RS Question of the Week - Music to Die For

This week's Questions of the Week come from the news that Monty Python's Always Look On The Bright Side Of Life has become the most popular song at British funerals.

The questions I've asked around this are:

• Why do people choose music for their own funeral, when they won't be around to hear it?
• Which song would you choose for your own funeral and why? 

You can download the posters for the QOTW to use in your own classroom here.

My choice would be Otis Redding's Sittin' On The Dock Of The Bay, with Nirvana's cover Jesus Don't Want Me For A Sunbeam on standby for any encores. What would you choose?

The Complete Incomplete PowerPoint on Life, Death, and Beyond

I've been gradually putting together this PowerPoint for the AQA's synoptic unit on Life, Death and Beyond.

It's still not complete: One of the four topics is missing and I've not quite had chance to add in some extra notes I've got in other places, but students studying the unit might find it useful for revision ahead of their exam on Thursday.

Good luck!

Dawkins: Sex, Death and the Meaning of Life on 4oD

In my Year 13 A level class, we're currently studying the AQA synoptic unit on Life, Death and Beyond.

4oD is showing Richard Dawkins' series Sex, Death, and the Meaning of Life, which is useful for thinking about atheist responses to ultimate questions. Dawkins is always watchable, even if his tendency to cherry pick his evidence occasionally becomes annoying. The series is available free on 4oD, though you have to register first. Each episode is worth watching if you are studying or teaching the synoptic unit.

Episode 1 considers why we should act morally if there is no God watching us.

Episode 2 explores what science can tell us about death.

Episode 3 asks if there is a purpose to life in a Universe governed by the blind forces of nature.

Life After Death Revision Checklist

Photo credit sxc.hu/fanginhoon

I've put together a revision checklist/topic self assessment for the AQA unit on Body, Soul, and Personal Identity. You can download it from Google Docs here.

If you're revising for your GCSEs or A levels right now (and if you're following these tips on how to get an A, then you should be!), using checklists can help you identify the areas you need to target in your revision, and avoid the temptation to simply go over the parts of a topic you're already most comfortable with.

I've put together checklists for most of the AQA GCSE and A level syllabuses for RS. If you'd like any others for particular topics, then please post a comment below.

Life, Death and Beyond - Draft Scheme of Work

I've put together a rough draft of a scheme of work for the AQA A2 synoptic unit on Life, Death, and Beyond, which I'm teaching for the first time this year. It's something of a hybrid, using the AQA Spec, a WJEC textbook, and a template scheme I nabbed from OCR!

If you teach the synoptic unit, then like me you might find the lack of resources and schemes of work a bit of a headache. Any suggestions on how to improve the SOW (or extra resources to include) would be much appreciated! You can download the scheme of work from here.

Edit: If you found this resource useful, you might also be interested in this not quite complete PowerPoint on Life, Death, and Beyond.

Body, Soul, and Personal Identity Revision Games

Photo credit sxc.hu / runrunrun

Owing to popular demand (i.e. one person), I've created some "Articulate" and Keyword Pairs revision games for the AQA A2 Body, Soul, and Personal Identity topic. The definitions are taken or adapted from the Jordan, Lockyer, and Tate official AQA textbook.

You can download the games from here if you have a TES account, or from here via Google Docs.

Dead Men Tell No Tales (But They Might Send The Occasional Email)

BBC

I've been putting together a few resources for a GCSE unit of work I'm teaching next term immortality and the afterlife, and I remembered an interesting story the BBC ran a year or so ago. 

A few months after the death of Pennsylvania man Jack Fröse, some of his friends began to receive emails from the dead man's account that referred to private conversations, as well as events after Jack's death. You can watch a video about the story here.

OK, as evidence for life after death, it's not exactly compelling. Even a non-techie like me can work out a few more rational explanations for Jack's posthumous emails (e.g. giving his email password to another friend before his death).

Even so, the story shows some of the ways that the possibility of an afterlife can help people deal with the grieving process. It's also an interesting illustration of how ancient beliefs about immortality can be adapted and reinvented for the modern world.