Religion Projects

Well, they've all been officially turned in and presented, and I'm not entirely certain what my thoughts are just yet. Some of my students did excellent jobs presenting their religion projects to the class, while several just sort of went through the motions and did a pretty mediocre job of it. The students who went all out were also the ones who were the most open-minded about the project and gave decent evaluations of it, saying things such as: "It was nice to be able to explore a religion I didn't know about" or "I liked that this paper wasn't like others we've done in the past" or "I really enjoyed learning about Islam".

So I guess in some aspects, this was a successful project, but then again, I wonder when it's so obvious which groups actually got something out of it and some didn't. I guess I'll go with the positive perspective and take the approach that perhaps.... perhaps... this project caused the world to have a few less-ignorant teenagers running around. I'm thinking that's a good thing.

I'm not sure that I'll approach the project the same way next semester, and as I'm going through and trying to plan my course for the Spring, I'm trying to sort through a few things. I really liked doing a project on Religion, since so many students have no clue about it, but what other sorts of projects could students research and actually learn something. I've tossed around the idea of having them do a Culture project... so the idea of religion is mixed in, but they also get to find out information about customs and "cultural" identities of a variety of people. I'm not sure how I would offer this topic to students though because SO MANY PEOPLE have different definitions of what the term Culture means. Maybe I could just toss the term out to students and let them run with it.... and they can then determine where to take the project. Or maybe I could have them do individual "culture" projects... although that would take the research aspect out of the assignment.

Any ideas?

We're down to 2 weeks left in the semester and I'm running on empty. I've got several stacks of grading to complete before the final essays are turned in.... and then I'll have to quickly process the final essays before the final exams are taken a few days later. It'll be a hectic week.

I've also got a meeting with the track coach... . seems like I might be coaching a 3rd sport in one year. Track is easy though.... probably easier even than wrestling is... and the money is great. When you look at a pay stub and see an extra $7000 for 3 seasons worth of coaching (and having fun).... it's certainly a worthwhile cause.

We'll see. Back to grading. Gee... I love Friday nights. :*(