Article
Getting to the Heart of the Matter
Step 1: Look at the situation What exactly is happening? Why is it happening? Who is involved? What are their motives? How is it happening, that is, by what means or method? When and where is it happening? Step 2: …
Article
Building Faith Community in the High School
In a workshop entitled "The Catholic High School as Faith Community," religion teachers, campus ministers, and school administrators discussed, among many things, the obstacles they face in trying to build faith community in their school. One obstacle they addressed was …
Article
Questions for God
In a course on faith that he teaches at De La Salle Academy in New York City, David Detje, FSC, uses the film Oh, God! to shake up the students' notions of what God is like. He has gotten some …
Article
Taking Off on the Ten Commandments
This classroom strategy is based on a method used by Fr. Steve Brice while teaching religion at Aquinas High School, La Crosse, Wisconsin. Young people love humor and satire. One way to alleviate pressures students feel from the culture around …
Article
Community Service Courses:
This past semester, at the end of a year-long service program at a residential treatment center for emotionally disturbed youth, two students from my community service course wrote a poem to express the significance of their experiences. These are the …
Article
Using Imaginative Retellings in Teaching the Bible
Biblical stories have been imaginatively retold over and over again for centuries. A particular type of retelling, in which students assume the role of a biblical character then retell the story using a first-person point of view, has proven effective …
Article
Praying the Psalms
Remember the television show from the late 80's called "Doogie Howser, M.D.?" At the end of every show, Doogie would sit down at his computer and write a 2 or 3 sentence "blurb" that perfectly summed up his day and …
