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A Case for the Restoration of Catechetical Recitation

By Brandon Harvey

Over the last fifteen years I have heard numerous individuals share about their experiences as the “last real Baltimore Catechism Generation.” Some express that the formal catechism recitation, comprised of a question and answer dialogue, was a positive influence on their faith life and provided them sound doctrinal formation. Others have a somewhat negative view of their experience and felt that the catechism recitation monopolized their classroom experience. Interestingly though, they do have one positive thing to say about the use of recitation: “I will never forget what I learned.” The famous example being:

The Catechist: Why did God make you?

The Class: “God made me to know Him, to love Him, and to serve Him in this world, and to be happy with Him for ever in heaven.”

This dialogue recitation was not only found in Catholic catechetical classrooms but also is a hallmark of the Classical Education Movement that has been seeking to restore the essence of an authentic education. The name for this dialogue or echo between teacher and class has also been called “Catechism.” For now, let us remain with the title “recitation.”

I seek to suggest that it would be in our best interest as Amazing Catechists, either at home or in a classroom, to carry out the restoration project of bringing back the Catholic recitation. I am not suggesting that this be done as the sole means of educating youth but that the use of recitation should once again become part of our catechetical process. The question and answers of recitation can easily be integrated into the opening of class or the closing of class. The reason for its restoration is that it works.

The traditional characteristic of the younger grades, what we call Grammar School or Elementary School, was the emphasis on memory work. The emphasis on memory work was aimed at cultivating a child’s memory capacity and at the same time teaching them something. Small children can do it, and the last couple thousand years have demonstrated that it fits well with the developmental stages of small children. They like to repeat and imitate. They are a sponge and can handle unusual amounts of information if it begins simple and grows in complexity. Recitation for a small child is like exercise. The more a person exercises, the easier it becomes and the more complicated routines can then be adopted.

Within a few short minutes I have seen 1st communicants be able to answer questions like:

  1. Who is God?
  2. What are the two parts of Scripture?
  3. Name the four Gospels.
  4. Who is Jesus?
  5. What are the Old Testament types of Baptism?
  6. What does John 3:5 say about Baptism?
  7. What does Romans 6 say about Baptism?
  8. How does Confirmation complete Baptism?
  9. How does Confirmation help with the reception of Holy Communion?
  10. What is the Manna in Exodus 16?
  11. How does the Lord’s Prayer connect with Manna?
  12. What does Jesus say about the Eucharist in John 6?

The benefits for the child are beyond this article and deserve an entire book to do them justice. I have chosen to simplify and provide the nine most common fruits when recitation is done well and consistently:

  1. Recitation teaches children to organize a body of knowledge in a systematic way.
  2. Recitation demonstrates to a child how the new lesson of a given class fits within the greater body of knowledge of the Catholic Faith.
  3. Recitation teaches children new and proper vocabulary to help them formulate the concepts they will learn in class.
  4. Recitation provides students the opportunity to grow in confidence for speaking in front of others.
  5. Recitation provides all students in a classroom the same base knowledge to build from in the catechetical lesson.
  6. Recitation motivates the child to develop their memory capacity and their speed and ability for recall.
  7. Recitation provides a body of knowledge that will be ingrained in their long-term memory for the years and possibly decades to come.
  8. Recitation encourages teamwork when done in a classroom setting since the class answers together.
  9. Recitation develops a sense of confidence through the year’s mastery of recitation.

Besides being a time-tested approach to learning for smaller children, especially within a Catholic environment, recitation also provides many helps for the Catechists. Classroom recitation provides the most immediate assessment of a student’s or students’ abilities and their current status in the process of formation. Unlike True and False questions or multiple-choice questions, recitation does not allow for guessing. You either know it or you do not. A catechist does not need to wait until the end of the unit quiz to know if a student grasps the content. They will know immediately. The process of conducting recitation will be discussed in my next article.

The importance of recitation, and the fact that it should not monopolize the classroom experience, is best expressed by turning to L.M. Montgomery’s classic Anne of Green Gables. The orphan, Anne, has arrived at her new home at Green Gables. Marilla asks Anne if she knows who God is. Anne responds, “God is a spirit, infinite, eternal and unchangeable, in His being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness, and truth.” The narrator explains that Anne’s answer was prompt.

Anne then explains that she learned it at Sunday school before being adopted. “They made us learn the whole catechism,” likely referring to a sort of recitation, “There’s something splendid about some of the words.” The role of this catechism recitation had a big impact on her vocabulary, her memory, her recall, and her worldview. However, Anne does not yet know how to be a person who prays to God and follows God. For this reason, Marilla immediately seeks Anne’s religious instruction.

Just as in the example of Anne of Green Gables, catechism recitation can have many benefits but must be accompanied by something more within the classroom. The catechetical recitation and catechetical lesson work together to create something grand: a child formed in the way of Jesus Christ. Anyone would be hard pressed, once they know the different approaches to conducting recitation, to find a good reason to not restore catechetical recitation to its proper place.

 

Image Credit from Wikimedia Commons: Jules-Alexis Muenier: Catechism Lesson

Read all posts by Brandon Harvey Filed Under: Catechetics, Catechism, Elementary School, Featured, Homeschooling Tagged With: Anne of Green Gables, assessment, catechism, Drills, Recitation

Catechist Chat: Rubrics – Not Just for Mass Anymore

By Dorian Speed

I’m a big believer in rubrics. Both of the “Say the Black, Do the Red” variety, and in the classroom. What’s a rubric, you ask? Sit back as I explain how you can overcome your hesitation and finally build up the courage to cross the Rubric…con.

That seemed like it was building up to be an awesome pun, didn’t it? Sorry about that.

Okay, basically, a rubric is a terrific time-saver for teachers and a way for students to know your expectations very clearly before they begin an assignment. Rubrics are great for essay portions of tests, evaluating projects, rating students’ behavior or class participation – pretty much anything you can evaluate, you can evaluate via a rubric.

Rubrics4Teachers.com has tons of examples; I usually make my own, so that they’re tailored to the assignment. Decide how many aspects of an assignment you want to evaluate, come up with a “4-3-2-1” description in each category, and then give the rubric to the kids before they start the assignment, so that they know what they should be doing to complete it. Then, you just need to circle the box in each category that best fits the student’s performance.

Here are some sample rubrics you’re welcome to use and/or modify – click on the link to view them in PDF form.

Saints Essay Question: Choose four saints whose lives we have discussed in class and explain how they practiced the corporal and/or spiritual works of mercy.

Sacraments Essay Question: Choose four of the seven Sacraments. For each Sacrament, explain how it was instituted by Jesus, how it serves to provide us with grace, and how a person should prepare to receive the Sacrament.

Scripture Class – General Essay: Choose at least three Biblical figures whose lives we have discussed in class, and explain what people can learn from their example. You may include details about how each person either chose to do God’s will or disobeyed God, and what resulted from those decisions.

Hope these help! And hang in there – Christmas is right around the corner!

(AAAA! CHRISTMAS IS RIGHT AROUND THE CORNER!!!! AAAAA!!!!! MUST START BAKING!)

Catechist Chat will be an ongoing series of posts for teachers in religious education programs. It is based on my personal experience and not on any statistical evidence of the effectiveness of my advice. Suscribe to my feed to follow along, and Caveat lector, which is Latin for “your mileage may vary.” 

Click here to read other entries in the series, and be sure to follow Catechist Chat on Facebook! You can also sign up for my email list, and I’ll send you resources, including non-PDF versions of the activities I post (which means you can edit them in Microsoft Word to customize them for your own students).

Read all posts by Dorian Speed Filed Under: General Tagged With: assessment, ccd, religious education, teaching

Catechist Chat: Quick and Easy Bingo Review

By Dorian Speed

Well, I’ve been feeling a bit discouraged, because after various interruptions and special programs, I think I’ve had seven class sessions with my students for a Scripture course that’s supposed to be 14 weeks long. So it’s been a frenetic pace all the way through and I haven’t done as thorough a job as I would have liked to, but – it is what it is. Tonight was our last class, since the next two weeks will be replaced by Mass for the Feast of the Immaculate Conception and then our closing Advent Program. I needed to give them a “final exam” of sorts and I knew they weren’t ready. Enter…BINGO.

Love me some review-game bingo. It’s not the most thrilling activity in the world, but it’s better than a review sheet and more interactive. Best of all, it requires minimal effort, because you have the kids make their own cards.

Here’s a blank review sheet Bingo card. The way it works is – pick 8-10 terms for each column of the Bingo chart. You can put these on a separate review sheet (and use the Bingo as a complement) or stick the list right below the card itself, as I did in this Scripture class review Bingo. (WARNING: Looking at this example will show you what a shoddy job I did of covering the Old Testament. I mean, not a prophet to be found on the list. I did the best I could).

Anyway – then you tell the kids to pick words from each column and write them wherever they’d like on the corresponding column of the Bingo card. You’re Catholic, right? I don’t need to explain how Bingo works. I usually read aloud the “answers,” Jeopardy-style, to see if they can guess what I’m talking about, and then I go over it once more with them. You can even just make up a list on the spot and write it on the board – as long as you have at least five terms for each column (four for the “I” column, technically), they can make up a card. Much, much easier than trying to generate your own set up randomly-sorted bingo cards.

Speaking of Bingo, Loyola Press has a nice printable set of Advent Bingo cards, complete with leader’s guide.

Hope your class is making the transition to Advent nicely. (Code for: not totally losing it as Christmas break approaches).

Catechist Chat will be an ongoing series of posts for teachers in religious education programs. It is based on my personal experience and not on any statistical evidence of the effectiveness of my advice. Suscribe to my feed to follow along, and Caveat lector, which is Latin for “your mileage may vary.” 

Click here to read other entries in the series, and be sure to follow Catechist Chat on Facebook! You can also sign up for my email list, and I’ll send you resources, including non-PDF versions of the activities I post (which means you can edit them in Microsoft Word to customize them for your own students).

Read all posts by Dorian Speed Filed Under: General Tagged With: assessment, ccd, religious education, teaching

Catechist Chat: Fair Assessment

By Dorian Speed

Now, this probably won’t apply to you. You’re so organized, and you’ve stuck perfectly to the lesson plans you made at the beginning of the year. Plus, your students never missed a class, and everything’s run like, well, clockwork. Yesss!

But JUST in case you feel like you’re a little behind and you’re running out of time to cover everything you need to…I feel your pain.

A confession: I’m behind. Actually, if you’ve ever met me (or had the misfortune to be my student), this is not news. I always seem to end up a few classes behind where I need to be. This year, we’ve also had a few interruptions that we don’t usually have – a class canceled because of a historic football game (which I actually was okay with), a few “family nights” where we all came together, and then I missed a class because I didn’t have a babysitter. That’s just the way it goes, but still – I’m a little behind.

So, with two classes left (our final class in December will be an Advent ceremony), I have three choices:

  • Spend the next class speeding through everything else in the Bible, and then give the kids the Mother Of All Tests at the last class, or
  • Go into Emergency Mode and ask myself: what do they ABSOLUTELY NEED to know from my class and try to cover it in the next two weeks, or
  • Continue with the original plan so that they’ll at least have learned SOME of this stuff fairly well, even if they didn’t learn as much as I’d liked.
  • For me, I’m probably going to go with choice 3, although choice 2 might actually be the better option. I just feel like, with a semester to teach Scripture, trying to stop right after Exodus and then have a class that’s “Okay, then stuff happened, and then Jesus came. Ten things to know about Jesus” will leave them with the impression that the rest of the Old Testament isn’t all that important. Plus, I think most of the kids (and most adults) are more unfamiliar with the Hebrew scriptures than with the New Testament. So I’m going to try to cover through the Royal Kingdom and give them a fifteen-minute “everything else up until Jesus’ time.” That’s just me.

    But when it’s time for us to assess the kids, the most important thing is to be honest with ourselves about what they should know after X number of weeks with us. The Test, if you’re winding up with a big test, is not a chance to ask about every minor detail of the past nine class sessions because they SHOULD know this stuff. Maybe you mentioned in passing back in September that the Flood prefigures the sacrament of Baptism; that doesn’t mean they remember it. The saying is, “If they didn’t learn it, I didn’t teach it.” Now, that’s a great way to stress yourself out if your students don’t do well on their quizzes, isn’t it?

    It’s not that you should give your eleventh graders a 10-question matching quiz that ends with “Jesus Loves You, Now Draw a Rainbow.” Making the class into pablum means it’s not worth their time to come each week, and they get a real sense of accomplishment out of having learned more about their faith. And, of course, our ultimate goal is to draw them into a deeper relationship with Christ, so we want to make sure we are reaching their minds as well as their hearts.

    I just mean – don’t decide at the last minute that Now is the time to show them all the stuff they should have learned if they’d been LISTENING, and it’s not YOUR fault if they don’t know it. Sit down and take some time to honestly assess the content of your class sessions before you come up with an assessment. Don’t just photocopy the last two section reviews from the textbook and tell yourself, “well, we read it in class, so they should be able to answer these.” If you know there’s something you haven’t gone over with them, don’t expect them to be know it anyway. Assess them based on what they should reasonably be expected to know.

    COMING SOON: More specific thoughts/suggestions on types of assessment. So, lay it on me in the comment box. Am I the only one in this boat – the boat of “WHAT? Only two classes left?”

    UPDATE: Jennifer Fitz of Riparians at the Gate has crafted a most excellent response to this post. So good, so detailed that I can’t just excerpt it. A snippet, though – one that made me feel better about being so behind…

    The second reason go-slow works, is that as I teach I’m naturally making lots of connections. Dorian, I’m going to bet your bible study class is doing the same thing. It’s impossible to teach a chapter in the bible without naturally referring to ten other scripture passages, three doctrines, a sacrament or four, and maybe a few good pious customs and a personal story about the love of God thrown in for good measure. The reason class goes slowly is because you are covering more than what is one the page. So you aren’t actually teaching less than planned. Just different than planned.

    See, look! I’m behind because I’m so good at what I do! Read the whole thing.

    Catechist Chat will be an ongoing series of posts for teachers in religious education programs. It is based on my personal experience and not on any statistical evidence of the effectiveness of my advice. Suscribe to my feed to follow along, and Caveat lector, which is Latin for “your mileage may vary.” 

    Click here to read other entries in the series, and be sure to follow Catechist Chat on Facebook! You can also sign up for my email list, and I’ll send you resources, including non-PDF versions of the activities I post (which means you can edit them in Microsoft Word to customize them for your own students).

    Read all posts by Dorian Speed Filed Under: General Tagged With: assessment, ccd, religious education, teaching

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