Conflict in the Holy Land today.

On my first teaching practice, I was asked to teach Section B: Foundations of Christianity. My supervisor asked me to teach the students about the conflict in the Holy Land today. To be honest, at the time I did not know much about it. I knew there was conflict but I did not know why. I could not find suitable resources for 1st year students online so I made my own. I have used this lesson a few times and each time it has been gone brilliantly. The students love it! I have even got good feedback from parents about it.

Here is the lesson! I hope it helps! 🙂

Learning outcomes:

1.The pupils will become familiar with the Holy Land today.

2.The students will be able to identify a major issue for the fighting in the Holy Land today.

3.The pupils will be able to recognise main words which are significant to the Holy Land today.

4.The pupils will be able to apply what they have learned by writing a newspaper.

Assessment of Learning outcomes:

1. The pupils will convey their understanding of the Holy Land by writing down on a post it one thing they learnt in class today.

2.The students will illustrate their ability to identify the major reason for the fighting between the Israelites and the Palestinians by answering higher and lower order questions.

3.The pupils will portray their ability to apply what they have learned by working in groups and writing a newspaper article for either ‘The Israel Gazette’ or ‘The Palestine Times’.

4. The pupils will show their ability to recognize the key words that are significant for the Holy land today by doing a crossword.

 

I will ask the students ‘Does anyone know anything about conflict in the Holy Land?’. If so, I will ask the student to tell the class what they know.

 

I will give the students a handout each. I will ask a number of students to read the handout. I will go through the handout with the students. I will ask the students if anyone has any questions about the handout. If so, I will listen carefully to the students and I will discuss the questions with the students. Thus deepening the class’s understanding of the conflict in the Holy Land.

 

I will ask the students higher and lower order questions about the handout.

Lower order questions:

Jesus lived in Palestine, what is the land now called?

Who is the war between?

Are they fighting over the same land or different land?

What religions are mentioned?

Higher order questions:

What do you think about the war?

What do you think they should do?

Do you think the war will ever be resolved?

What would you do if you lived in Palestine/Israel?

Group work: News reports 

I will give the students examples of newspaper reports from ‘The Israel Gazette’ and ‘The Palestine Times’. I will ask a number of students to read the news report examples.

I will put the students into groups. I will give each group a worksheet.

The worksheet will either be from ‘The Palestinian Times’ or ‘The Israel Gazette’. The groups must write a newspaper article for their newspaper. The worksheet will say ‘Write a letter to the people of Palestine explaining that you agree with the newspaper articles that you have just read. Write about what you think of the war. Should Palestine get all the land? Or should Palestine get only the Gaza Strip and the West Bank? Or should Palestine get no land?’

The groups will get five minutes for this task. After the time is up, I will tell the students to stop writing.

 

I will give the students a crossword for homework. The crossword will feature words which are significant for the Holy Land today. You can make your own word searches on Armoured Penguin. This is a terrific website which allows you to make your own word scrambles, word searches, crosswords,  word matches, fresh words. It is a great website which I use for literacy development. 

Here is my handout: The holy land conflict handout

Here are the two newspaper articles:  Jerusalem articles.

Here are the group work articles: Group work- Holy Land articles.