The Bible as Literature

Dear friends,

In the 7th-8th grade home school co-op English class that I teach, I try to incorporate Biblical themes as often as possible. We have done literature studies on the lives of Joseph, Daniel, and Esther. We learned about Psalms and Proverbs for a week or two each. We usually do integrated literature/art/music/Scripture units for Christmas and Easter. And we often study books that highlight Biblical themes, such as The Bronze Bow, which is set in Bible times, or The Witch of Blackbird Pond, which is set in Puritan America.

Here is the audio version of the workshop I presented a week ago at the Books & Beyond literature conference in Orlando. I am pasting in my workshop handout text below. I spoke about some things in the workshop (especially letting the Bible launch our children into life rather than holding them into a mold) that aren't in the handout, and visa versa. I know the handouts are pretty sparse. Below the handouts are a whole bunch of web links, not only to articles and resources on my web site and blogs, but many others, too. I'll try to write a more complete article later with examples, but you will at least find some of them in the audio, which is about 45 minutes long.