Objects to Learn about and Objects for Learning 1

2Objects as Catalysts for Writing

2.1. Introduction

We are studying the use of concrete objects to facilitate the entry into writing, as “impulse givers” Alheit (2008) would say. We will start by quickly coming back to two moments in our research path between the biographical-narrative approach and the didactic approach to the French language, which have largely contributed to confirming the hypothesis that objects are vectors of narratives: an early study in which we asked teachers in initial training to express themselves using their personal school exercise books as a basis, and a later study in which “objects from home” were used to stimulate writing in third- and fourth-grade children who were unable to write. The presence of objects establishes a bridge between the child and the pupil who can in this way construct the notion that writing means saying something about oneself, it means perceiving oneself as “a unique person with a story, emotions, a meaningful engagement in what (s)he says or does, who, in order to do this, thinks, communicates with his or her pen or keyboard” (Bucheton 2014, p. 11).

This chapter will subsequently focus on research carried out in the Elementary Section, a key stage in learning to write. We will see, from an example from the transcriptions produced, that objects can potentially help with writing because they make play possible well beyond kindergarten, they invite storytelling and aid the development of narrative capacities by activating ...