St. Louis University High School
Senior Theology
Goals and Objectives
RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE
Full Course Title:
Religious Experience: Human Moments in the Midst of Mystery
Goal #1: Students will learn to write, discuss and reflect in such a way as to better exhibit two indispensable standards for academic work: openness and critical thinking.
Outcome: Students will prepare and present in class oral reflections on topics relevant to the course and their personal reflections and intended to inspire reflection in their fellow students.
Outcome: Students will write two polished and carefully written reflection papers on topics relevant to the course according to detailed reflection paper guidelines.
Outcome: Students will write a 5 - 7 page paper on a book of the own choosing but approved by the teacher in which they bring their own reflections and the key themes and insights of the course to bear on the content presented by the author. Or, as alternative to the more traditional project, they will choose a creative medium in which to work to create a project which expresses their own religious experience in a way which can be shared with the whole class.
Outcome: Students will write 6 - 8 journal assignments which ask challenging, open-ended and personal questions on topics relevant to the course.
Outcome: Students will participate in class discussion exercises designed to encourage them to share ideas, listen actively to classmates and allow new ideas to color their personal reflections.
Outcome: Students will read the assigned readings, listen actively to lectures and take quizzes and exams designed to measure their objective understanding of what is presented to them.
Goal #2: Students will come to appreciate the wide and inclusive character of the word �religion.�
Outcome: Students will be able to articulate very universal, positive and inclusive definitions of religion presented by two contemporary theologians: Paul Tillich and Thomas Merton.
Goal #3: Students will reflect upon and articulate the kind, quality and influence of their own personal experiences of God, religion and the sacred.
Outcome: Students will complete an extensive journal exercise in which they review their history in religious practice and education with a special eye to the moments which spoke to them in a powerful and positive way or a narrow and negative way and reconcile themselves to whatever narrow, exclusive or negative conceptions or experiences of religion they may bring to the course. These reflections will also be shared in discussion.
Goal #4: Students will be able to describe the function of the �peak� or mystical experience, myth, imagination, ritual, music, place, creed and code in communal and individual religious experience.
Outcome: Students will complete a series of journal exercises in which they evaluate the degree to which they are aware of the ways that each of these experiential categories of religion has influenced their own interior life and their religious life specifically.
Outcome: Students will read articles on the topics of �peak� or mystical experience, imagination, myth, and ritual and will demonstrate their understanding of the academic analysis of each on quizzes and the exam.
Outcome: Students will participate in class discussions and exercises and take notes on class lectures designed to make students aware of the power and influence each of the above listed categories has on their experience and on the way institutionalized religions function. They will demonstrate their understanding of this material by their performance on the quarter exam.
Outcome: Students will participate in a field trip to a number of worship spaces to observe the ways in which place and space connect to the act of worship, to the kind religious experience the community seeks to offer to the individual believer and to the peculiar and unique ways in which individuals respond to the space.
Outcome: Students will be exposed to various forms of sacred music, for the purpose of simply being exposed to them and enriched in their appreciation for how integrated into religious experience music can be in various traditions and in the interior lives of individuals.
Outcome: Students will be select a piece of music which is particularly spiritual to them and share it with the class along with comments about what the music means to them or what sort of spiritual experience it engenders in them.
Goal #5: Students will gain an introductory level of understanding of the religious traditions of native and aboriginal religions, Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, and Judaism.
Outcome: Students will read the appropriate sections from the Houston Smith text and listen actively to lectures on the material. They will take occasional quizzes and answer questions on the final exam to demonstrate their comprehension of the material.
Outcome: Students will follow lectures on the above material, take notes, participate in class discussions and participate in class exercises designed to make the text come alive in terms to which the student can relate. The student will demonstrate his understanding of these exercises by answering essay and short answer questions on the final exam.
Outcome: Students will view videos and slides on each of the religious traditions studied to have a visual reference for the conceptual material covered in the text. Some of these visual references will be referred to in the final exam and the student will demonstrate his comprehension of the connection between image and idea by writing a response to an essay question.
Outcome: Students will read the novel Siddhartha by Herman Hesse in order to enrich their appreciation of the difference between eastern and western religious traditions, some of the universal categories of the human spiritual journey and their appreciation of Buddhism and Hinduism specifically. They will complete a complete a quiz on the book and answer questions about it on the final exam.
Outcome: Students will participate in a discussion with and experience a presentation by several Jewish students their own age with religious belief and practice as the focus.
Goal #6: Students will gain the perspective that comes from experiencing a religious tradition other than their own.
Outcome: Students will complete a project in which they choose a religious tradition other than their own or one very similar to their own, complete background research on this tradition, visit a communal ceremony conducted within this tradition, write a report describing both their research and experience and share some of their perceptions and insights into this tradition with the class in an open forum discussion.
Goal #7: Students will come to a renewed appreciation for the religious experience unique to Christianity and Catholicism.
Outcome: The field trip described above will function to help students meet this goal since it comes after most of the other traditions have been studied.
Outcome: Students will read selected passages from the Huston Smith text and demonstrate their comprehension of the material on quizzes and the final exam.
Outcome: Students will submit a list of the questions they have at this point in their lives about Christianity and Catholicism. They will listen to a lecture prepared in light of these questions which is rooted in the terms �Incarnation� and �Sacrament�, take notes and participate in discussions on the material and questions and demonstrate their understanding of this material on the final exam.
Outcome: Students will write a final reflection paper in which they attempt to bring to bear all of the experiences of the course on one question: What is your present understanding of where and how the Christian and Catholic faith in which you have been raised is inviting you to meet and serve God? What is your response to this invitation?
