Les ateliers de négociation graphique : un outil pour comprendre les raisonnements des élèves en matière orthographique.

Traces of students’ reasoning about some of their writing choices have been noticed in
the context of a process related to the acquisition and improvement of spelling. The
process suggested, i.e. the “Ateliers de Négociation Graphique” (Graphic Negociation
Workshops), is the traditional activity of dictation, coupled with a reflective dimension:
students verbalize and compare their way of applying rules and progressively develop
a questioning and revising attitude towards their writings. These workshops are the
best place to understand the students’ reasoning and their way of applying rules and
using strategies, productively or otherwise, that systematic drills do not always help
to emphasize. Observing grade-5-and-6 students during several months drew our attention to a
recurrent problem, which is the wrong use of some usual substitution strategies aimed
at making a choice between two spellings. In a sentence such as “les hommes se sont
toujours intéressés à la mécanique” (men have always been interested in mechanics),
some students who waver between various endings for the past participle will use “fait
ou faire” (made or make) instead of “intéressés”. This is a common process, but one
that is rather difficult for students to apply for several reasons, such as acceptability
issues of the sentence at the semantic level (Haas, 1999). The collected video data
lead to consideration of the relevance of using such processes before the students
have the skill and expertise in the various grammatical categories.