The Teacher's Almanac

We recently began reading The Pearl , by John Steinbeck in 8th grade English. For those who haven't read it (I hadn't before last week), The Pearl is a a short story (novella) that is also a parable. As the gospels are full of parables, I thought this would be an excellent opportunity for deeper biblical integration. While biblical integration is something I try to do to some extent in every class, the kind of biblical integration that encompasses an entire class period can only be done ever so often. Today was one of those days. I began by breaking the students into groups of three and then had each group select one of the following three parables from Matthew: Parable of the Sower - Matthew 13:1-9 Parable of the Weeds - Matthew 13: 24-30 Parable of the Talents - Matthew 25: 14-30 Yesterday in class, we discussed the definition of a parable as well as some of the key characteristics that all parables have. Today, with that information fresh in their minds, eac...

Despite what my blog has revealed up to this point, I do teach a few classes besides 8th grade English! One of those classes is rhetoric speech. Last week we were looking at how Cicero had his students organize their speeches. He divided them into six main parts: exordium, narratio, partitio, confirmatio, refutatio and peroratio (these are the original Latin terms). Once we defined each section, I read them the following text from Acts 22. Acts 22   English Standard Version (ESV) 22  “Brothers and fathers, hear the defense that I now make before you.” 2  And when they heard that he was addressing them in  the Hebrew language, [ a ]  they became even more quiet. And he said: 3  “I am a Jew, born in Tarsus in Cilicia, but brought up in this city, educated  at the feet of  Gamaliel [ b ]   according to the strict manner of the law of our fathers,  being zealous for God  as all of you are this day.   4  I persec...