On the Chatbac web page, the interface is very clear and asks you to choose which author from the year’s programme you want to talk to.
As students don’t always know what questions to ask, the site’s designer suggests some by default. They are centred on the themes in the syllabus, and while they are very useful for preparing for the baccalaureate because they are the type of questions an examiner asks, they are not necessarily the ones you want to start by asking the author.
In fact, you immediately want to get more personal with simpler questions, because the idea of dialogue suggests that there’s going to be a closeness. So I asked Rimbaud when he was born, then where he had travelled and which was his favourite country.
It’s worth noting that there’s always something fascinating when you read on the screen “Arthur Rimbaud is writing“.
Although the first answer is a little unnatural “[…] It’s a date that marks the beginning of a short but intense life, dedicated to poetry and to rebelling against the established forms of literature and society of my time.“, however, the next two, and in particular that of the favourite country, are very natural. It sounds like Rimbaud answering us : “I’ve never really declared a favourite country […] However, there were places that left a deep impression on me, in particular Ethiopia, or more precisely the Choa kingdom and the Harar region, where I settled as a trader for several years. I had some intense experiences there […] I remained fascinated by this land of Abyssinia,- […] So, if I had to name one country that I liked best, it would be Ethiopia (formerly Abyssinia), and the surrounding region where I lived and fought, between Harar, Choa and Tadjourah..”
And even the questions suggested by the tool become more natural : “How do you describe the Abyssinian landscape in your letters and writings?” and “Why did you choose to settle in Harar and what difficulties did you encounter?“whereas the first questions suggested, during the first contact with the author, were much more academic and could perhaps put the student off: “What do you get out of writing the poems in the Cahiers de Douai? ?” ou “Which poems in your collection reveal your emancipation?“.
Creating this kind of closeness by talking to authors is undoubtedly one of the keys to getting pupils interested in what they have written. Literary reality becomes less abstract for them.
However, if you can’t ask Rimbaud for his favourite food : “My intention is not to go back over anecdotal elements of my personal life. I can only provide biographical information about moments that shed light on my work and give it meaning. I suggest you stick to studying the works themselves. Do you want to ask me any more questions ?“, which is a shame, because the anecdote is also a gateway: you can ask him who his favourite musician is and get an interesting answer. And the author even raises the question : “What music do you find in your life that can really make your emotions sing, as I’ve tried to do with my poems? “.
This is also one of the features of the tool that we hadn’t mentioned: after each answer, the author extends the conversation with a question (which isn’t always in the thread of the discussion because sometimes she tries to refocus on typical exam questions).
So the discussion continued. I said I liked rap. He drew a parallel between rap and his poetry before concluding “So, even if the styles are different, I encourage you to see rap as the poetry of our time, where language becomes a weapon and a mirror of the world.” and ask me “And you, which poems from my “Cahiers de Douai” do you feel are close to this lively rap energy?“.
So we have a tool to help us prepare for the French baccalaureate, with a whole series of standard, formal questions and answers that will help us analyse the texts. But Chatbac also allows you to have the illusion for a moment that you’re really face-to-face with the author, so you can discover his or her world informally and enter the “French” world with pleasure.