Well...Thursday marks the beginning of our next unit in my literature class (actually, it technically starts tomorrow during the last ~20 minutes of class).
With that begins my turn with the large group assignment for the semester...spending 2 weeks teaching a novel to the rest of the class. We'll be teaching My Name Is Asher Lev.
We get to teach the class about Jewish culture, religion, family, and tradition. After the crash course on Judaism, we get to give a crash course on art and then explore Christian art versus Jewish art. (We will break things up with a 'field trip' to the museum to study some art). After all that, we'll spend a couple of days with some close reading as we explore the themes of the book and see how Asher struggled with his own identity and his own gift and how those conflicted with the traditions and beliefs of his family and community. Should be an interesting couple of weeks.
I'm actually kind of intimidated going this late in the semester after we've already had 4 (or 5?) really great presentations with some fabulous teaching methods and some cool insights. I don't know that my group and I are ready to rise to the level that's been set by some of the previous groups.
I'm still a bit nervous, and yet I think the presentation will go very well. We've got some good preparation behind us and some good ideas for how to make the teaching memorable and how to make sure we keep the discussion moving.
Anyway, wish me luck...check back around Thanksgiving to see if I survived it. :)
1 comment:
Thanks for stopping by my blogsite. The book you're reading sounds very interesting. I've never thought that the Jewish perspective on creativity might be different, as I've looked to the Old Testament to see how creative God was, and the gifts He gave to the artisans who built the temple, and crafted things that were related to the temple.
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