Les élèves témoignent

Certains élèves ont souhaité partager leur expérience. Nous les en remercions.

Témoignage de Clotilde Descazeaux

Sur le concours de nouvelles
Elève du collège Saint-Michel de Picpus.

Clotilde a participé au concours de nouvelles et en témoigne ci-dessous. A noter que sa nouvelle a été sélectionnée par les jurés, pour la lire visitez le site du concours de nouvelles.

Festival America

Quelques élèves de ma classe d’anglais euro avec Miss Jarnouën ont participé au concours d’écriture de nouvelles du Festival America.

C’est ainsi qu’un mercredi de mai, pendant quatre heures, ils se sont retrouvés - je me suis retrouvée ! -, seuls ou par deux, devant leur clavier d’ordinateur, dans une salle d’informatique remplie de lycéens bourrés d’idées et de talent. Intimidant ?

Tirés tout droit des mystères de Harris Burdick, une image et une légende (en anglais bien sûr), voilà le sujet, et il était passionnant !

Quelques mois plus tard, c’est la rentrée, et le souvenir de ce concours est déjà loin. Miss Jarnouën envoie alors à ses anciens élèves les résultats du concours et, pour trois d’entre eux, c’est gagné ! Le jury a apprécié leur imagination (plus que leur niveau de langue), et ils sont invités à la remise des prix à Vincennes, le vendredi 12 septembre. Ils ont pu rencontrer Paolo Bacigalupi, qui leur a chaleureusement remis un livre sur le vintage Américain et un T-shirt dédicacé.

Ce fut donc une formidable expérience, à renouveler absolument !

Témoignage de L. C.

Sur la journée scolaire
Elève du lycée Saint-Michel de Picpus.

FESTIVAL AMERICA in Vincennes

Follow me to the hectic day of young Frenchies at a celebration of American literature on September 12th and improve your knowledge with us …

While our friends were thinking that it was another day for the Literature Section to slack off, some of us were already in front of St Michel de Picpus at 8 am, ready to make our neurons working out with our first workshop with the translator Karine Reignier. I was so excited to meet her, since I read a book she translated, One Day, which I really appreciated.

Once arrived in Vincennes with our English teachers, we started the activity: translating an extract from The Middlesteins. I was with my friend Marie and after arguing for each word for 15 minutes, we finally successfully translated more than a paragraph. Then we met the author, Jami Attenberg. She is an American writer, also a journalist for The New York Time – I was really impressed. She became famous thanks to her book The Middlesteins, which deals with humour about the problem of obesity in the U.S.A. We had a really nice talk, since she is a really funny, inspiring and open-minded woman, she made us want to read her book! Sadly, the hour went by really fast and it was already time to meet another person…

This time we got to know more about Paolo Bacigalupi, another American author but of fantasy and sci-fi novels for young adults. We have already studied an excerpt of his last book, Ship Breaker. The whole class was sat in front of him in a huge dimly-lit auditorium. He talked about his path, his book, how he came to this idea and how he liked to write while walking on his treadmill - according to him, writers don’t exercise enough! Bacigalupi basically wanted to see what would happen if the world kept on doing what it was already doing. And that’s how Nail ended up as a ship breaker in a semi-dystopian future that could be ours in a hundred year. Then came the question/answer part. We asked some questions such as the way he was choosing his characters’ names. And since everything has an end, our meeting with Paolo wrapped up with some pictures as a souvenir.

It was really interesting knowing all these persons but my stomach was craving for some food –I was not the only one…- so we settled down next to the castle of Vincennes, on the grass. We enjoyed chatting, tanning, resting or revising philosophy –poor us-. Afterwards, we moved on and went to a stall of a bunch of publishers proposing different American authors. My heart was crying of despair: had I known earlier, I would have brought more money! –I am absolutely crazy about books. Whenever I see a bookshop I just feel like buying everything!-

The last part of our program was “From the feather to the screen” which was a series of some short movies. Three of them really moved me. The first one was with the Native Americans writing on a black board about how their schoolmates were judging them, without even knowing them. But one by one they erased those insults and wrote instead a quality about themselves. The second is a cartoon where, throughout the dance of a girl, the nature was restoring his colour little by little. The last one was the one with the different generations, where the grandmother could not communicate anymore with her granddaughter because she only knew how to speak English.

October 12th was certainly a long day, but it was worth it. In short I would say that I sincerely appreciate this “journey” to America. You might want to know more about the two authors I met, and even the translator: therefore I invite you to the next Festival America. Who knows, maybe will you meet Margaret Atwood?