Resources for Teachers

This resource guide was created by Franco-American specialists in Maine in partnership with the Maine Department of Education. The guide's purpose is to assist K-12 teachers and students in locating available Franco-American resources about Maine and New England. The guide includes primary and secondary sources for middle and high school grade levels in specific subject areas, with descriptions of sources and links to find them online

In 1985, Robert Cornevin of France’s Académie des Sciences d’Outre-Mer (Overseas Academy of Sciences) asked the French Institute at Assumption University to create a dictionary of Franco-American authors as part of its series on Francophone authors throughout the world. This Dictionary of Franco-American Authors Writing in French initially consisted of bio-bibliographies of 65 deceased authors, but it has since grown to 103, including a dozen living authors. Because it concentrates on French, it does not discuss the many and often better-known Franco-American writers who have published exclusively in English, for example, Jack Kerouac (whose French writings remained in manuscript during his lifetime), Grace Metalious, or David Plante. As used in this dictionary, the term Franco-American refers to people of French-Canadian or Acadian birth or ancestry living in the Northeastern United States, where the term originated in the 1880s. Thus, the dictionary does not cover French literary production from the so-called American Creole Crescent, from the Great Lakes to Louisiana. Entries follow a common format: a short biography of each author, followed by a list of her or his French-language works, and bibliographical references where available. Initially written in French, they are currently being translated into English by translation students at Salem State College, under the supervision of Professor Elizabeth Blood. English translations will be added as they become available.

This lesson plan includes links and resources from the FADA website. The lesson focuses with a dual purpose for allowing high school students to hone their translation skills while concurrently enhancing their historical source analysis competencies. It is the germ of an inspiration sowed from conversations between World Language and Social Studies colleagues at Biddeford High School, Biddeford, ME. The goal was to create a successful blending of World Language goals from the American Council for Teaching Foreign Languages (ACTFL) as well as the Social Studies Goals from the Maine Learning Results (MLR).

This two-week lesson plan includes links and resources from the Library of Congress: "The lesson focuses primarily on gaining insight into French Canadian immigrants and their contributions by juxtaposing information from American Life Histories: Manuscripts from the Federal Writers' Project, 1936-1940 with that of information from Chronicling America, looking for areas of commonality and contradiction." Created by Linda Hamel and Linda Hedrick.