Religion Lesson Plan: Culture
*Click to open and customize your own copy of the Religion Lesson Plan.
This lesson accompanies the BrainPOP topic Religion, and supports the standard of analyzing the role of religion in human culture and society. Students demonstrate understanding through a variety of projects.
Step 1: ACTIVATE PRIOR KNOWLEDGE
Display this image from the movie (timestamp 1:03):
Ask students:
- What symbols do you recognize? What do you think they mean?
Step 2: BUILD BACKGROUND
- Read aloud the description on the Religion topic page.
- Play the Movie, pausing to check for understanding.
- Have students read one of the Related Reading articles. Partner them with someone who read a different article to share what they learned with each other.
Step 3: ENGAGE
Students express what they learned about religion while practicing essential literacy skills with one or more of the following activities. Differentiate by assigning ones that meet individual student needs.
- Make-a-Movie: Make a mini-documentary describing one religion featured in the BrainPOP movie. Include details about its cultural significance for practicing communities. (Essential Literacy Skill: Determine central ideas)
- Make-a-Map: Make a concept map comparing and contrasting monotheistic and polytheistic religions. (Essential Literacy Skill: Summarize key details)
- Creative Coding: Code a meme that celebrates the diversity of world religions. (Essential Literacy Skill: Make logical inferences from explicit details)
Step 4: APPLY & ASSESS
Apply: Students complete the Religion Graphic Organizer, applying essential literacy skills while demonstrating what they learned about this topic.
Assess: Wrap up the lesson with the Religion Quiz.
Step 5: EXTEND LEARNING
Culture Unit: Continue to build understanding about diverse beliefs and practices with more BrainPOP topics.
Additional Support Resources:
- Pause Point Overview: Video tutorial showing how BrainPOP Pause Points actively engage students to stop, think, and express ideas.
- Modifications for BrainPOP Learning Activities: Strategies to meet ELL and other instructional and student needs.
- BrainPOP Learning Activities Support: Resources for best practices using BrainPOP.
