The Hero's Journey

Today marks the end of our journey through Literature of the Bible.  With such a vast text, we only scratched the surface of the curriculum, but in the process of reading from the Hebrew Bible and the Gospels, we charted our own journeys and found rich references to our world today and the texts we read and the films we watch.

I'll miss all of you.  What a wonderful, sharing and kind group we have.  Some of you are setting out on your own journey outside our building, and some of you are moving on down the hallway to new classes.  I hope you'll stop by room 185 on occasion and keep me up on how life is treating you.

You still have my email (bjames@spsmail.org) and I will leave the blog site open.  So, adieu for now and safe journeys!  Have a peaceful and restful holiday!

Proverbs, The Hero's Journey, and Thanksgiving Break!

Last week we read through Proverbs, translating them into modern day stories.  These we shared and compared with traditional English proverbs, learning a number of new idioms through a crossword hunt.  We also charted the hero's journey through characters in the Old Testament as well as a favorite movie, sharing our notes on Mulan.  


Learning about Joseph Campbell's lifelong study of myths, archetypes, and story patterns, we charted our own personal journeys, recognizing we are all heroes of our own personal journey.  We will pick up from there after our Thanksgiving break.

I hope everyone has a happy and restful Thanksgiving holiday.

Women of the Bible

Our next challenge:  Select a woman of the Bible to research.  Read her story and share her story on a blog post of your own.  You may want to start with a simple website. Read over the interesting choices and sign up to research the woman of your choice.  In your blog post include:

• Background information on your character.  What is her story?  Who are the important characters in her life?  What is her timeline? (Think about events in her life and also those that come before and after her.) Why is she important or what is the lesson we learn from her story?
• Bible quotes or passage from her story.
• Famous art, music, or movies inspired by your character.
• An illustration to accompany your post
• Your opinion, including any connections or evaluations you can make!

Monday is set aside for reading.  You will need to read your character's pages in the Bible.  Here you will piece together your character's life, lessons, and quotes.  You will also consult outside sources for additional support.  Your written description of your character's story will be drafted Monday , and your final blog post should be posted by the end of class on Wednesday.  Friday we will read the posts from our class and respond through meaningful comments to each post.

Children's Book Parable

This week our time has been spent creatively considering lessons to be taught to children.  We reviewed a number of children's books to enjoy and to analyze for the teachable lesson.  After deciding on a lesson (a parable), we worked on a rough draft by completing a storyboard with text and sketches (or words describing the pictures) for the pages of our own book creation.  Choices include creating a hard copy book or a digital book.  Directions are linked here.

We shared our rough draft creations, conferencing with a writing partner and keeping notes.  Our final day of work is Friday, October 30 when we will complete our self-scoring rubric and add any final touches on our books.  Book share presentations are scheduled for Wednesday, November 4th. Books are due at the beginning of class!  Good luck!

Good News and Good Lessons

This Wednesday we'll begin reading the Gospels of Mark, Matthew, Luke, and John.  We will focus on the lessons taught by Jesus through the Parables contained in these opening books of the New Testament.

The writing response to accompany our reading is to select four Parables (there are many), write a brief summary (the gist) and state the moral or point.  See the handout.

Finally, your challenge is to choose one of your four parables to share on a blog post.  Include:

• a short summary, 
• a powerful passage with your explanation as to why it's powerful 
• the point or lesson of the story 
• a picture

Poetry of the Bible

We will try our hand at reading and interpreting the Book of Psalms as the second quarter begins. Psalm 23, a familiar psalm to many of us, served as our sample to interpret on Wednesday. Friday we will begin with an artistic sketch of ourselves, and then we'll read through many psalms (see handout in crate) to interpret and later select one or two others to analyze and present artistically, either through a found poem or tagxedo or the like.

Some things to know about Psalms include:

• written by many people, including David.
• written long, long ago and probably compiled in the third century B.C.
• used for praying and singing, and the underlying theme is there is one God in charge of everything...

We will also listen to psalm lyrics set to music, appreciating how wide spread and appreciated this poetry is.  One common example is the song Turn, Turn, Turn by the Byrds taken from the Book of  Ecclesiastes.  You may already recognize its origin in lyrics.

Responses to Literature and Presentations

This week we are focusing on responding to literature, beginning with a response to the children's story Fox.  Of course, it isn't really aimed at children because it is a rather grim story.  For practice, however, you wrote a sample "blog post" on paper.  Like a blog post, you included a short summary, a representative quote from the story with explanation, and a connection to other literature, particularly Bible stories.

On Wednesday during class, we wrote "blog posts" to the independent reading you've done this quarter.  These posts are due by Friday.  We will also share presentations on Friday, the last day of the quarter!