theoretical readings on "l'écriture féminine" and "l'identité masculine," we will consider "gender-bending" texts which unsettle, if not subvert, the very terms of our inquiry.  All course meetings, readings and assignments will be in French.

See Frn378 at F&M

Sleep and Dream, Theory, Representation, Imagination
Franklin & Marshall

Why do we sleep and why do we dream ? Do dreams have a meaning ? Who are we during this absent third of our lives ? Despite the twentieth-century discoveries of REM sleep and circadian rhythms, sleep still mystifies and intrigues, as it has for centuries, providing fertile subject material for writers, artists and philosophers. In this course we will pursue a double route. 1) We will study the evolving path of sleep theory in the western world, from Aristotle to Freud to present day. In particular, we will consider the ways in which sleep theory does or does not reflect the dominant cultural and ideological notions of a given society at a given time. 2) At the same time, we will investigate strategies employed throughout the ages to represent sleep and dream. In addition to select readings on theories of sleep and dream, we will examine short stories, plays, essays, paintings and films which seek to render the sleep experience into something we can grasp. Throughout, we will consider the relationship between sleep and the creative imagination.

See Mss141 at F&M

France and the French Speaking World

Penn State Altoona

Adminstration Related to Teaching

• Co-Director, University of Virginia Summer Language Institute in French, 2002
• Academic Advisor in the College of Arts and Sciences, University of Virginia, 2001-2002
  
• Co-Director of Required Course Sequence in French, University of Virginia, Spring 1997
• Course Chair, French 101, University of Virginia, Fall 1997; See Course Chair Materials: For New Teachers; On Grading Compositions
• Course Chair, French 201, University of Virginia, Fall 1994; See Course Chair Materials: Ideas for Fren 201
• Course Chair, French 102, University of Virginia, Fall 1993
• Member, Foreign Language Instructional Technology Group, University of Virginia, 1996-2001
• Member, University-Wide Instructional Technology Roundtable, University of Virginia, 1997-2001
• Member, Textbook Selection Committee, French Dept., University of Virginia, Spring 1998, Spring 1996, Spring 1993

Training Workshops

Cherchez la femme:an interactive presentation for On the Move: Women in France, Québec and Sénégal. Center for the Liberal Arts, University of Virginia, April 1999, co-presented with Candace Cone.

This presentation focused on ways in which instructors can treat the changing role of women in French society in language and culture courses of any level. We discussed and demonstrated a variety of activities, including use of contemporary texts, images and web sites.
See Letter from the Center for the Liberal Arts [Image File: ca. 70k]

Panel speaker in a presentation about the process and benefits of creating a teaching portfolio.

Day-long workshop presented with Professors Roland Simon and Janet Horne (UVa) to audience of Virginia high school French teachers. My segment was a hands-on presentation of the web activities I have designed and used in my intermediate level courses.
See Workshop Handout
See Letter from the Center for the Liberal Arts [Image File: ca. 40k]

Demonstration of select web activities that I have designed and used in my intermediate level courses in conjunction with presentations by Professor Roland Simon (UVa) and Professor Giuliana Fazzion (JMU).

Hands-on workshop presented with Caroline Clifford (UVa.) Demonstration of web activities, discussion of student reactions and input and discussion of advantages and disadvantages of teaching in an electronic classroom.
See Workshop Handout
See Sample Web Activity Sheet

75 minute hands-on workshop presented with Candace Cone and Cynthia Filer. Discussion of June Phillipss Five Stages for Reading Instruction, presentation of practical applications for the intermediate and elementary foreign language class.
See Workshop Handout
See Letter from Cheryl Krueger [Image File: ca. 40k]

Along with several other presenters, I demonstrated Poursuite triviale,a translation game I developed for my intermediate courses.

Hands on workshop segment with Candace Cone and Cynthia Filer. Presentation of problem of how to increase reading comprehension in the intermediate level FL class. Examples of activities which target specific reading strategies students can use to help them understand a text.
See Workshop Summary:
Page One [Image File: ca. 120k]
Page Two [Image File: ca. 120k]

I participate in the annual week-long orientation workshop for new graduate instructors in French. I conduct 1-2 workshops in areas relevent to beginning instructors: how to do lesson breakdowns, global activities, using video, using the multimedia classroom and how to teach a conversation course.