Jazz Up Your Lesson
continued from No. 12No doubt religion plays a huge role in the life of millions of people round the globe. And what are the books that formulate, encompass, and cover the founding principles of people’s lives throughout history? Those books are often referred to as sacred. Do you know them?
Try your hand at guessing!
Options:
• The students might work individually or in teams.
• You may prefer to give or not to give the variants of answers and the hints, depending on the students’ cultural awareness.
Book Descriptions:
1. This 16th century English translation shook the court of Henry VIII and paved the way for more general literacy and the very desire for reading among the general public.
Hint:
Before William Tyndale’s translation, these texts were available only in Latin and Greek, limiting the circle of readers to scholars and churchmen. Tyndale could not find a printer in England, so he traveled to Germany, where 6000 copies were printed and smuggled back into England. Later this translation formed the basis for King James Version.
2. This holy book from the 7th century united half of the known world under one religious faith, and to this day serves as its powerful foundation.
Hint:
This book was written by one man and is considered one of the most influential books written by a single hand. This man saw a vision in a cave and was told by the archangel Gabriel to proclaim the one true God, Allah. The teachings were written on parchment, leather, palm leaves, and bones and read at gatherings. These fragments were gathered into a manuscript in 633, the year after the prophet’s death.
3. This 2-volume work, completed in 1455–1460, shook the world of printing and profoundly increased the power and reach of the printed word.
Hint:
With the publication of this 1282-page book, Johannes Gutenberg invented printing as we know it. Gutenberg’s development of reusable, inked movable metal type and his press in Mainz, Germany, did more to promote modern civilization than any other contemporaneous act. Before this, books were scarce and expensive, and access to those few that existed was controlled by the church. This invention was first perceived as a threat to religious and secular authorities but as the illiteracy rates declined the need for books in general and for this very book in particular was acutely felt.
4. This massive 7th century publication, requiring more than a century to compile, was the means by which a major world religion survived persecutions and dispersions for some 200 years.
Hint:
This teaching provided the unity and support that have enabled the Jewish people to survive over the past 2 millennia. From 135 to 565, despite many attempts (some briefly successful) to regain access to their holy city of Jerusalem, Jews were in a state of nearly perpetual exile. Some dispersed to Mesopotamia and Persia, others to North Africa, Italy, Spain. Each new Jewish settlement maintained traditions by building synagogues and worshiping in the Hebrew language. The glue that held the Jewish people together was this book, a massive accumulation of scholarly commentaries that grew from the original written Law of Moses (Pentateuch) and the Torah.
5. Among the core texts of Hinduism, this “Song of the Lord” has inspired people of all walks of life and in all historical eras.
Hint:
It is the fundamental text of Hindu tradition. It is a dialog between Arjuna, a prince plagued by doubts before a great battle, and Krishna, his spiritual adviser. Krishna tells Arjuna: “The Supreme Self, which dwells in all bodies, can never be slain. Weapons cut it not.”
BooksThemselves:
1. New Testament (translated by William Tyndale)
2. Holy Koran (devout prophet Muhammad)
3. Gutenberg Bible (Johannes Gutenberg)
4. Talmud
5. Bhagavat-Gita
Options:
• the book titles may be given in a random order;
• in case the students do not know the answer, you may provide them with the title of the book only, letting them search for the author.
NOTE: This task can be used both as a class activity during the lesson with the immediate checking afterwards and individually by students at home if you want to encourage a deeper research on their part.
You can also initiate a post-activity, asking the students to make a book-description similar to the ones, given in the task above, and let the other students guess what book they meant.
No secret that some people just adore to be bad – strange but popular phenomenon. It is difficult to avoid these situations so let’s try to treat them with a smile!
1. Give the following “Rules of how to be annoying” to the students;
Ask them to read them – let them have fun first;
Divide the students in groups of 3–5 people in each;
Ask them to make their own list of 5 top methods of how to be the most annoying of all.
“Rules of how to be annoying”
* ONLY TYPE IN UPPERCASE.
* only type in lowercase.
* dont use any punctuation either
* Adjust the tint on your TV so that all the people are green, and insist that you "like it that way".
* Drum on every available surface.
* Staple papers in the middle of the page.
* Ask 800 operators for dates.
* Produce a video consisting entirely of FBI copy warnings.
* Sew anti-theft detector strips into people’s backpacks.
* Write the surprise ending to a novel on its first page.
* Specify that your drive-through order is “to go”.
* Set alarms for random times.
* Buy large quantities of mint dental floss just to lick the flavor off.
* Honk and wave to strangers.
* Dress only in clothes colored bright orange.
* Change channels five minutes before the end of every show.
* Decline to be seated at a restaurant, and simply eat their complementary mints by the cash register.
* Buy a large quantity of orange traffic cones and reroute whole streets.
* Pay for your dinner with pennies.
* Repeat everything someone says, as a question.
* Repeat the following conversation a dozen times:
"Do you hear that?’’ “What?" "Never mind, it’s gone now".
* Wander around the restaurant, asking other diners for their parsley.
* Leave tips in Bolivian currency.
* At the laundromat, use one dryer for each of your socks.
* As much as possible, skip rather than walk.
* Stand over someone’s shoulder, mumbling, as they read.
* Leave your turn signal on for 15 km.
* Pretend your computer mouse is alive, and talk to it.
* Try playing some popular melody by tapping on the bottom of your chin. When nearly done, announce “No, wait, I messed it up!’’ and repeat.
* Name your dog “Dog”.
* Ask people what gender they are.
* Reply to everything someone says with “That’s what YOU think".
* Lick the filling out of all the cookies, and place them back in the tray.
* Forget the punch line to a long joke, but assure the listener it was a “real fun”.
* Routinely handcuff yourself to furniture, informing the curious that you don’t want to fall off “in case the big one comes’’.
* Follow a few paces behind someone, spraying everything they touch with disinfection liquid.
* While making presentations, occasionally bob your head like a parakeet.
* Lie obviously about trivial things such as the time of day.
* Make beeping noises when you want to pass by someone.
* Leave your Christmas lights up and lit until September.
* Change your name to John Aaaaasmith for the great glory of being first in the phone book. Claim it’s a Hawaiian name, and demand that people pronounce each A.
* Sit in your front yard pointing a hair dryer at passing cars to see if they slow down.
* Chew on pens that you’ve borrowed.
* Invent nonsense computer jargon in conversations, and see if people play along to avoid the appearance of ignorance.
* Wear a LOT of perfume.
* Ask to “interface’’ with someone.
* Listen to records at high speed, and claim the faster speed is necessary because of your “superior mental processing’’.
* Sing along at the opera.
* Mow your lawn with scissors.
* Finish all your sentences with the words “in accordance with prophesy’’.
* Go to a poetry recital and ask why each poem doesn’t rhyme.
* Ask your co-workers mysterious questions, and put their answers in a notebook. Mutter something about “psychological profiles’’.
* Select the same song on a player fifty times.
* Do not add any inflection to the end of your sentences, producing awkward silences with the impression that you’ll be saying more any moment.
* Never make eye contact.
* Never break eye contact.
* Signal that a conversation is over by clamping your hands over your ears.
* Construct your own pretend “tricorder’’ and “scan’’ people with it, announcing the results.
* Holler random numbers while someone is counting.
* Make appointments for the 31st of September.
* Invite lots of people to other people’s parties.
* Send fifty copies of this list to everyone you know.
2. Give the students the following task: “Imagine you are the authors of a whole manual of how to be annoying. In two teams make a picture and a detailed description of an ideal character for this textbook, who will lead the possible future students through the book.”
Then ask each team to present their results. Ask those who do not speak while presenting the characters to spot out and to put down the similarities and the differences of the two images.