Religion Project

Your groups will be assigned one of the following world religions. These religions obviously are not the only religions in the world but they will be our focus and time does not allow us the luxury of studying all of them.

  • Hinduism
  • Judaism
  • Buddhism
  • Christianity
  • Islam
  • Sikhism

Step I: Research the religion assigned to your group. You must examine the following:

  • Country of origin
  • Basic Dogma/beliefs of the religion
  • History of and examples of the texts of the religion.
  • Prominent figures and/or deities within the religion
  • Places of worship and holy areas of the religion
  • Information about the time and place when the religion was founded
  • Major holidays for the religion
  • One example of an issue for followers of that religion in today’s world, e.g. prosecution in a certain part of the world, misunderstood, etc. (refer back to what I discussed in class for this/if you were not in class when this point was discussed see me.)

Step 2: Presentation. Information must be presented in the following manner:

  • Students may choose between speaking with visual aids, creating a power point or Presi for their presentation, or running class activities to cover the content. If you choose a power point or Presi do not simply read off of slides. You are encouraged to be as creative and audience centered as possible.
  • Students must cite their sources in-text in MLA format and have a bibliography in MLA format.
  • The presentation must contain maps, and charts providing prominent information about the religion.
  • Each member of the group must have an equal role speaking.
  • Each Student must play a role in the creation of the presentation. You will share a google doc with your research notes. You will put your name by your work.
  • Presentation must contain physical objects to accompany the power point/presi, e.g. religious artifacts, pictures of places of worship in Chicago, maps of religious places, etc.
  • The presentation must be 15--20 minutes

Step 3: Reflection. Students must write a reflection on their project in the following manner:

  • The reflection must be done individually.
  • The reflection must be two pages in length.
  • The first part of the first page must be information that the student learned while doing the project. If the student is very familiar with his/her assigned religion the burden is on that student to find information through research that he/she was not aware of. Also, the student will write about his/her opinions and feelings of the assigned religion, e.g. dogma, political implications, conflicts, etc.
  • The second part of the first page is the student’s opinions about the project as a whole and a self-evaluation. Student must write about what worked, things he/she needs to improve on, things he/she did well, etc.
  • Student must cite sources as part of the presentation. You may use a works cited slide to cover this requirement.

Step 4: Assessment. Students must anonymously critique each other’s efforts. This will be factored in with teacher observation and interaction to form part of the grade.

If a group member is missing on the day of presentation a chosen group member must speak on behalf of the missing member. Also, the missing member must present to me a typed portion of his/her speaking part the day that he/she returns to class.

Religion Project Rubric

Content
Accuracy and depth. / 3—accurate and in depth / 2---accurate but lacking depth / 1—some inaccuracies and lacking depth / 0---insufficient information
Presentation
Creativity / 2—ideas in presentation go beyond a power point/Presi / 1---standard power point and Presi / 1--- insufficient
Speaking Roles / 3---all group members have equal speaking roles / 2---all group members speak but some have bigger/longer roles than others / 1--only some group members speak / 0--- insufficient or only 1 group member speaks
Audience Engagement / 3---your presentation (speaking, gesturing, techniques) was engaging enough to keep me and the audience focused. / 2---Presentation left me or the audience zoning out for certain parts of it. / 1---reading off a sheet of paper and very boring.
Props / 2—props such as articles/artifacts, etc. where used in the presentation / 1---pictures taken from the web, or just a couple of pictures taken personally where used in the presentation. / 0---no props where used in the presentation
Time / 2--Time limit was met / 1—students where slightly over or under the time limit / Students were grossly over or under the time limit.
Source Citing
In Text / 3---all in text citations present and in MLA format / 2---in text citations present/ or for the most part/ and or not all in MLA format. / 1---citations present in a few areas and/or nothing is in MLA format / 0---no citations present
References / 2—reference page done in MLA format / 1---reference page done but not in MLA format / 0---no reference page was present.