performing the text

Tim Bulkeley at SansBlogue notes some of the challenges in teaching students to think theologically and in a truly integrative way in teaching biblical studies courses. We also have an Integrative Seminar course as one of the capstones of our Bachelor of Theology degree, and it attempts to bring together biblical and theological thinking along with concepts and methods in the humanities, social sciences, as well as spiritual formation and Christian ministry courses. It's an excellent course, but its broad design means that it can only really give just a taste of such integration.

Tim then talks about other specific courses and means of assessment, and how most of them reward the ability to focus on specific topics. This is true anywhere, I think, and is true at our College as well. Especially with increasing specialization in academic disciplines, students are expected to know the specific topics being addressed in the course--hopefully in thinking about the topics in new ways and in developing appropriate "critical empathy" toward diverse ideas and in shaping their own perspectives on the topics--but this is not especially "integrative" nor is it especially "theological" in the sense of providing meaningful explanatory discourse about God and ourselves and the world around us.

So Tim goes on to describe a different means of assessment that he has used:

One that I really like – and that the students often appreciate too, once they “get their heads round” what it means - involves performing a biblical text. By “perform” I mean just that, the text can be read, dramatised, displayed on paper or computer screen… This performance should aim to help its audience understand the text. It is accompanied by a written “justification” (referenced and footnoted in the normal way). This justification “ties back” choices made in planning the performance to aspects of the biblical text that require or suggest them.

To prepare this assignment the student must first prepare an exegesis of the text in the usual ways, but they do not write this up, instead they plan and justify their performance on the basis of this underlying exegesis. This task is highly integrative, and because the justification (and not the performance itself) is marked it does not discriminate against those who lack skills to produce a technically good display. It does however reward those who produce a good “reading” of the text.

This sounds a lot like something that I have done in teaching some of my New Testament courses. I also have the students do a thorough exegesis of the text but without a full exegetical paper at the end. Instead, they are to present their interpretation of the given text to the whole class, highlighting points from their research and then presenting a creative response to the text, which could be in the form of music, visual art, drama, creative writing, a short homily, or other ways. This creative response is not simply a "gut reaction" to a superficial reading of the text; rather, the student has worked through a thorough exegesis of the text, and they must demonstrate that the creative presentation is derived from this thorough research. Both the specific research projects along the way and the final creative presentation are then graded. To this point, I have not had this sort of assignment for my Junior and Senior level courses--I prefer papers for those courses, as they are expected to be working in greater depth within the specific topics of the course, and they are also being prepared for graduate level work where the name of the game is research and writing. But these courses earlier in their program, along with other courses such as our Integrative Seminar, give our students a good introduction to theological and integrative thinking as they approach the Bible.

[Update: Tim offers further reflections from a bit of "serendipity" here.]