The Lycée Times: Important tip-off for 1ère students concerning the BAC de Français

Dear Readers,

For those of you in 1ère, as you know, there’s the BAC de Français at the end of the year. But what will be on it? This article will help you guess what is more likely to come up on the day.

Key:

Y Was the paper on this year

N Wasn’t the paper on this year

★ More stars means it’s more likely

Bac L

Thèmes	2006	2007	2008	2009	2010	Probable in 2011?
Le roman et ses personnages	N	N	Y	N	Y	★★★★☆
La poésie	Y	N	N	N	N	★★★★☆
Le théâtre : texte et représentation	N	N	N	Y	N	★★★☆☆
L’argumentation : convaincre, persuader et délibérer	N	N	N	N	N	★★★☆☆
Un mouvement littéraire et culturel	N	N	N	N	N	★★☆☆☆
L’autobiographie	N	Y	N	N	N	★★★★☆
Les réécritures	N	N	N	N	Y	★★★☆☆

Bac ES & S

Thèmes	2006	2007	2008	2009	2010	Probable in 2011?
Le roman et ses personnages	N	N	Y	N	N	★★★★☆
La poésie	N	N	N	N	N	★★★★☆
Le théâtre : texte et représentation	N	N	N	Y	N	★★★☆☆
L’argumentation : convaincre, persuader et délibérer	Y	Y	N	N	Y	★★★☆☆

How can you predict which ‘Thèmes’ are less likely?

L’Etudiant.fr conducted a survey on some teachers earlier this year. From their results, it’s less likely that a paper treating a literary and cultural movement will appear in the BAC this year. The teachers interviewed said that this type of paper would be “Too difficult”, “Too restricted” and others said “Not all teachers study the same movements with their students”. But in any case, it is highly recommended to revise the authors, examples of their work and what literary movement and period they belong to. This would be important whatever the paper is. “A student must know where to situate authors in history, in a literary movement and of what period”, says Caroline Reys, teacher at Ribeauvillé. Sophie Saulnier, teacher at the Lycée d’Argenteuil stated “It’s fundamental to know the major literary movements, to know where to place the authors within it – this knowledge will help a student to do well in the other papers to do with other ‘Thèmes’ ”.

What’s most likely and why?

Part of the programme since 2007, ‘le roman et ses personnages’ is a classic. Even though it was the paper in 2010 for the S and ES séries, it could well come back. It covers all the fundamentals of French literature, such as the great authors of the 19^th century like Stendhal, Balzac, Flaubert and Zola, right up to modern literature, such as Duras, Sarraute and Céline. It also refers to some collège classwork. The student will have to have read at least four classics and have around ten different characters revised.

This year, ‘la poésie’ is highly expected because it hasn’t been on the papers since 2006. For this, you should revise some poetry by Baudelaire, Rimbaud, Apollinaire, Hugo, Eluard, Aragon and Char, for the best possible results. In this ‘Thème’, it’s not essential to write page upon page for the Commentaire. What you need to do, to do your best, is to have all the techniques well-revised. This means, to be able to talk about ‘la versification’, metaphors and what they signify, the way the poet creates an image in your mind, to be able to talk about rhymes and rhythms, etc. For the Commentaire in this paper, it’s all about quality, not quantity!

For the students in 1ère L, ‘l’autobiographie’ seems top of the list of probabilities. The texts that would almost certainly appear would be “Les Essais” by Montaigne, “Les Confessions” by Rousseau and “Les Mémoires d’outre tombe” by Chateaubriand. Sophie Saulnier, teacher at the Lycée d’Argenteuil, said that “This paper won’t exist from next year onwards. Why not finish the old programme with this very literary subject… for those in L, who should be capable of differentiating the different forms of autobiography: memoirs, diaries, auto fiction…”

Despite the fact that last year’s predictions were right, you still need to revise everything! Better safe than sorry!

Article by The Editor

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