Relevant Links:
Rubric: RSS in Education – Current Events
Directions: Evaluating Current Events
This assignment really work well to combine with something I was already doing in class without the use of an RSS Reader. I really wish I could go back and use the lesson plan I created for this assignment in class. But I think that there is definitely still a chance for that to happen.
In my Sophomore religion class, we are discussing images of the Church within the scripture, church doctrine and in the media and popular culture. The assignment is a way for students to see how the media depicts aspects of the church or many of the church’s efforts in ways that can be positive or negative. We used this lesson to explore some techniques of persuasion used in marketing and also definitions of the word bias.
Students were intrigued to learn that they could find many negative examples. We took this as an opportunity to recognize that not everything the Church does is widely accepted and many students in the class had the opportunity to express things about their church life that frustrate them as they are getting older and more comfortable with their own opinions on where or not their faith experience within the Church is very meaningful to them.
In redesigning the lesson, I relied heavily upon one of the examples Professor Saba linked to the instructions. It was a great idea and structure for delivery. However, I tweaked it significantly to suit my needs within my classroom. I hope everyone in this class has success implementing their RSS feeds into a class lesson.
Thanks for reading and good luck with the rest of the lessons!
Julian A. Elorduy, MET, MA 