Rationale

How and why will our entry activity aid a reading of the text?
Our understanding of the sermon and the resulting activity is the result of our search for some sort of lasting significance that will frame the reading in way that encourages student investment. “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” is the type of text students will read only for the sake of completion, skimming over words so they can move on to the next thing (if they even read the text at all). While it seems like a logical choice, giving students the historical significance of the sermon is not enough to warrant their investment either, as the transaction between what is given and gained is still uneven (very few students will be able to use information on the historical context of Puritan sermons outside of the classroom). Instead, we pursued a method that will slow down the reading process enough so that students are given the opportunity to gain something equivocal to their time invested—and only then will the text appear worthwhile enough to encourage student investment.

When considering sermons and their potential merit, they are designed to persuade listeners to live a life in accordance with god (which can mean any number of things). Thinking about that purpose, Edwards’ subject is not something of universal appeal that can result in a significant student understanding. However, the practiced means to Edwards’ end is something that all students can benefit from, as persuasion—understanding it and practicing it—is a primary understanding we need in order to live as functioning and literate citizens in the world.

Students must know that effective persuasion is not a matter of chance; it is the result of careful reasoning and organization. Often effective, well-reasoned arguments work because authors organize all of their points logically, support them with strong evidence, and present them in a seamless and appealing manner. Citizens who recognize these methods and are able to replicate them in their own attempts at persuasion will be better equipped to get what they want in life, while simultaneously thwarting attempts at manipulation. Likewise, not understanding these methods and the importance of persuasion can be a serious detriment to one’s overall language literacy, which is why students need to graduate with a strong foundation in rhetoric, regardless of their life goals.

Transitioning to students, they enter the classroom with a foundation of persuasive knowledge. They practice it daily among their friends and family. Therefore, as teachers, it is important to make students aware of their knowledge so that they can refine it and add to it. This is why in our activity we want students to work independently with a partner to outline a persuasive argument, free of any sort of primer on persuasion.

If we were to give students a prewritten outline or graphic organizer for arguments that asked them only to fill in the blanks with their claims and evidence, they would not necessarily be adding to or refining their own knowledge. By the time students reach high school, they have practiced writing persuasive essays and practiced using those methods in the real world (at the very least, orally), so it is important that they activate and use what knowledge they already own because it is going to carry into a difficult reading of “Sinner in the Hands of an Angry God.” As soon as a teacher passes out an outline, students are looking to fill in the blanks (by any means necessary usually) so that they can go back to doing what they want, removing the challenge of wrestling with and organizing what they already know.

Not giving any real outline and asking students to make their own is also effective because it increases the likelihood that students will stumble and make mistakes. The more mistakes and conflicts we have in the classroom, the more opportunities we have to discuss and learn during the sharing and discussion phase of the activity. For clarification, by encouraging opportunities for mistakes, we are not saying mistakes are inherently good—there are scenarios when teachers give students no support at all and set them up for failure, but this is not one of those times (in theory). The mistakes students make here are probably going to be based more on oversights and gaps in logic—things that are learned from and better corrected through discussion than by reading written comments isolated on papers.

Concerning the decision to have students work in pairs, it is important that students hear other perspectives for the sake of learning in collaborative contexts. Social learning allows for process questioning by peers that can direct students to more effective realizations by having to answer questions or by hearing a new perspective for the first time. Working alone eliminates the possibility of questions that may illuminate concealed knowledge during the planning and thinking process. Then, by having students present their persuasive outlines to the entire class, we extend the benefits of working in pairs to everyone, which will only expose students to more questions and perspectives.

After sharing and discussing their persuasive outlines—outlines for arguments that they should care about and be invested in since they are directly related to their personal gain— students should have a foundation of knowledge that they own, which will then (as directed by the teacher) shape their reading of Edwards’ sermon. We would still expect the sermon to cause problems for students based on content and length, but it is possible to use an abbreviated version of the text or specific passages. However, regardless of length, students will now have something to look for in the text based on a list they created with their peers, instead of blindly looking for meaning in a seemingly meaningless text.