For the thirty students of the college Amédée Dunois in Boissy-Saint-Léger in the Val-de-Marne (94), this Monday, October 18 is not a morning like the others.
With uncapped pens and sharpened pencils, they are preparing to write on a white sheet the words dictated by the First Lady, Brigitte Macron and Jean-Michel Blanquer, Minister of National Education.
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Like them, for the 18th consecutive year, there are 2,500 establishments, from primary to high school, to participate in the ELA dictation, organized by the association of the same name, fighting against leukodystrophy, a neurodegenerative disease.
Throughout the day, from Montpellier to Caen, several hundred children looked at the unpublished text of the 2021 edition.
Fighting disease with Hervé Le Tellier
"You, I don't know, but me, I've always struggled with catching, spelling the word."
Thus begins the dictation, written for the occasion by Hervé Le Tellier, Goncourt Prize 2020 for his book L'Anomalie.
On 259 words, the author associates the difficulties in spelling with those of the disease.
“Are some words standing up against us?” He
continues in his essay called
Gymnastics of Words.
Let's turn this battle into a game, never fear defeat. ”
Read alsoDictation: a French passion
Through these twenty sentences, which entangle some real lexical and grammatical difficulties, the association wishes above all to make children aware of the disease.
"This is not a real noted dictation,
she argues with Le
Figaro
,
but a pretext to talk about suffering, openness to others and tolerance."
If the year 2020 was disrupted by the Covid, this time the establishments have responded. "
We have regained our participation rates of 2019
", continues the association which hopes to see the exercise "
known to all and fashionable
" to multiply the next fall.
The dictation marks the beginning of the week "Put on your sneakers and beat the disease", devoted to the fight against the disease which affects in France, leukodystrophies concern 3 to 6 births per week.
