This engaging warm up activity from Time Out: Resources for Teen Retreats by Sr. Kieran Sawyer works well as a fun break in any Scripture course. The game operates as a regular game of charades, with teams acting out famous Bible stories for others to guess.
Directions
To begin, prepare 3"x 5" cards with Bible phrases like those below, one phrase per card.
Divide the class into teams of about six persons each. Ask each group to sit together. Then say:
In my hand I have a set of cards. On each card is phrase describing a famous scene from the Bible, like "John the Baptist baptizing Jesus in the River Jordan." Each team will pick one of the cards and have three minutes to decide how to act out the phrase so that the rest of us can guess what the card says. You may use actions, sounds, and gestures, but you may not use words. Every member of your group should have a part in your presentation.
Hold the cards face down ask ask the small groups to send up a representative to pick one. Allow about three minutes for the teams to decide how they will present their phrases.
Call the class back together and select one group to do the first presentation. Call on participants to guess the scene being enacted.
When all the teams have performed two or three scenes from the prepared cards, give each group a blank 3"x 5" card and a pencil and say:
Now I am going to ask you to write down other scenes from the Bible that your group can act out. Each scene should fit the pattern: "John the Baptist baptizing Jesus in the River Jordan." In other words, someone must be doing something specific. Your group will make up a phrase for another group to act out.
Allow a few minutes for the groups to think up Bible scenes and write them on the cards. Check back to make sure the phrases are worded correctly. Then say:
Now pass your card to the group sitting at your left, and take three minutes to plan your presentation.
Call the teams back together for another round of performances. The group whose Bible scene is being acted, of course, does not help with the guessing.
Give out another set of cards, have the groups think up another Bible phrase, and pass the cards to the group sitting at their right. The game can continue for any number of rounds.
Pope Benedict XVI began a "marathon of Bible reading" on live Italian television on Sunday, October 5, while encouraging people world-wide—Catholics, Christians, Jews, Muslims, and all others—to spend some time with this sacred book. The first night of reading ending with Academy Award winning actor Roberto Benigni concluding the Book of Genesis that the Pope had began.
Organizers of the event stressed that "the Bible belongs to everyone without any discrimination or cultural or ideological barrier." The marathon will end Saturday with Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the secretary of State of the Vatican, reading the 22nd chapter of the Book of Revelation.
Can you parallel the event with your students this or another week in class? Perhaps you can encourage different readers of the Bible to read from start to finish as part of school-wide broadcast or even combined with a fundraiser for a good cause.
Or, you can simply encourage your students to begin a personal Bible reading plan. Here's are three ideas from Encountering Jesus in the New Testament.
1. Read the New Testament for ten minutes a day. Use one of the following techniques for prayer and study:
Study an individual book using a good commentary. The Collegeville Bible Commentaries are outstanding because they are simple and clear and include the text of the New American Bible. The New Jerome Biblical Commentary is also excellent. Additionally, the New American Bible offers commentary notes within the pages of the New Testament.
Study a particular New Testament theme by reading all the various passages that treat it. A concordance will help you locate all the places where the theme occurs. Some examples of major New Testament themes include Kingdom of God, faith, love, friendship, salvation, forgiveness, conversion, and witness.
Choose New Testament passages at random. Refer to biblical commentaries and dictionaries to get further background on what you have chosen for the day.
2. Pray for ten minutes each day using the New Testament. Select a favorite passage, for example, the parables or the miracles or the Sermon on the Mount. After calming down and putting yourself in the Lord’s presence, read the passage as though the Lord is speaking directly to you. Engage all your senses in the scene of the passage. Imagine that these verses are written specifically for you. Listen to what they are saying. Reflect on them as if the Lord is sitting next to you.
3.Form a Scripture study group with some friends in school or in your parish. Meet on a weekly or bi-weekly basis. Study an entire book of the Bible together. Ask an interested teacher, parent, youth minister, or priest to guide you.
With the Easter Vigil approaching, point out to your students how the nine Scripture readings recount the story of our salvation and help us to remember our ancestors of faith who at once prefigured Jesus Christ, Our Savior.Also, consider this activity to help the students recall their own Baptism and their own faith ancestors. Suggest the following:Activity Suggestions Locate the baptismal records of your grandparents by contacting (via Internet, mail, or phone) the parish where they were baptized. Record information like date, place, name, and godparents. Write a report on how the Christian faith originally came to the nation(s) of your ancestors. Write a short essay or produce an audio or video presentation that shares what you learned about God and faith from one of your relatives. Trace your family’s history on an ancestry site on the World Wide Web. Develop a display with religious artifacts that are important to your family. Tell why they are so. Arrange for a relative to tell his or her “story of faith” in a presentation to your classmates. Resource LinksProvide the following website addresses that may help the students in research information about their families:
ancestry.comonegreatfamilytree.comgenealogy.com
Dr. Daniel Smith Christopher, Professor of Theology at Loyola Marymount University and author of The Old Testament: Our Call to Faith and Justice is a “hands on” teacher who has envied those in the math and science fields who are able to enhance their courses with work in a “lab.” He’s proposing that teachers of religion (and the other humanities) have the same opportunities to make lab or studio sessions part of their coursework. And he’s asking for your help. Here’s a sample of Dr. Smith Christopher’s favorite Bible Lab sample with a link to two more lessons.
We hope to grow the Bible Lab with the possibility of eventually publishing a book with the best interactive ideas for teaching and learning Scripture. We are seeking out some of your best ideas with the invitation to have them sited here for many to share. If you are interested please label and e-mail them to the attention of the Bible Lab! at this special address.
Dr. Moorey’s Mystery
Background
The most successful hands-on experiment that I have used in my freshman college courses (and with visiting high school students and in adult education settings, too) is what I call: “Dr. Moorey’s Mystery.” It is named for Dr. P.R. Moorey of Oxford University (who passed away in 2004), with whom I consulted on the original design of the this experiment when I first invented it while a graduate student at Oxford.
Preparations
You will need a total of four homemade clay pots for this experiment.
Pot 1 should be roughly made as a “pinch pot” without using a wheel. For my series, each of the pots has an obvious rim . Each of your four pots should have one obvious feature that remains constant throughout the series. This is a very significant clue, and illustrates what archeaologists look for in studying pottery styles.
The next three pots should be made on a wheel.
Pot 2 should be made with thick walls. Leave your finger impressions on the side (e.g. do not smooth the walls on the outside). Don’t forget your constant feature (like the rims on my pots).
Pot 3 should be made with thin walls, smoothed surface, and even some decorations (e.g., a design, or even simple animal figures, etc.). After this one is made and fired, take it apart from the others, find a safe place to burn some paper, and set this one pot only on the burning paper to get some black sooty markings on this pot.
Pot 4 should be very much like Pot 3, but only with smooth walls, and no designs, and no burn marks.
When you have finished making these four, generally similar sized pots, each one of them should exhibit at least one generally similar feature (as I said, for my set it is rims around the top).
Next, break up (smash!) all four pots. Keep only a few pieces of the first, hand-made pot, including pieces that feature your main stylistic clue (e.g. rim, etc.). This is your “most primitive” pot, and should have fewer sample pieces than the others.
I keep all my pieces together in a box, and bring it to class on the very first day of the course, in order to have a surprising, “hands on” activity for a class that most students think is going to be bookish and slow.
Classroom Directions
I ask the entire class to stand, come forward, and draw pieces of broken pottery from the box. I then tell the entire room that there is a story in these pieces, and their task is to tell the story. Make up something fun, like, “While digging the foundation for my house, something incredible was found . . .” or “While the gardener was working in the garden by the school, he stumbled onto . . . .” I always stop, with a smile, and say, “This is not a true story.” Finish the story with: “These pieces are dying to tell you a story—your task is to give these pieces a voice! Tell their story!”
You must clarify, however, that the key to unlocking the story is that they must also seek the answer to a single critically important question that is answered with either “yes” or “no”. I inform them that they can ask any question they want at any time, but I will only answer the correct question. If the class is not moving toward this question, I give a hint – “it has to do with how they were found.” In the meantime, I tell the students to circulate around the room, collecting information about the pottery pieces.
They will make lots of good observations. Affirm the observations they make, like: “the pieces seem to come from more than one pot” and “the pieces are made from the same material” (suggests same people making them?). Eventually someone will say: “Were they all found at the same time?” That is the question and they immediately realize that the different pots they are discerning among the mixture must represent different pots from different times.
Now have them group the pieces, and try to guess which came first, then next, and analyze why they are saying this. The key to the experiment is making sure that students are not allowed to speculate beyond reasonable inferences from the evidence.
Teaching the Lesson
The point of the lab experiment to illustrate a number of critical skills for the study of biblical texts:
- biblical study requires careful, critical, and rational thought;
- biblical study requires historical analysis based on evidence;
- biblical study must rely on the evidence first and foremost;
- speculation must have a basis in evidence.
In this particular mystery, the evidence is the pottery pieces. In the Bible, the evidence is the text itself—not what we think it says, not what it is supposed to say…but what it actually says. The experiment teaches students to examine the evidence before making guesses as to meaning and purpose in biblical study.
And, it is lots of fun as you get better at guiding groups through the experiment.
The Church proclaims readings from the Book of Isaiah during Advent and on Christmas Day. Use the opportunity to remind your students that the Book of Isaiah actually contains the work of more than one writer, from more than one time. The book of Isaiah is usually divided as follows:
Isaiah 1–39.These chapters are mostly stories about, and sayings of, the actual prophet Isaiah of Jerusalem for whom the book is named.Isaiah 40—–55.A second, unnamed prophet known as “Second Isaiah” is credited with this portion of the book. Second Isaiah lived at the end of the Babylonian period and the beginning of the Persian period (545–534 B.C.) and likely witnessed the collapse of Babylon to the Persian Empire.Isaiah 56–66.The final chapters are thought to have been collected by disciples of Second Isaiah (called “Third Isaiah”), writings from Jerusalem and the Diaspora after thexile. These chapters emphasize the importance of the Temple and invite all nations to join Israel as God’s Chosen People. Have the students read the following passages from the Sundays in Advent and the Midnight Mass of Christmas and write how they refer to the coming of the Messiah and God’s Kingdom.First Sunday of Advent Isaiah 2:1-5First Sunday of Advent Isaiah 11:1-10First Sunday of Advent Isaiah 35:1-6a, 10First Sunday of Advent Isaiah 7:10-14Christmas at Midnight Isaiah 62:11-–-12
