The Qur'an - Post II

A. Jonathan to Nate:

Good afternoon Nate,

I am doing an independent study with Melanie this semester to fill a content gap in world literature. In order to make this study more applicable, I am planning on doing my mini-lesson on religious belief - why we believe in what we do, how do those beliefs conflict, where is the common ground, etc. My texts would be the Book of Genesis, the Qur'an, The Odyssey, and the Epic of Gilgamesh. 

I will have a more concrete plan hammered out by the end of the weekend. 

Thank you!

A2. Nate to Jonathan:

Thanks for getting with me, Jonathan. A few initial thoughts: remember that this lesson is 30 minutes long. That's not a lot of time, and you've got an ambitious lineup of texts. Also, consider your audience for the lesson. Is the kind of lesson you could/would want to teach at a public high school or middle school? Could you teach it in one of your placements? What kinds of things would you need to consider in teaching this kind of lesson in an English class in public schools? All of this is not to say that you can't do or shouldn't do it, but you've got to think practically about the standards and objectives for the course you're teaching (and these standards also need to link up to state and national standards). Maybe the thing to do would be to narrow your focus. You could move away from whole belief systems and discuss, instead, language in these texts.

Get back with me when you've worked on it some and let me know where your lesson is heading. The main thing for you to do is be cautious about the amount of time you have and to think seriously about the goal of the lesson within the context of larger curricular goals.

B. Jonathan to Nate:

Hey Nate,

Russel and I are actually meeting as we speak. I've pasted at the bottom of this email a rough outline of what I have of my lesson thus far. Russel has given me some great suggestions about how to make more explicit to my students the purpose of establishing classroom beliefs and the specific community I am trying to create. 

My primary text is the Qur'an. I am currently trying to find a second text to incorporate, and I haven't decided which one or how. I think I am going to have to give up having students start their compositions in class in exchange for engaging with a second text. I could use another passage from GIlgamesh, or Genesis, but Russel mentioned the "This I Believe" series on npr, and I may use a segment from there, or I may find a song to use. 

Thank you in advance for your consulting!

B2. Nate back to Jonathan:

Jonathan, Thanks for getting back to me. Sounds like your collaboration with Russell has been productive. "This I Believe" as a second text is a great idea--it would require students to listen,  and there are so many to choose from.

It's good to be thinking about what you have to give up in order to include elements of the lesson that are required. I know that's uncomfortable, but in lesson planning generally, you will often have to cut things because of time or content constraints that are not of your making.

I think you're moving in a good direction with this. Below are a few thoughts:

1) Think carefully about the word "belief." It looks to me like you're hoping that students will come at "belief" as something deep and identifying for them--such as religious belief. I could see many students, depending on age and maturity, going for something much more shallow or even silly: e.g., "I believe in the Tennessee Vols football team" or "I believe I will rule the world some day." Perhaps you're OK with this element existing as part of the lesson but you should be really careful about designing the lesson in such a way that it elicits the kinds of student thinking that you're hoping for.

2) I'm still concerned about your focus on religious belief systems. This is not to say that I don't think it's worthwhile for students to be open and think seriously about their belief systems, but it's such a personal topic. I could see your principal getting multiple calls if you taught only the Qur'an in a lesson. I believe it is a defensible move on your part, but you have to be able to make the defense and stand up for the curricular connections and the textual choices.

3) Think about our class discussion last week about handling sensitive topics and protecting students in your classroom. What sensitivities do you need to have based on your class? How do you handle introducing the lesson, reading the text, and having discussion? What are you willing to allow in terms of discussion and what are you not willing to allow? How would this lesson work with a class of all suburban, white Christian students? How would it work with a majority of Muslim students? How would it work with one Muslim student? What if you knew that student was Muslim but no one else did? What if everyone knew that a particular student was Muslim?

That's what comes to mind at the moment. Let me know what other questions you have (if any) as you're finishing this for Thursday.

Jonathan (now)

Nate was invaluable in helping me to see some of the problems with incorporating The Qur'an into the classroom. He pushed me to consider all the angles, and I got to receive some peer feedback from my classmates. I would love to talk about this more, but right now it's too much to distill into this blog. If you would like to talk through this experience more, I would be happy to do so in person. 

Lesson plan coming in Part III.