Abstract
The complexity of the writing production task in the 3rd cycle of elementary school and the small number of studies conducted on the pre-writing phase (Camps and Milian, 2001; Kervyn and Faux, 2014) justify the general orientation of our research, which requires students to create (a maquette) before writing. We consider that such a step can promote the development of scriptural skills and may improve students’ relationship with writing. Through a collaborative design research, we have thus conceived a device supporting the writing phase through a maquette building process, realized in small groups. The first results of our study, based on written tests analysis and on midterm interviews, indicate how students perceive the device and the evolution of their relationship with fictional writing. Results show that students identify the link between the maquette making phase and the writing one; experience the effect of collaboration in the construction phase; perceive their maquette as an aid for conceiving a coherent fictional universe.