Year 8 RE at STM

The main title for your work this week is “Jesus is the New Covenant”. We could also think of the phrase, “Jesus is the reason for the season”, as we are beginning the period of Advent.

This week, write an Advent prayer, with decoration, for display in the chapel and the noticeboards in the RE department. This should, in some way, reflect what we have learned during this unit about God’s relationship with the world. You might want to say thank you for the gift God gave us. You might want to reflect on the symbolism of the rainbow, or the grains of sand, or the stars. You might want to compare the stories of Abraham and Isaac, or the Passover, to the sacrifice made by Jesus, and to the Eucharist. Your prayer might be a song, in the same way that the psalms are prayer-songs.

Don’t rush this work. Take your time, ask God to help you, write something beautiful and meaningful to you. We can use these prayers throughout Advent.

This week you will be working on your Unit Assessment. The topic for this is “the Ten Commandments”. Use your homework time this week to revise for the assessment, and add to your written work for your assessment.

This week the homework is about the Passover. I want you to research this topic, and find out as much as you can about how Jewish people celebrate the Passover today, and why it is important.

Don’t just bring me print outs of Wiki!! Read through some information, and choose what you think are the most important points. Add your own opinion – would you like to celebrate the Passover with a Jewish person? Why, or why not?

And, since everyone else will also be researching the Passover for Thursday 26 November – write five questions to see if others have found out as much as you!

Last week you learnt about God’s covenant with Abraham, and Abraham’s relationship with his son, Isaac. This week you will be learning about Moses and the plagues. We have been thinking about people who were asked to do very difficult things by God. So … what would you do if God asked you to do a very difficult thing?

You can ask your family and friends as well. Then write a paragraph beginning, “If God asked me to do a very difficult thing, I would … ”

Here are some examples below of what the Bible has described God asking people to do:

* Leave your family and travel far away from home, without knowing exactly where you are going.
* Persuade a world leader to change their mind on a topic, even though you are very nervous, and not very good, at public speaking, and you could risk being thrown in jail.
* Do something that makes other people think you are mad, for example building a boat in a place far from the sea.
* Sacrifice your only child. This might not necessarily mean killing them, as it did for Abraham.
* Give all your money to the poor.

You could choose one of these examples – what would you do if God asked you to do one of these? What would your parents do? What would your friends do?

Last week you learnt about God’s first covenant with the world, the promise he made to Noah. For Thursday 12 November, write a song, poem or rap about Noah, the flood, and the promise God made, that he would never again destroy the world by flood.

You must have at least ten lines in your poem.
You should include the words: flood, ark, rainbow, promise, hope, dove, remind/reminder/remember
You could decorate your piece for display.

Our new topic is “Covenant”, which means promise. We will begin a title page in class; your homework will be to finish it, beautifully decorated in colour.

You should add words and pictures related to the topic, and you could also include the Aims of the unit, which I will add below.

1) What is a covenant?
2) What was God’s covenant with Noah?
3) What was God’s covenant with Abraham?
4) How does the story of Abraham and Isaac look towards the story of Jesus and the Eucharist?
5) What was God’s covenant with Moses?
6) Why is the Passover important to Jews?
7) How does the Passover look towards the story of Jesus and the Eucharist?
Are the Ten Commandments still relevant to us today?
9) In what way is Jesus the New Covenant?

Hopefully reading through these Aims has already given you plenty of ideas for the images and words that you can include in your title page!

Your homework this week is to write a poem about a significant black Briton. You will be given a handout with the details on it, and the deadline is this Friday, 23 October.

For extra help, see www.100greatblackbritons.com, or look up black Britons on Wikipedia.

Your homework this week is to write a poem about a significant black Briton. You will be given a handout with the details on it, and the deadline is this Friday, 23 October.

For extra help, see www.100greatblackbritons.com, or look up black Britons on Wikipedia.

Due in for Tuesday 13 October 2009.

Complete the I, Robot worksheet. This will involve answering the following questions:

1. What is it that makes us human?
2. What do you think your purpose is?
3. Why do you think there are so many references to Christianity in I, Robot?
4. In what ways does that film remind you of the story of the Creation of humans, and the Fall of humans? You can read this story to remind you in Genesis 2:4-3:24.
5. How does the film remind you of Jesus?

We can often tell what someone’s parents are like from the way that person behaves, acts and speaks. We are evidence of our parents. Christians believe that we can also learn about what God is like by looking at the evidence of his creation.

Imagine that you are a citizen of a distant planet. You have been sent on a fact-finding mission to earth. They have heard about a creator called God, who, they have been told, created the entire universe. They have become very curious about this God and have sent you to have a look at what God created in order to see if there are any clues available as to what God is like. Write a letter telling them about what you have found on earth.

You could begin:

Dear Citizens of Pluto,

I am sending you my report about the evidence I have found for the Creator humans call “God”.
There are many examples of imagination and creativity amongst the humans here. For example, the building called the Eiffel Tower. It is a marvel of engineering, and is very striking. Humans must be very creative and enjoy producing unusual things. This makes me think that their Creator, God, must also be imaginative and have a sense of humour.
Secondly …