The robinsonnade: a "pre-text" for reading and writing about nature in elementary school

Abstract

Literature not only contributes to the formation of a literary culture, but also to the construction of the reader’s personality and the expression of his or her sensibility.  While nature has always been strongly represented in children’s books, ecological concerns are now finding their way into the most recent works aimed at this readership. The robinsonnade genre, born of countless rewritings of Daniel Defoe’s novel Robinson Crusoe, is undoubtedly the literary genre that offers the most direct way of seeing and thinking about nature. This contribution explores the robinsonnades and their power to evoke the living. Works are read in class by pupils at the end of elementary school in order to produce texts. The aim is to describe nature, but also to initiate reflection on the relationship between human beings and their environment.