A Reflection on The Bible - Wordled 7th Grade Version
I use wordle (www.wordle.net)
in my classroom a lot! My 7th
graders and I were using it one day in class and one student blurted out - “We
should Wordle the Bible!” That’s how it
all started. We got to talking, planning
and all of sudden we had a 5 month project on our hands. After
much discussion and brainstorming about the content and form we
settled on a wordle for each book of the Bible with an accompanying
devotion. We decided that each devotion
would have a summary of the book, some key memory verses for the book, a
personal reflection on the wordle itself, an explanation of where Christ can be
found in the book, some reflection questions and a prayer.
The 23 seventh graders each worked on at least two books of the
Bible. They researched the books using
websites like www.biblegateway.com .
Next I created a Google doc with a template for the students with all the necessary parts. We also invited guest authors: our two
pastors and school principal. Our
original thought process was to have guest authors from Lutheran schools around
the country. However, since we also
decided to turn this into a school auction project, we thought it best to keep
it all Abiding Savior authors. Each
student used www.biblegateway.com and
copy and pasted the NIV version of their books into a Google doc and then into
wordle.
After each student did their research, we started to
write. This process was similar to a
normal English class writing process.
They wrote and edited their devotions.
Once they had their rough draft written and edited, I sat down with each
student and went through their devotion with them. I was able to help them articulate some
thoughts, guide them when they were struggling and polish the writing. From there we put all their writing into a
Microsoft Word document, because I find formatting with text and pictures
easier than Google Docs. Once it was
edited, we turned it in to a PDF and used www.issuu.com
to create an online magazine. Wordling
the entire Bible and separate testaments was not too hard because we already
had all the text in the individual docs, so we copied and pasted it into a word
document and then into wordle.
The process was a long one, but I am very happy with the
many positive outcomes. My 7th
graders really took pride in their piece and the project as a whole. They learned many things about their book in
the research/writing process, in editing others’ writing and in our use of it
as a devotional book in class. Hopefully
the online version gets some readership and others faith lives can be
strengthened a little.
