Religion: Bible Story Study

Hello, 5B families!

*Scroll down to see even more performance videos…

In our Religion classes, one of our goals is to deepen our understanding of the lessons Bible stories can reveal.

We take various approaches and come at studying the stories from different angles: reading and analyzing the original text, reading children’s Bible story versions, seeing video re-enactments (such as excerpts from the series “The Chosen”), doing our own dramatized readings and re-enactments, using the Hallow app to assist with a lectio divina approach, praying for insight on the story, having class dialogue about our connections and questions, making artworks inspired by Bible stories, and more.

This blog post will share with you a glimpse of our recent learning with the story of how Jesus healed a man who was paralyzed (Matthew 9:1-8, Mark 2:1-12, and Luke 5:17-26).

*The approach I take to teaching Bible stories is partly inspired by a wonderful course I am currently taking online through Wycliffe Australia, called “Story the Bible”.

Part 1: I told the story (twice), and then students discussed their responses to reflection questions.

The first 90 seconds is Ms. Poirier telling the story, and at the 1:30 mark, you can hear students share their own first responses to four big questions about the story.

Part 2: We watched THE CHOSEN reenactment of the story.

Part 3: We listened to the HALLOW app’s retelling in the context of a “lectio divina”.

Part 4: We re-read and compared the original Bible story texts as they appear in Matthew 9:1-8, Mark 2:1-12, and Luke 5:17-26) AND notes their differences in various Bible translations.