VIC “Morte parmi les vivants” (Dead among living), Freidoune Sahebjam

First of all, the students read some extracts from Freidoune Sahebjam's book : “Morte parmi les vivants”, the story of an Afghan child named Bilqis rejected by her family because of a rape she suffered at the age of 12: they were able to find in this book the history of Afghanistan on which they had done research, and to complete their knowledge of the way of life, the customs and habits of Afghan families as well as the politics of the Taliban.

The story of the this girl also made them aware of the importance of international solidarity since Bilqis, who is now 26 years old, was saved by a European NGO and was able to slowly rebuild her life. The comparison between newspaper articles and extracts from the novel allowed them to identify the differences between journalistic writing and writing a literary work. Next, the students, in pairs, wrote an interview in their mother tongue with the author of the novel, both to promote the book and to alert the international community to the plight of women in Afghanistan.  They presented their interview in digital form, respecting the presentation of a press article : concise and catchy headlines, intertitles that provide a reading circuit for the reader, a cap which briefly summarises the essence of the article, an introduction which catches the reader's attention and encourages them to continue reading, choice of relevant images. Finally, each pair presented their interview in a video in English.

The students learned about the difference between writing as a journalist and writing as a novelist. They also learned more about Afghanistan and the status of women in that country. They developed digital skills by presenting their interview as a news article in their mother tongue and then as a video in a foreign language.