Resources

“The best way to learn something is to teach it.” Wary as I tend to be of truisms, this one has proven accurate in my own experience as a teacher and scholar. The passages and concepts that I have taught over the years are on permanent recall in my brain. I remember these stories and ideas because I have talked about them with others repeatedly. But learning—and learning through teaching—is not just about memorization. The practice of preparing to teach prompts a very specific (and, yes, memorable) kind of thinking. When I approach a text to make a teaching plan, it requires attention to particularity and ambiguity. When I prepare to teach, I ask: What can be clearly learned from this passage? What is uncertain enough to warrant discussion? In other words, I read for ways both to distill possible meanings and to make room for new ones. In recent years, I have begun wondering what it might be like to invite my undergraduate students into this practice of teaching preparation. I’ve formulated “The Teaching Portfolio” as a capstone assignment for an upper-level undergraduate course where the enrollment may be too high for students to actually teach all or even part of a session themselves. In this assignment, each student selects a biblical passage (one we haven’t already read together), subjects that passage to close analysis using the terms and queries we’ve developed over the course of our semester, and finally plans several activities or discussion prompts they would use to help their hypothetical students engage with their chosen passage.  The AssignmentThis is how I describe the assignment to students:This final project invites you into a step-by-step process of how you would approach interpreting and then teaching a biblical passage in a classroom setting. These projects will be individual, but we will devote the final two weeks of class to workshopping these projects collaboratively.Here’s what that teaching portfolio will include:A. An Annotated Biblical Passage. In the margins of this passage you will:Pose three major interpretive questions, related to the types of terms and queries we have asked over the course of the class. Pose two translation or vocabulary questions that you can research and answer (please chat with me about this!).Pose two connections with texts we’ve studied over the course of this text. Explain these connections. B. An Interpretive Artifact. A piece of direct (that is self-conscious) interpretation of the passage you’ve chosen (from short ancient Jewish or Christian texts, from the history of art, etc.). If you select a text, make sure that it’s an excerpt of around three hundred words. Put this artifact into brief context (tell us who made it, when, and where).Describe the artifact, making two to four observations about how our specific course concepts and terms are represented in this artifact or are relevant to its analysis.Make at least two observations about how this interpretation differs from the biblical text and/or what this interpretation adds to the biblical account.How might you incorporate this artifact into a classroom activity? What questions would you pose to the classroom to generate discussion about this artifact? C.  Answering Your Questions. Attempt provisional answers to your three major interpretive questions (from part A) with direct, specific references to the text. You may not be able to answer your questions conclusively (that’s okay!), just reflect on how you would begin to answer these questions with as much detail as you can.D. Preparing to Teach. Having wrestled with this text and its interpretation, now is the time to reflect and prepare to teach it. In this final section, please address the following questions: If you taught this story in a classroom setting, what two or three major concepts, questions, or ideas would you want students to remember from this text? Why? What would make teaching this particular text challenging? How might you address those challenges? Describe an activity (in addition to the discussion you imagined above in part B.4) that you might use in class that would engage and convey those ideas to students. Describe it in as much detail as you can.Having completed this project, what new interpretive questions do you now have about this passage, especially in view of our course’s major terms and concepts? E. Presentation. You will have ten to fifteen minutes to present your portfolio work-in-progress in the two weeks leading up to finals week.  The Fine Print Your selected passage must be from a part of the Hebrew Bible or Septuagint (LXX) that we have NOT covered in class. Be sure to spend time understanding the context of this passage, especially if it is part of a larger narrative. That is one thing we will ask you do at the beginning your portfolio presentation.Not sure where to start looking for an interpretive artifact? Check out the following sites:Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization. The Posen online library has some great examples of visual and literary interpretation of biblical passages.  Visual Commentary on Scripture has some good examples of biblical interpretation in the history of art (if using the VCS just make sure the artwork you select is a direct, self-conscious representation of your biblical passage; some of the connections this site makes are more abstract). Sefaria is a great place to start in finding examples of ancient Jewish interpretation. While you are welcome (encouraged!) to confer with colleagues, your final project must show clear evidence of independent thought (different questions and answers, a distinctive interpretive artifact, etc.). If a colleague from our workshop inspires or helps your thinking in any particular way, be sure to cite them like this: “(conversation with A. Colleague, 12/6/24).” ResultsI have used this assignment in several 300-level courses (enrollment twenty to twenty-five). I typically reserve our three final class sessions for students to present their portfolios in progress and receive feedback from their colleagues. This means we typically end the semester on an energetic and collaborative note. One student told me that the project helped inspire his pursuit of a career in education. Students have reflected that this project helped them to synthesize the major ideas of the class and consider how they might communicate them to communities beyond our classroom.