Brighter Than Expected

This post links to Convert Journal

I hope that's kosher

Fun fun fun at the Communion retreat on Sunday with 7 and 8-year-olds. Four groups of 10 or so, 25+ minutes each time. The standard program covered the miracle of the Loaves and Fishes using step-by-step teacher's notecards, and miraculously-expanding big paper-doll type loaves and fish. Pretty neat. Of course the kids already knew the story, so I couldn't see spending the whole time on that one miracle. Plus they already knew other stories that tie into the Eucharistic theme. Why not connect the dots they know, and add a couple while we're at it?

So instead of the prepared program, I presented a stripped-down version of the 6-step Bible Miracle Food Pyramid:

0. What's a food pyramid? What's a miracle food pyramid? (2 minutes)

1. Moses, bread and flesh in the desert. (3 minutes)

2. Elijah, bread and flesh in the desert. (3 minutes)

3. Elisha multiplies bread. (3 minutes)

4. Jesus transforms water into wine. (3 minutes)

5. Jesus multiplies bread and flesh; helpers passed out hunks of French bread for some hands-on drama. (6 minutes)

6. Jesus transforms bread into flesh; and wine into blood. This miracle continues even until today in Masses all around the world. (5 minutes)

At each step we reviewed how each succeeding miracle compared to the prior ones. As appropriate, I'd dramatize the stories and draw pictures. None of the four sessions went quite the same.

First time I've worked with kids this young. Their attention spans are shorter than 6th graders', but they think as fast, and threw themselves into it as soon as I got them laughing. Nice gig.

This example is how I typically lesson-plan any new assignment. I consider allotted time, the audience, and what they probably already know. Then I figure how to cover the topic in a way that's fun and stimulating, connects to other stuff, and leads to a bigger Catholic picture. Always: how does this bit we are discussing tie into the rest of the Bible and the Faith?

Lesson Plan on the Fly

I have a syllabus of sorts for the whole year, but it's rare that classes start or end as predicted. So before every class I take a look at where we left off and make a quick lesson plan based on that. Here's the one for Dec. 12, which took only a few minutes to work out:

1. Isaiah Xmas- Last week we finished the Old Testament by reviewing a bunch of prophets and prophecies, right up to the last words of the last book. But I didn't cover any of Isaiah's Christmas prophecies because I save them for the last class before Christmas.

2. Review O.T.- Then we'll close out the Old Testament by reviewing the whole thing in about 10-15 minutes, starting with God before Creation, and ending with Malachi's prophecies:

"Behold, I send my messenger to prepare the way before me, and the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple; the messenger of the covenant in whom you delight, behold, he is coming, says the LORD of hosts."

and

"Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and terrible day of the LORD comes."

Mostly I just prompt the kids: "and then what/ who's next/ what's this mean?" They usually surprise me with how well they remember.

Intro N.T. - A few minutes of big-picture discussion about how the N.T. will be different from the O.T.; but also how they complement each other. I may compare them to the husband & wife in a marriage.

3. Imm. Conception- Part of the N.T. intro involves figuring out why the Immaculate Conception thematically lies between the O.T. & N.T., but is not mentioned in the Bible. I usually pull in some discussion of the Annunciation as well, just enough for them to see how the two are related, but separate, events.

& Isenheim-  I'll hand out an image of the Annunciation from the Isenheim Altarpiece. It shows how Mary is a hinge between the two Testaments based on symbolic elements which the kids can figure out. We'll also use this to discuss the Annunciation, and analyze another batch of elements. We also look at and act out a terrific portrait of Eve and Mary, emphasizing how the two women represent the Testaments. We also use this picture to discuss Mary's pregnancy. The images work well as a pair to transition from the O.T. to the N.T.

4. John the Baptist- for the first time this year, the kids will hear me read from the New Testament as we get started not with Jesus, not with Mary, not with John; but with John's parents, Zechariah and Elizabeth. Time permitting, we'll start on the Annunciation once Elizabeth is pregnant.

Isenheim & Mary/Eve- these rectangled words reminded me to put together this side-by-side handout of these two images:

 Eve and Mary by Sr. Grace Remington, O.C.S.O; and the left-hand panel of the second configuration of Grünewald's Isenheim Altarpiece

That's all the Lesson Plan I'll need. I've taught this material before; so yes, it's sketchy, but it's enough.

New Evangelization 1999

This post links to RAnn's Sunday Snippets

Originally posted at New Evangelizers on Nov. 8 

Some might say: Yes. This.

Right now I'm about 2/3 of the way through an interesting book, Forming Intentional Disciples by Sherry Weddell. I'll call it a blueprint for kickstarting the New Evangelization at the parish level. Just a few minutes ago I was on page 167, and read this bit: "...Doug and I went through our old RCIA outlines, and basically threw almost everything out...We began asking ourselves, "Where do we want people to be spiritually when they are baptized or making a profession of faith?"

Which reminds me of my wife and myself in 1999.

I've been teaching 6th-grade Catechism for so long that I forget that my wife & I taught RCIA and Adult Ed back around the turn of the century.  In the late '90s we had been running a topically-driven adult class. In covering those assorted topics, time was spent on learning how to respond to all the odd questions Catholics here in the Bible Belt are regularly asked: why do y'all worship Mary, the Pope, saints, statues, and the "wafer god"; where is x, y, and z in the Bible; why can't priests get married; why can't you contracept; annulments are just Catholic divorces, etc. For a given topic our usual system was to find some useful content on the internet. We'd hand it out a week ahead, and everyone would read it before the next class. We would prepare a 30 minute lecture. The next class would combine the lecture material and the handout into an hour's worth of learning and informed discussion. It was a terrific system, and class prep had us reading all sorts of things: the Bible; the Catechism; the Catholic Encyclopedia; encyclicals; Ecumenical Council documents; Jack Chick tracts; books and articles by David Currie, Steve Ray, Scott Hahn, Karl Keating, Robert Sungenis, Jimmy Akin, Mark Shea, and the like; and the famous/infamous Roman Catholicism by Loraine Boettner.

Then after 2 years of Adult Ed, the pastor asked us to do RCIA starting in the Fall of '99. We said sure; we'd combine the RCIAers with the adult class crowd, which'd be good for both groups. We took the RCIA program materials home and started to compose a syllabus.

But we soon decided that the diocesan RCIA program wasn't well-suited to Bible-Belt catechumens and candidates. The typical adult converts here were Evangelicals or Fundamentalists. The Bible had persuaded them that the Catholic Church just might be the one true church which Christ had founded on Peter; and they were in RCIA to learn more about Catholicism from a Scriptural perspective. The RCIA materials were orthodox, but were sourcing faith more from Vatican 2 documents and the Catechism than the Bible. That's fine as far as it goes, but these folks were going to be defending and explaining their conversion to friends and family who'd reject Catholic sources out of hand. So like the people on page 167, Janet and I asked ourselves, "Where do we want people to be when they are done with RCIA?" And our answer was that they should be able to evangelize their non-Catholic friends and family, even if that evangelization were limited to the kitchen table.

Outlining our RCIA vision to the pastor, we got the go-ahead.  That Fall we ran RCIA like Adult Ed but with a bit more organization. At the first class meeting, everyone received a red 3-ring binder, empty except for the 26-class syllabus, a Table of Contents, and 10 tabbed dividers corresponding to each section, which were:

1. Faith and Reason/ Revelation: Scripture and Tradition

2. The Bible

3. Jesus and the Pope

4. History of the Church

5. The Sacraments

6. The Commandments/ Morality and Conscience

7.The Mass/ Church Calendar/ Vestments and Vocabulary

8. Mary, Prayer, and the Communion of Saints

9. Modernism

10. Catholic Evangelization/ Catechism and Apologetics

Then each class worked like Adult Ed: one or more handouts to read the week before class; and a lecture and discussion based on the handout. Class discussions often included what had been talked about around a water cooler or a kitchen table the week before. There was a lot of energy and excitement. And the cool thing was that the hole-punched handouts would go in a particular section of the red binder. We had 26 class meetings, so each tabbed section would accumulate handouts for more than one class, e.g. we had three classes on the Bible, and 8 handouts (some were only a couple of pages). By the end of the year each person had a customized sourcebook that they were familiar with.

Anyway it was only in reading that bit on page 167 of Sherry's book that it occured to me that our RCIA class was a good example of the New Evangelization. Major 1999 New Evangelization concepts included:

1. The explicit goal of evangelizing.

2. Action. That is, we didn't talk about the need for an effective RCIA program; we made one.

3. A nimbleness and responsiveness to what people wanted/ needed to know.

4. Using new media/ no textbook/ multisourcing.

5. Content offered in vernacular language spoken by a non-scholarly audience.

6. Lay initiative and responsibility. This strikes me as the most important.

Recalling those years, and turning the pages in my old red binder, I realize now more that I did then what a substantial evangelical project that first year of RCIA had been; how it didn't seem like a lot of work, but it was; what a little (well, big) family we all became, and still are when we see each other; and how the Holy Spirit moved within that class in a lovely way that I notice for the first time even as I write this.

Carpe Articulum

I read this article today: Hades-type cave looks like heaven for archaeologists.

Key bit:

"Hades, the fabled underworld of the dead in ancient Greece, wasn't the happiest place...There, departed heroes such as Achilles gathered mostly to grouse about their boredom and await the verdict of the judges of the dead. There's a reason that it later became associated with the hell of Christianity."

Tomorrow night's Wednesday Sunday School lesson plan runs from Gethsemane up to the Ascension. The kids already know about Sheol/ Hades/ Hell, including references to Enoch, Elijah, and the parable of Lazarus resting in the bosom of Abraham. Reading a few lines of this article will be a diverting lead-in for discussing this bit of the Apostles' Creed: "He descended into hell," which itself is an intro into discussing what Jesus was actually doing in "Hell" anyway. This picture is our visual aid:

That's right, it's an Anastasis. And that makes the news article all the more fun. I usually mention that Anastasia is a girl's name, but this year I'll also read this next key bit from the paper:

"But for archaeologists, a Greek cave...contains the remains of a Stone Age village..."What you see there almost cannot be described," says archaeologist Anastasia Papathanasiou of the Greek Ministry of Culture..." An actual woman named Anastasia is way more interesting than me just saying Anastasia is a girl's name; and it makes a living connection to that old Greek fresco.

This little exercise meets three ongoing class goals:

1. Connect God Stuff to Regular Stuff.

2. Connect the Past to the Present.

3. Connect the Textbook to Other Printed Stuff.

Now did God make sure this article was in my paper the day before the only class of the year in which I could use it; or was it just coincidence?

Inquiring minds wanna know.

5x8=55

6th grade catechism has four more class meetings this year.  The kids have been easy to teach, as usual; we are on schedule, and may even be half a period ahead on course material.  I have little mini-lectures (2-5 minutes) ready to fill in classtime if we finish a lesson plan early, and sometimes within these little bits lies the framework (a cadre, that's right!) of a bigger lesson.  A recurring theme in our class is that humans are comprised of body & soul; therefore God uses physical things to convey spiritual things.  This idea of physical media conducting divine power pops up constantly when discussing miracles, Sacraments, even Jesus Himself.  Thus far it's only mentioned as part of some other topic, e.g. Baptism.  But in the last few days I've been thinking about treating the concept comprehensively this year if class time permits, which I expect it will.

It's a great subject to teach visually, and instead of making a written lesson plan, I sketched out the little schematic below on a 5x8 legal notepad:

First see the bottom, I show the fundamentals of media.  On the left are writers, actors, musicians, anyone who wants to communicate something to others. In the middle is a TV and a book.  We'll discuss how the TV and the book (and by extension theaters, newspapers, radios, etc.) "channel" the ideas in a way that other people can perceive them with their bodies.  The ideas aren't physical, but the media are, and the way the audience accesses the ideas is through their physical natures: eyes and ears, mostly.  On the far right is a person, i.e., a body'n'soul which represents those who will receive what's being mediated.  The body'n'soul pic emphasizes the oneness of our physical and spiritual natures....not unlike the oneness of Christ's divine and human natures.  The kids see the body'n'soul 20 times a year, if not more often, so they know what it means.

Now, at the upper left we start with a standard cartoon of God the Father.  Lines of divine power stretch from Him through assorted Old Testament media in the middle (manna, water from the rock, Elijah's cloak, Naaman washing in the Jordan, and Eisha's bones) to the representative human on the right.  All of the Old Testament examples set a precedent for New Testament and Church examples to follow.  At my prompting, the kids will tell the stories more than I will. The kids have heard them all, so I have a lot of flexibility as to how much time can be spent on Moses' stick, Elijah's cloak, etc.  I have props for some of these miracles & can act them out.
Once we're done with the Old Testament, we'll discuss how Jesus Himself is a prototype Sacrament in that he, physically God, connected directly, physically with people in a new & profound way.  This is shown by the lines running  from God the Father to the Son.  In case there's any confusion, Jesus is always drawn with longer hair than his father; the kids know how to tell them apart.  Jesus is drawn twice because he is a mediator, and also something which is mediated...he's an exception to the overall scheme in that respect.

Having understood Jesus as a new baseline for physical mediation, we'll discuss the miracles he worked.  The tassel healing, clay on the eyes, and the loaves & fishes are miracles chosen for their emphasis on the physical world.  They are noted as the "Jesus on Earth" miracles.  They set a baseline for the Sacraments of the Church, which itself also has a physical and spiritual nature.

Now we'll review the 5 sacraments shown, focusing on the physical media, and why each is appropriate for what it conveys spiritually.  Time permitting, we can first discuss Paul's rag and Peter's shadow as well; they effect a nice transition from Jesus' miracles to the Church's miracles, but they aren't critical.  I don't expect to treat them if time is tight.

I plan to draw all this on the board as I've sketched out.  I'll work from left to right instead of up and down due to the board's orientation, and do the media fundamentals first, not last.  I'm aiming at having 25 minutes to do this: 2 minutes for general media, 7 for Old Testament, 8 for Jesus, 8 for Church & Sacraments.  A quick look at the schematic will tell me if I'm fast or slow.  And if I do get the chance next year, I can very easily expand this to a full 55-minute discussion.  Now that I think about it, 55 minutes might be more reasonable, but it can be adjusted for time.

This post is also available at the Amazing Catechists' website.

Preparation H

I posted this article earlier this month at: Preparation H » Amazing Catechists



I teach 6th graders. That's my little catechetical world: 11 and 12 year-olds. In keeping with Amazing Catechists' mission statement, this column will be about "the how-to, hands-on, here's-what-worked-for-me stuff that will help our readers to bring their faith and morality lessons profoundly to life"....for 6th graders. Don't you think that's enough introduction? I do. Time to discuss what works in my classroom. Let's start at the beginning.

1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2 The earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep; and the Spirit of God was moving over the face of the waters. 3 And God said, "Let there be a lesson plan."

The most important part of class happens before class: Preparation. It doesn't have to be painful like the title of the article, but you must prepare. Physical preparation: you must write a lesson plan for every class. By that I mean before each class starts you have a written description of what you are going to cover. Reading the chapter a few times isn't enough. Having some key terms on a note card isn't enough. Reading from the textbook during class is a cop-out. And no fair filling time with something other than teaching! Movies are a time-filler! I know I'll get flak for this, but I believe craft projects and games are time-fillers in 6th grade as well. The kids are old enough to learn without diversions such as movies or projects. Besides the fact that they're old enough, every minute of available class time is precious and should never be lightly used. We all know how indifferently-trained in faith many of our charges are; part of fixing that is being prepared to teach nonstop for the whole class period. A lesson plan doesn't just make that possible: it makes it easy.

Now I know everyone has heard "make a lesson plan" before. And then the catechist reasonably thinks: yes, but how do I make a lesson plan? Well, let's look at one of my lesson plans and see how I do it.

First I should mention our textbook (which comes with a separate workbook). It's a good one with orthodox, substantial content. It's a textbook for a regular 180-day school year. Uh-oh. Catechism meets 30 times a year....see the problem? To try to use the textbook directly won't work timewise, yet the material must be covered. I don't know if other Religious Ed textbooks are purpose-written for 'Sunday Schoolers,' but isn't it nice to have a worst-case for an example?
The book has 31 chapters. Since not all chapters are created equal, I was able to leave one out without skipping anything important in the book's progression of concepts. I cover the remaining 30, one chapter per class period (more or less).

To begin a lesson plan, I read the chapter (this includes the workbook questions and the support material in the teacher's edition) twice in one sitting with a magic marker & a pencil. The pencil adds comments, the marker both highlights and crosses out. Then I do something else for a while, to get away from it. I won’t pick up the book again until the next day at the soonest.

For the third reading, I sit with a pencil and an 8.5 x 11 legal pad. I now have a pretty good sense of what I need to cover due to my prior notes & marks. It works out for me that one full page of a lesson plan takes me a full class period (50-55 minutes). If the chapter runs, say 4 pages, then each page in the textbook gets about 1/4 of my legal sheet. As I read the chapter, I am noting on the legal pad how I'll teach the material. I add/subtract from the textbook as I see fit. Sticking to a one-page limit forces me to budget what I expect to teach in the allotted time. I itemize the concepts, it keeps them separate: I don't want one huge paragraph. I should get to the bottom of the pad as I reach the end of the chapter.



Here's my class binder open to my plan for Chapter 17, the Last Supper. It's typical. The whole class will be run from what you see here, plus a Bible. Before we consider the notes on the right, look on the left. I've copied the chapter cheatsheet from my teacher's edition, and holepunched it on the right side so it will face my notes. I have noted the terms the chapter wants the kids to know, and pinked them. While roll is called at the start of class and kids settle in, I write these on the board. Also see the four lesson blocks at the bottom; I highlight critical ideas there, it helps me see how I'm doing time-wise. If I'm running behind, I'll usually drop something rather than go faster.

The little pink sheet is some stuff from the prior class I wanted to recap and questions I needed to answer.

Now to the right, The Lesson Plan (drumroll). I have 8 items on the page, it just worked out that way. Being a Last Supper class, Item 1 gives background for Item 2, which is the Passover. I will stick to the original document and ignore the extra notes and changes that I added over the years.

Item 1 notes read: Exodus- Prince of Egypt (Moses & Rameses) Hebrews-famine [Nile] slaves of Pharaoh (Great House), 9 plagues, last plague death of firstborn.

This doesn't tell me what to say, and it's not something I can read aloud. It's simply notes to guide my teaching. Part of this will be storytelling, some acting out, some questions the kids will answer, and no reading. It may vary in detail each year, that's fine. But look, how hard was that? (You answer, "Maybe not too hard.")

Item 2 covers the Passover itself and is a little different: Exodus 11 read, then 12, discuss each part in turn. Conclude unblemished Lamb sacrifice/ eat Lamb/ sprinkle blood/ perpetual institution/ free from slavery/ covenant sign blood
I read from my cheap Bible, but not the whole of the chapters, just parts I've highlighted. (the Bible is cheap so I don't feel bad marking it up.) And I don't read more than a verse or two without asking the kids a question, such as, "suppose pigs were on sale at the market...could the Hebrews just kill a pig instead of a lamb? No? Well, why not? Could they just put red paint on the doorposts? No? Why not?"

Item 4 notes treat the Bread of Life discourse: Jesus- John 6 discuss each part, whole chapter. Count times 'eat flesh.' Recall yesterday's miracle. Note Passover. Peter doesn't understand yet, either. Again, some reading, some storytelling, some acting out, some questions & answers.

Now let's jump ahead to Item 7, which is different.

Item 7 is a diagram that will go on the board, comparing the Passover meals of the Old and New Testaments. It's part textbook notes, and part my thinking. As each bit is added to the board, I ask the kids what goes next, or why two things such as the Lamb and Jesus are alike.

The other lesson plan items are similar enough to these in execution to not need examination. The point is that this and every other lesson plan gets me through the class period without using the textbook, without dead time, and with enough variety and some flexibility to keep things stimulating. It can be tough to write the first one, but it gets easy real fast. Yours may be nothing like mine, that's ok, right? (You answer, "Yes, it's ok!")

What matters is that you write one, and that it works for you and your children.

[Jesus said] "you shall be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth." 9 And when he had said this, as they were looking on, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight. 10 And while they were gazing into heaven as he went, behold, two men stood by them in white robes, 11 and said, "Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into heaven? Get started on your lesson plans!"

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BTW, once you can compose a lesson plan in your head as well as on paper, you may do something much simpler, such as this; or this.