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 21: 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 4/20/16:

News Brief - Blake

Failing Religion
Breathing
Judaism

Homework: Read the blog! Know your grade and how to improve it finish Historical Investigation if you have not. Next news brief: Ben P.

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News Brief: Blake had the news brief today and selected an article about this story to talk about: TheGuardian.com - Anders Breivik’s human rights violated in prison, Norway court rules. We found Norway in our world maps and talked about this story, and what happened with the prison inmate, along with how Europe's punishment of crimes is often much different than here in the United States (the lack of using the death penalty being an obvious example).

The next news brief was assigned to Ben P.

Since Tuesday was the testing day, I asked about how that went and we talked a little bit about our experiences.

We also watched the one minute BBC World News update. Here's the link to see the latest one minute update, at any time of day (it will probably be different from what we watched in class):

BBCNews.com - One-minute World News

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

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 outside to do some breathing and meditation type exercises! It may have been a bit chilly with the wind, and damp with the wet grass, 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! Let me know if there is anything that I can do to help! Thank you!