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 teacher and students.
The vocabulary and background information alone 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 driving the insights of the time period home to the students:
5 Ways to Examine “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God”
- Create some 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.
- Utilize a focused prompt: Ex. What do the people believe in this time period? Cite evidence to prove your assertions.
- Use SOAPSTONE or SPAUTS for step by step analysis of the speaker, purpose, audience, tone, and strategies. This can be an important first step for a quick and cursory exposure to this sermon.
- 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.
- For a real challenge, extend the rhetorical appeals or rhetorical analysis into an essay examining how Edwards achieves his purpose.
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!!!