Religion, Day 3 - Class Recap

Today, I wanted students to envision themselves at a beach. This is one of my favorite beaches in the world: Maho Beach, St. Martin, in the Caribbean. Home to one of the greatest places to photograph planes on Earth! Photo taken in 2009. 

Hi everyone,

It was a fun class today - I am glad that we were able to go outside for a bit, to enjoy the weather! Thanks for participating in our class activities today! Here's what we did today in class:

Learning Targets: 
Knowledge LT 22: I can explain how religious ideas impact the shaping of societies.
Critical Thinking LT 2: I can explain connections between events, issues, problems and concepts.

Soundtrack: "Beach Chair" by Jay Z and Chris Martin. Selected for today because of the breathing exercises we did, envisioning ourselves at the beach! Lyrics here.

AGENDA 4/17/15:

News Brief - Clara

Failing Religion
Breathing
Judaism

Homework: Read the blog! Know your grade and how to improve it - Russian Revolution (found on this post) and finishing Historical Investigation if you have not. Next news brief: 

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News Brief: Clara had the news brief today and selected an article about this story to talk about: CNN.com - Italian police: Muslim migrants threw Christians overboard. What a frightening story! It also relates to our religion unit, as well. Thanks, Clara. I also showed this in depth article from the New York Times about the Armenian Genocide: NYTimes.com - A Century After Armenian Genocide, Turkey’s Denial Only Deepens.

We also watched VICE News for the day (which had a section on India and cows - exactly what we were talking about last class - SO cool!), before moving on.

The next news brief was assigned to Kelli.

Failing Religion: This section was looking at an article on American's knowledge of religion. I read the article aloud to the class (I know this probably wasn't the most interesting use of your time - sorry!) and then students answered the questions at the end:

Google Drive - USAToday: Americans Get an 'F' in Religion Assignment

Due to the shortened assembly schedule today, we didn't get to spend as much time on this as I would have liked. I do want to discuss it more next class!

As part of this section, I showed this clip of a bar owner in Myanmar being accused of insulting Buddhism by having an online advertisement with headphones on a Buddha, connected to a dance party with alcoholic drinks:

This is another relationship of religion to society, which is our learning target for this unit. I showed this article about the man being sentenced to two years in prison, as well: NYTimes.com - Myanmar Sentences 3 to Prison for Depicting Buddha Wearing Headphones.

Breathing: I was really excited to try this today - especially as it meant a trip outside! :-) Thank you for being willing to participate in a walk out to the football field to do some breathing and meditation type exercises! It may have been a bit chilly with the wind, but the sun was so nice! The whole point of this was to just relax. Hopefully, it did the trick!

Judaism: At the end of class, we came back to the room and continued with the religion notes, using the Cornell Notes format. Here is the PowerPoint again:

Google Drive: Major Religions of the World PowerPoint

Today, we finished the third religion in the PowerPoint - Judaism. This was somewhat lengthy, so I appreciate your focus to it! :-)

Please make sure you are working hard to review your notes, and improve your grade if at all possible! I have updated your grades online to reflect whether or not you have turned in your Historical Investigation, as well. Let me know if there is anything that I can do to help! Thank you!