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Repository of Assignment Ideas
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Meet Course Objectives
Assignment Example/Guide
There are still many assignments to create. Specifically, there are ...
19 Lessons for Bible I - Old Testament
18 Lessons for Bible II - New Testament
18 Lessons for Reading I (4 Lessons Done)
18 Lessons for Reading II (4 Lessons Done)
18 Lessons for Reading III (4 Lessons Done)
18 Lessons for Advanced Reading
20 Lessons for Intensive Reading
Target Time: 45 to 50 minutes per assignment. Each course is 36 weeks, except for Advanced Reading which is 18 weeks. We're providing 18 assignments (i.e., one every other week) in addition to the BTS questions. We're also providing quizzes and a final exam which will largely be based upon the vocabulary words used in the course description pages. (Notice the linked words.)
Goal:
- Create one or more assignments to meet each course objective prescribed by the State of Florida as specified by the course descriptions listed on the different pages under Available Courses.
- Provide a Check List for each course for the student's easy management of all listed books, assignments, quizzes, and the final exam.
- All instructions, definitions, and assignments must be geared for high school students as independent and on-line teaching.
- Assignments must drive students deeper into the Scripture as their source material. Ideally, assignments should specify a verse, passage, or particular book or lists of books most suited for the assignment drawn from the selected books for each course.
- Assignments should be accompanied by answer keys if at all possible. (This may not be possible when the student is permitted to fulfill the assignment with one among many biblical books.)
Grand Plan: My understanding is that most states (if not all states within the US) permit homeschooling parents and school teachers to use the Bible as bona fide course material when combined with (1) an objective textbook like BTS, (2) supplemental assignments, and (3) testing. I'm intending to research the specific course codes for all states at a later date and continue to publish all supplemental assignments for free. I'm hopeful that these efforts will help students, parents, and Christian school teachers everywhere.
Assignments.
All students have the on-going assignment of reading the selected books and answering the BTS questions as the foundation for these courses. Beyond this, we will add the following assignments or assignment types:
- Graphophonic Cueing Assignment: Spell the following words phonemically/phonetically: prophecy, psalm, etc.]
- Syntatic Cueing Assignment: Provide the student with sentences from the Bible with all the words scrambled. Have the student reconstruct the sentence according to what seems logical. Then, allow the student to read the actual verse to compare his or her answer. Select verses which are likely unfamiliar.
- Syntactic Cueing Assignment: Give KJV, Geneva, and Young sentences to be rewritten into a modern structure. Compare your answers to a modern translation such as the NKJV, NAS, NIV, or ESV.] [Lauren Bleser: That would be interesting to also compare to a foreign language if a child knows one.
- Semantic Cueing Assignment: Present a sentence with homonyms and have the student decide which meaning must be correct based upon the context. Which context words force a certain interpretation?] [Lauren Bleser: That's a great idea. You may want to read up on the CLOZE procedure. Basically it's leaving a blank in part of the sentence and they have to figure out which one word makes most sense based on context clues.
- Semantic Cueing Assignment: "Semantic maps are procedures that help students to make connections between new vocabulary and prior knowledge and to see the relationships among conceptual ideas. An example of a semantic map for the seabirds is shown in Figure 1. The steps for creating semantic maps include the following:
1. Identify the main topic and place it at the center of the graphic organizer.
2. Have students brainstorm words that are associated with the main topic.
3. Discuss how to group these words into broad categories and discuss the meanings of the words.
4. Ask students to provide labels for the categories.
5. Have students generate words or subcategories for each category.
6. Discuss the vocabulary and the interrelationships of categories and subcategories."
[Lauren Bleser: And the mapping is great, too. I do that a lot. I also do that when I'm making predictions about what they might think comes next, but that may not be applicable to bible knowledge. Do you know about Venn Diagrams? That might also be another great semantic exercise for comparing / contrasting.] [Allen: I would like to have students create a Venn Diagram for a particular genealogically family group. This should also be done for locations and other common words.]
- Semantic Cueing Assignment: Word Walls: "Develop skills further by attaching personal references to words. Students love when their learning pertains to their lives. Have students keep their own word wall on a piece of construction paper: keywords, the definitions, and example of how the student has seen it in their life, and a drawing beside each written example. Every week the students create a new word wall. At the end of the year they would have a booklet of words and how they have experiences and connection to those words."
- Semantic Cueing Assignments: Definition Map: Diagram for Vocabulary: http://www.education.gov.sk.ca/adx/aspx/adxGetMedia.aspx?DocID=6718 (page 23)
- Semantic Cueing Assignments: Word Family Tree: Diagram for Vocabulary: http://www.education.gov.sk.ca/adx/aspx/adxGetMedia.aspx?DocID=6718 (page 24)
- Semantic Cueing Assignments: "Semantic feature analysis (SFA) is a procedure that helps students integrate new information with prior knowledge and deals explicitly with relationships among word meanings (Nagy, 1998). New vocabulary is presented in a column and semantic features (i.e., words or phrases that refer to aspects of meaning that are shared by the words or that discriminate the words from one another) are presented in a row (Nagy, 1998). An example of an SFA on the U.S. Civil War is provided in Figure 2. The following list describes the steps for developing an SFA grid:
1. Develop a grid with a set of vocabulary words in one column and a list of features in a row.
2. Through class discussion, have students explain the meaning associated with each word and the relationships of the words to the features. Describe attributes of the words compared to the listed features.
3. Place a + or - indicating whether or not the word has that feature.
4. Show students a completed grid, then gradually present partially completed grids until students can work independently or in a group to complete a grid."
- Pragmatic Cueing Assignment: Show a passage including dialog (e.g., Jesus debating with Pharisees) and ask how a heated dialog would differ from another passage using the same words in which the passage is different. How the word "sheep" is used in Ps 23 vs Jn 10.
- Pragmatic Cueing Assignment: Select some passages. Have the student explain how would the language of the text would have changed had the author's overarching purpose or writing style were ____________?] [Lauren Bleser: might be good to work with oral narrating - How would the tone of voice / inflection / facial expressions be different if the author's intended purpose was...?
- Pragmatic Cueing Assignment: Kiss: David & Jonathan; Solomon and Shulamite; Judas & Jesus; Woman & Jesus
- Pragmatic Cueing Assignment: Who possess the best life experiences to best appreciated the following situations in the Bible? (1) Joshua’s battle scene. (2) Birth; (3) Rape; (4) Moses leading the nation.
- Pragmatic Cueing Assignment: Match the following genre with the most likely purpose.
- Pragmatic Cueing Assignment: Role playing: In two sentences, write a greeting to your king, to your friend, to your spouse, to your child.
- Pragmatic Cueing Assignment: Have the student find the purpose of a text. Then, based upon the purpose, have the student give a list of elements or literary devices that he expects that he might find based upon the author's purpose.
- Cueing Assignment: Create a cueing lesson around the word "anon" used in the KJV (Mt. 13:20: "But he that received the seed into stony places, the same is he that heareth the word, and anon with joy receiveth it;" AND Mk. 1:30: "But Simon's wife's mother lay sick of a fever, and anon they tell him of her."
- Morphemic Cueing Assignment: Present a list of common English prefixes and suffixes and root words. Have students to provide words which include the parts provided from words found in the Bible along with citations. Also, provide a list of Hebrew prefixes, suffixes, and root words for the student to provide the matches with full definitions from a Strong's Concordance or a Hebrew / Greek Lexicon.
- Morphemic Cueing Assignment: Create a cueing lesson around the words sure, surely, surety, sureties, and suretiship which are all found in the KJV.
- Morphemic Cueing Assignment: Create a list of four words that end with "???" (as in "th???". "ick= thick, brick, sick, tick") or begin with "???" (e.g., theo).
- Textual Cueing Assignment: Find the organizational structure in the following text.
- Textual Cueing Assignment: Explain how the textual structure of the following literary forms might differ:
- Friendly Letters (2 John or Philemon)
- Speeches (Moses in Deuteronomy)
- Eyewitness Accounts (Gospels)
- Apocalyptic Poems (Revelation)
- Typographic Cueing Assignment: Give a text from the OT and have the student underline the words of God in blue.
- Typographic Cueing Assignment: Give a text where the division of chapters is unwisely placed and have the student explain the clear association between the two chapters.
- Picture Cueing Assignment: Create picture que cards to retell the book. (six on a single page). "Ask students to illustrate their stories." Make Illustrated Book Retelling of One Biblical Book, including plot, character, etc...the basic literary elements (target audience: Younger siblings); Create quiz to accompany booklet for younger children.; or make on the computer with clip art.
- Picture Cueing Assignment: Select specific images from the BTS books (about 10 from Vol 1 and about 10 from Vol 2; this is 1 image from each volume for each of the 5 LA courses). This will measure the students ability to examine an image for interpretative clues (picture queing). Added Suggestions: Show a picture from BTS from within their suggested target books. Present the student with 5 to 15 specific questions about the picture. Then, direct the student to read the passage and grade their own preliminary interpretation. "Take picture walks trough books before reading, guessing the storyline from the pictures. Have the student then dictate or write a story corresponding to the pictures."
- Picture Cueing Assignment: R1-AO-3 LA.A.1.4.2 We can use Paul's travels on a map (interpreting a completed map to better understand the story of Paul's journeys) and the various other charts and diagrams in the BTS books. We will find some many of these back in Genesis to Deuteronomy.
- Contextual Analysis Assignment: Identify glosses found within the context. For example, the identification of the seer and Jebus. 1Sa. 9:9 "(Beforetime in Israel, when a man went to inquire of God, thus he spake, Come, and let us go to the seer: for he that is now called a Prophet was beforetime called a Seer.)" Jdg. 19:10 "But the man would not tarry that night, but he rose up and departed, and came over against Jebus, which is Jerusalem; and there were with him two asses saddled, his concubine also was with him." Other glosses: Ge. 2:13; Ge. 14:8; Ge. 19:37; Ge. 19:38; Ge. 23:2; Ge. 23:19; Ge. 48:7; Jos. 15:8; 2Sa. 5:7; 1Ch. 1:27; 2Ch. 18:7; Ezr. 10:23. This lesson might be best to provide a passage which contains a form of contextual clues (glosses, contrast, etc. and then have the student identify what type of clue is being offered by the writer. If I take this approach, I will need to find several examples of different context clues found in the Scripture from a wide range of books and then divide the passages according to the five Language Arts classes based upon my recommended book.)
- Contextual Analysis Assignment: Give a chart of the context clues and a few target passages. Have the student identify the word or phrase which gives the clue and state the type of clue it is. 1Sam where the seer is called a prophet. (ie. definition is provided in context)
- Essays
- Give History of Famous Landmarks/Cities Today that
Found in the Bible (e.g., Jerusalem, Euphrates, Bethlehem, Rome,
etc.)
- Persuasive
- Crossword Puzzles from http://www.armoredpenguin.com/crossword/
- Background Knowledge Assignment: "Though looking at context clues is a good way to gain meaning in text, some students have insufficient background to use context clues efficiently. If you know this is the case with your student, begin the reading with some background. You might, for example, have the student read easier material on the topic, you could bring in pictures or artifacts or models, show a brief video, bring in a guest speaker, take a fieldtrip. Talking about difficult words at the beginning of the reading can also help."
- Assignment: Oral Reading (as opposed to silent reading)
- Interviews: Pastors and Bible Teachers about
Biblical Themes; Parents and Strangers on Cultural Issues
- Quizzes
- Journaling
- Using Key Words and Phrases
- Forming Opinions
-
Write Your Own Psalm
- Write a Letter in Style of Epistle
- Comparison of One Element Handled Differently between the four gospels.
- Jesus' early years.
- Jesus' miracles.
- Jesus' use of parables.
- Aramaic Expressions.
-
Understand a Character so Well as to Dressing in Costume
and Give a Monolog Skit Giving the Character's Perspective
- Give 5 to 15 Minute Speech
-
Diagram a Chapter of the Bible
- Pre-reading Strategy: Generate questions: BTS has more that 7,000 question. The question are designed to enhance your comprehension and retention. The BTS questions were obviously written after much careful study. Before reading, it will help you to creatively form question prior to reading a text based upon your preliminary knowledge.
- Post-reading Strategy: Generate questions: Form questions for another reader. Write objective questions and subjective questions. BTS has more that 7,000 question.
- Listen or Read Famous Sermons by Spurgeon, Edwards,
Augustine on Topics of Inspiration or Canonicity
-
Vocab 3X5 Index Card Unique per Course (download from
online or create your own for better retention; add picture or drawings)
- Course Vocabulary: Compiled and Created into a Test
- Vocabulary within the Various Biblical Books
- Reading Fluency Assignment: Miscue Analysis: Select a book of the Bible. Record yourself on audio or video reading three chapters. Do not practice in advance. The purpose of this assignment is to measure and improve your reading fluence. Upon completion, document the time it took to complete the reading. Listen to your recording. Mark each reading miscue (i.e., substitution, omissions, insertions, repetitions, hesitation, mispronunciation, or misplaced emphasis of vocal tone, that is, failing to lift your tone at the end of a question or sharp close at the end of a sentence ending with an exclamation mark). * Note to self: Create a Reading Miscues Report sheet for the student to grade himself. Look to the miscue definition for the list of deviations. Target: 500 words per text. Provide three test from three literary styles. Double space or triple space. Use font size 12 for this exercise.
- Do not let your environment cause you to test poorly. For accurate results, your seat should be comfortable; the room should be quiet; and, your lighting should be sufficient. Inform others that you are taking a recorded test that you should not be interrupted. Turn off all electronic devices that might distract you.
- Do not look at the document until you are read to begin the test.
- Select a passage that you have never read or have not read in a very long time. Practice will improve your fluency. The goal of this challenge is to measure your skill in unfamiliar text while under scrutiny.
- Measuring Amount of Coverage
- Document Number of Errors (Preferably, copy or print the passage. Mark directly on the printed page.)
- Compare to Professional Readers on DVD or CD
- Reading Accuracy Rate: words read correctly / total number of words = ______________%
- Error Rate: number of words/number of errors = ________ = 1:________
- O1A: 2. Character Web: Label the center oval with the Character of your choice. In each extension from the oval is a triangle. List in the triangle the main traits of that character. In each rectangle, list evidence to support that trait. The evidence can be specific quotes of the character, actions taken by the character, thoughts or other demonstrations that support that particular trait. Be specific as you are able in sighting your evidence. Your character may have good traits, bad ones, or both! --See Candie's attached diagrams.---
- O1B: In essay form, compare and contrast the style of the another of your selected book of the Bible to the style of a modern author of today. A comparative essay is aimed at pointing out differences and similarities. Remember to include the literary form of the author's you are comparing, as well as the impact of each author's writing! Here is a helpful link on the format of a strong comparative essay:
- O1C: For one week, keep a journal from the perspective of the character to which you most identified with in this book of the Bible. Include the events that happened to you, the character, the motives, conflict and lessons learned. Have fun and really put yourself in your character's "shoes."
- O1A: 1. Plot Diagram: Complete the plot diagram using the 15 main points from your Assignment O1A worksheet. At this point, you need to examine which events contributed to the rising action of the book and which contributed to the falling action. Remember to state the climax at the highest point of your plot diagram. Conclude your diagram with the resolution, if applicable. --See Candie's attached diagrams.---
- Idea: A0-5 LAE mostly deals with Plot. You could just use the character web for the O1A and move the plot diagram to this assignment. However I have another type of web that is plot, but more conflict (ie, the character decided this..then this happened, and then he/she decided this...etc) that might be good too. It walks you through the plot based on the choices of the character. It's great for books like Jonah, Esther, etc.
- Address the issue of dual meanings.
- [Lauren Bleser: You may want to just give a quick synopsis of which passages of scripture these particular assignments might be good for. Example: This assignment is best used for a story with multiple characters. Or this assignment would work best with one of Jesus' parables. Something like that.]
Humanities: Introduction to the Bible.
As you read the course descriptions, you may come across
words that are unfamiliar. We created a glossary of literary terms
that should help. Click on BTS
Glossary.
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"In district XX there are 18 weeks in a semester. The class in question is scheduled to meet for one hour twice each week. The class length is 36 hours."
"If this is 5 hours a week, then WDIS Student Instructional Hours would be 5 hours a week for 18 weeks equal 90 hours."
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Grading Essays by Florida Standards for Grade 10: http://fcat.fldoe.org/pdf/rubrcw10.pdf
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Assignment Idea:
[Read a modern news article on a topic that is similar to a topic addressed in Scripture (e.g., the death of someone famous, the rise of a politician, or a military battle, etc.). Next, retell the story in Scripture as though you were an ancient-day journalist writing for the Middle-Eastern News Agency. Include a compressed title that grabs attention. Write from an independant perspective simply reporting the facts. Quote characters of the Bible as sources to communicate emotions or thoughts expressed. ---Allen Wolfe]
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Assignment Idea:
"When using this approach with a novel, I assign groups of three or four students to a chapter. They are asked to select a passage or a series of passages that they like and which are important to the development of the chapter and the novel. They are also required to plan and present a rationale in which they explain the reason they select their passage(s) and the importance of the passage to the novel. They are asked to consider foreshadowing, symbolism, and characterization when planning their rationales. (The literary devices assigned depend upon the novel.)
To complete this assignment, students use their interpersonal, verbal-linguistic, and logical-mathematical intelligence in scene selection, their interpersonal and logical-mathematical intelligence in planning and organizing their scene, their interpersonal, verbal-linguistic, and bodily-kinesthetic intelligence to act out the scene, and they use their logical-mathematical and verbal-linguistic intelligence to organize and present their rationales at the end of the scene.
Enrichment & Home School Use
The analysis portion of this assignment could certainly be completed as an independent project, although students are best served if they can discuss the novel with at least one other student.
When small numbers of students work on this project, it is recommended that students analyze more than one chapter. Students might dissect a chapter from the early, mid, and later portions of the novel in order to gain a better understanding of the novel as a whole.
While an audience is not absolutely necessary, it is always a nice incentive after the completion of hard work. Invite extended family and friends to attend your "grand opening" and add another dimension to the learning experience."
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"Therefore, academic success at the postsecondary level begins with higher level preparation at the secondary level. The need for more rigorous high school and middle school coursework has been recognized by both the Governor and the Department of Education."
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“Dear Allen,
The kids and I were wondering what is the significance of the blood being put on the right ear,thumb & big toe? Why those spots? Lev. 8: 22-23 We are taking Lev. one bite (chapter) at a time. Today we read about the Lepers in 14 and they had the same thing done to them with blood and oil as part of being declared clean.
Thanks,
Alisha Hauser”
I have ideas, but the significance is never expressly stated. We are left to speculate. May I suggest that you use a concordance as a family to find verses that mention the ear, thumb, and toe? The children will gain the benefit of developing reasonable opinions based upon word usage. Theologians are frequently forced to form opinions using this method. Upon completion, maybe they can present a semi-formal report of their findings to their dad. Of course, you'd want to give him a heads-up so that he can build the significance and zealously applaud of their research efforts.
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Candie Ryals:
Day 1--
Read and Answer BTS
Listen to The World's Greatest Stories, Vol 1, "The Prophets" track 1, 2, 3
Day 2--
Read and Answer BTS
(There were only 3 question on Day 1, but quiet a few on this day!)
Day 3--
Read and Answer BTS
Complete pop up card depicting the events of Shaerach, Meshach, and Abed-nego.
(For Chloe this was a coloring, cutting, pasting, and folding project. She could then use each picture to give an oral account of what she had read that day! I could then check for her accuracy in understanding!)
Day 4--
Read and Answer BTS
Listen to Daniel Ch 1-4 on Bible dvd, follow along in your Bible.
Day 5--
Read and Answer BTS
Complete story Chain. Use each link to re-tell the events in Ch. 5
Day 6
Read and Answer BTS
Complete Daniel and Lion paper bag puppets. Use to re-tell the events in Ch. 6
by the book...
We could use that list you have of order of easy to hard. This way Reading level one would be easier books than level 2 etc? Or perhaps making plans set for specific books. Then if a student is choosing say the book of Exodus to study, they could then click that link? They you could set each plan with activities for which level they are in. Say, if you are in level one click here, etc? I have been experimenting with planning for a specific book of the Bible, incorporating many reading type projects, but I simply cannot figure out how to make a lesson plan that could apply to any book of the Bible.
Esther: Chloe did a KWL chart, a plot diagram, characterization chart, and made Mordecai hat and Esther crown. Then all the kids had fun "acting" out the events in the book.
My Response:
Several of your assignments can be transferred to older children with little modification. Assignments need to be appropriate per book classification. Many of the assignments can remain the same from book to book: complete story chain.
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Intro. to the Bible 1 & 2 are offered for secondary
grades (i.e., grades 9-12). These courses are not offered for middle
school (i.e., grades 6-8). But, bear in mind that middle school monitors achievement, but does not strictly monitor credits.
Therefore, you can use the BTS materials for your middle school child.
Florida uses the Carnegie
Unit system along with articulated acceleration mechanisms "to shorten the time necessary for a student to complete the requirements associated with the conference of a high school diploma and a postsecondary degree, broaden the scope of curricular options available to students, or increase the depth of study available for a particular
subject" (Source: Florida Statute §
1007.27). Florida Statute § 1003.43 "General requirements for high school
graduation" is the specific Florida statute that stipulates graduation
requirements.
New Reading/Language Arts Standards with English Language Proficiency Standards (K-12)
http://etc.usf.edu/flstandards/la/index.html
Educational focuses are divided into subjects per grade.
There are strands within each subject. There are standards under each strand, and there are
benchmarks describing the achievement of each standard.
Finally, sample performance activities prove that the benchmark was met.
> Subject (e.g., Language Arts)
> Strand
> Standard
> Benchmark
> Sample Performance Activities
http://www.fldoe.org/workforce/pdf/ch3.pdf
A qualified language arts course will develop students in
five subcategories or five strands: reading; writing;
listening, viewing, and speaking; language; and literature. The
subcategories (or, strands) have stated achievement objectives or
standards. The benchmarks are more defined expectations that the student should know or be able to due upon finishing the class. |
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