War and Peace Lesson Plan

French - language of the elite

Kind of Activity:

Classwide Discussion

Objective:

To analyze the effect of the use of French on Tolstoy's readers

Common Core Standards:

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.11-12.2; CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.11-12.5; CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.11-12.1.A

Structure:

Only a small percentage of War and Peace is written in French, but it can be a daunting barrier to a non-French speaker who finds both large sections entirely in French as well as important comments in French mixed into conversation. Since French appears in the original Russian version, whether or not to translate the French as well as the Russian in English translations has long been debated by...