When it comes to teaching American Literature, every year I get excited about teaching Jonathan Edwards’ sermon “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.” It usually sneaks into the units of teachers who want to expose their students to early literature of the United States, but many times, it can be an overwhelming text for both teachers and students.
The vocabulary and background information alone for Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God can take up an entire week to teach, so I propose not doing that 🙂 Instead, I challenge you to focus on helping your students to examine 1 of the following and really drive the insights of the time period home to the students.
Continue reading for 5 Ways to Effectively Examine Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God!
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5 Ways to Examine “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God”
1. Focus on Basic Reading Comprehension
Sometimes, students simply need to be exposed to and understand the main idea and details of an Early American piece of Literature. Before moving on to deep meaning and rhetorical analysis, create reading comprehension questions for students to work on as they do a close reading of the text. It will give them a break from the overwhelming nature of the text.
Here are some questions that may help your students focus as they read:
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How does Edwards organize his sermon? How does he start/end?
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How does Edwards support his overall purpose? What techniques/types of evidence does he use? Use textual evidence to support your ideas.
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Which sentence from the sermon best summarizes the central idea of the excerpt? Explain.
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2. Use a Graphic Organizer to help students develop their ideas
Use SOAPSTONE or SPAUTS for a step-by-step analysis of the speaker, purpose, audience, tone, and strategies in Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God!
An organizer can be an important first step for quick and cursory exposure to this sermon!
S-Speaker: Who is the author, writer, and/or speaker?
P-Purpose: What is the purpose of the text? What does the speaker hope to accomplish?
A-Audience: Who is the intended audience?
U-Universal Ideas: What are some major ideas/messages from the text?
T-Tone: What is the tone of the author, writer, and/or speaker?
S-Strategies: What is the tone of the author, writer, and/or speaker?
Using something to help students read and understand the most important ideas is vital for overall comprehension!
3. Incorporate Visualization Activities
Sometimes even the higher grades students need to take the time to create an image in their heads or on paper. Why not give students 15-20 minutes to draw and present their images? They don’t have to be perfect, BUT they need to connect to evidence!
Directions: Create a visual for 4 excerpts from Jonathan Edwards’ Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God. Provide 2 pieces of textual evidence to support your ideas. Be detailed and creative!
4. Analyze Rhetorical Appeals
If you want to take it a bit further, introduce the rhetorical appeals of logos, pathos, and ethos. Don’t get caught up in every part of the rhetoric. Just focus on 2 examples of each. The sermon is filled with examples of each.
LOGOS-factual information
ETHOS-authority based on scripture
PATHOS-emotional language and imagery
Here is an example from Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God you can use for teaching imagery/pathos:
Example Quote: “The glittering sword is whet, and held over them, and the pit hath opened her mouth under them.”
Example Analysis: Edwards’ use of imagery serves to provoke fear into his audience. By depicting a sword as hanging above a person, he illustrates the ultimate doom many will face. Through this description, he hopes to convince his audience to turn to God and convert.
5. Integrate the activities into a Rhetorical Analysis Paper for Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God
For a real challenge, extend the rhetorical appeals or rhetorical analysis into an essay examining how Edwards achieves his purpose in the sermon.
Writing Prompt Example-Why did Jonathan Edwards write and give this sermon? What strategies did he use and what does he hope to achieve? Use evidence to support your ideas!
Example Body Paragraph Structure:
STEP-BY-STEP PARAGRAPH
1. Topic sentence-connect the strategy or strategies with the purpose
2. Textual evidence-cite direct evidence from the text and embed the evidence
3. 2-4 sentences of commentary/analysis; what does the evidence reveal or highlight?
4. Transition to another piece of textual evidence-cite direct evidence from the text and embed the evidence
5. 2-4 sentences of commentary/analysis; what does the evidence reveal or highlight?
6. Ending sentence-discuss the effectiveness of the strategy or strategies
Click HERE to get your step-by-step Rhetorical Analysis Pack for “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God!”
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Why should we still teach Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God in this modern age?
This sermon is foundational to much of American Literature. If you want students to understand the values and morals of people in this 1700s time period, let them analyze this text for a day or even a week. It will help them when reading so many other texts connected to Early American Literature.
Really, I could spend weeks teaching this text, and there are options for every classroom. Also, I encourage you not to reject the text merely because of the fear of using a religious text in the classroom. Embrace the history of our wonderful country where students have the freedom to read pretty much whatever they want or may not realize they want to read!!!
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