(Top)  

Requirements

The class requires full participation, with heavy emphasis on the following the following:

(Top)  

Evaluation/Expectations 

The chief criterion of evaluation is the overall quality of your contribution to the group's study of the Prophets through work in the online discussions. Quality includes:

• Careful attention to the details of biblical texts
• Coherent articulation of your views
• Perceptive and timely evaluation of the views of others
• Contributing  your learning from self-directed reading in the required books to the group's reflection

The second criterion for evaluation is the depth (not necessarily the quantity) of your individual engagement with the text of the Prophets.  Demonstration of productive work should be reflected in a weekly submission of an assessment of learning.  The submissions are in response to the activities of the week.  The final paper can grow out of this individual weekly writing.  Your own interests and questions will determine the emphases in this individual work.

The default grading system is Pass, Marginal, Fail.  The A, B, C, D, F letter grade system is available per request.

(Top)

Online discussions

The class will be divided into discussion groups with as close to five members per group as possible. Each week during the class there is a topic for online group discussion. Each student is to submit (online) a leading statement for each weekly topic. The length should be no less than five paragraphs. You should state your position on the topic and your chief reasons for your position, i.e., state your claim and your warrants. You are required to formulate a primary response (online) to the leading statement of each person in your group. The length should be one to two paragraphs. Additional responses to any aspect of the discussion are strongly encouraged. (Direct communication by e-mail is also encouraged.)    For further detail, see the participation rubric for this activity.

For a graphic illustrating how the discussions are to flow, click here.

The topics are listed in the weekly schedule of activities. 

(Top)

Individual Work

The particular character of the individual work will vary somewhat from week to week.  However, the general pattern will be 1) to create an inventory for your reading of sections of the prophetic books along with some commentary on those sections and 2) to observe your own learning process by reflecting on what and how you are learning through your own reading and through the group discussions.   The results of your individual work should be reflected in your writing within the group discussions. Secondly, it should be summarized in a weekly submission assessing your learning.  Individual work drives toward and serves the group discussions.  Since you will be a major source of learning for each other, reflection on the group discussions should be included in the weekly summations of learning.  The cumulative result of writing the weekly summations should be a notebook of reflections and learnings. The audience for the unit summaries is chiefly you, the individual learner, with the e-mail submission of that writing being a opportunity for the instructor to read over the learner's shoulder.  More Information

In all the individual work (and much of the group work) emphasis falls on the process of reading, asking that you becoming increasingly aware of the assumptions that shape your sense of the meaning of the text.  The purpose of writing about this work (rather than having a test on your reading) is to assist you as a reader of Scripture to become a self-conscious reader.  As a result you should increasingly turn to commentaries to address your own questions, not to find the definitive answers that are merely to be ingested.   Commentaries should be seen as co-readers of Scripture, not as the definitive readers. As an active, reflective reader in this course you are joined by others (commentators included) to form a community of interpretation.

Unit submissions should be sent to penta@luthersem.edu and the subject line of the email should include the unit number and your name (for example, "Unit 3 Summary - Nysse").

[The course TA, Erik Gronberg, also has access to the penta@luthersem.edu email address.  For personal or private issues, email me directly at my regular email account rnysse@luthersem.edu.  Also, please feel free at any point to email me with questions raised by the course at the latter account.]

(Top)

Final Project

A final paper addressing the following topic: "How My Christian Imagination and Goals for Christian Ministry Have Been Shaped By My Study of the Prophets." You should be taking notes for this paper throughout the semester. There is no right answer! This should be a reflective paper, not simply a journal. If you do keep a journal (which I would suggest you do), the paper is to be a retrospective reflection on your journal. It is a goal of this class to do more than gain information about the Prophets. As Scripture, the Prophets should influence the shape, goals, and themes of your Christian ministry. This paper should state how the Prophets presently influences your conception of ministry.  The paper will be submitted to your discussion group.  Last day for submission:  May 17, 2005.

(Top)

Time Commitment

Time in the classroom will be replaced by a number of means throughout the quarter (for example, the Individual Work and the final paper mentioned above are part of this replacement). Each person works at a different pace and thus an exact statement of required hours of study is not possible.  It is the intention of the instructor that the workload will stay within the guidelines used generally for residential courses at Luther Seminary, namely, 2-3 hours for every hour in class. (Assuming a full load of four courses, full-time students would be working 36-48 hours per week on their studies, i.e., it would be literally full-time) The residential  Prophets class meets 3 hours per week for 13 weeks for a total of 39 hours. Thus, the total time projected for the course is 117-156 hours. Or stated on a weekly basis, you should expect to be working between 9 to 12 hours per week on the course.  Remember also that you are spending no time going to and from this class, a considerable saving of time!

(Top)