• “The poet may not be aware of it, but the only rescue to a broken situation on Earth is through the hope God provides….”
• “Because of Christ’s act of redemption for us...we are able to forget these past wrongs and move forward; just like Bedingfield’s lyrics say, we have a blank page before us.”
• “The lyrics of Macklemore’s song ‘Wings’ allude to the meaning behind brand-name shoes…. Society continues its attempts at materialistic satisfaction, which can’t restore the broken relationship with God.”

• "Selfishness, pride, and the desire for power are the driving forces for one to ignore, insult, hurt, and kill others. That is why Christians have been called to carry out the only thing that can rise above these troubles and give hope to life: love."
• "Within my own life I can see myself disregarding others' importance compared to what I want to accomplish and do. The most clear example for me is when friends ask me for help on homework. Some of the time I find myself thinking that as long as I understand it, it's fine; what a waste of time to teach. In these times I am placing myself and my own convenience over someone else's learning. I am stating that they are not worth my time and effort....In his letter to the Philippians Paul clearly states, 'Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves' (New International Version, Phil. 2.3).”

1. I learned that doing devotions can help form my Biblical perspective in both my life and in essays.
2. Writing this essay really got me thinking. It scares me that so many people passively disregard human dignity. What's scarier is that I'm one of them.
3. I was able to acknowledge and see clearly how we so often do put others down to try to feel better about ourselves, but how that actually has the opposite effect. I re-learned once again that in God alone can we truly know (not only feel) that we are valuable.
4. A Christian perspective helps any essay bring its points to a satisfying conclusion.
5. I have known the words "human dignity” for really long but never knew what it truly meant till I had to write this essay.
6. I learned that we don't have to kill millions of people to disregard human dignity. It happens every day when we gossip or bully. 

 Geography helps us to learn more about where we live, where people around us live, and opens our eyes to where God has placed us. I believe it is very important to study geography especially since we are in a culturally diverse school. Learning geography helps us to build bridges with those around us. It opens ways and opportunities to understand where those around us have come from. It also shows us there is a bigger world out there, not just our own that revolves around school. Studying geography helps us see God's power and helps us through our lives.

• “Whether it is in the form of murder, bullying, or stealing, people are being treated with less dignity than they deserve....as Christians, we must honor one another as created in God's image and love both our neighbors and our oppressors.”
• “People always say that they want to make the world a better place, but they think too big or they don’t think at all or say that’s awful and sit and do nothing. But...one specific thing that I can do is to stop criticizing people...and…‘Love your neighbor as yourself’ (Mark 12.31, Matt. 22.39).”

• “Night changed my view of the sufferings of others and made me realize my sinful nature.” 
• “I am blessed. I cannot repeat that enough even to realize it myself. Reading Night shocked me, and it made me realize God’s presence in my life. Now that I am more exposed to this realization, I feel like I want to do more for God and His people.”
• “God does try to help the suffering people by sending his people to help. He uses His people….That means that God could choose me or anybody to help the suffering. All we have to do is be ready to help.”

1. “From now on, I will be quick to forgive....”
2. “In Alan Paton’s Cry, the Beloved Country there are characters from all walks of life—rich, poor, important, and unknown. However, they each do what is in their power to help restore the brokenness around them, and this is a powerful message for us today.”
3. “Each person’s actions lay a brick in the bridge we’re trying to build, the bridge we call shalom.”
4. “God is the ultimate source of shalom and without Him, nothing can be restored.... Jesus was crucified…to restore shalom, and He is the first Restorer. After He ascended to heaven, who was going to carry on His mission to restore shalom?…Christians.”

1. What is the Cultural Mandate? (2 points)
2. How is it rooted in who humans are as being made in the image of God? (4 points)
3. How is it connected to literature as part of creation? (4 points)
4. Give 3 examples of authors we read carrying out the Cultural Mandate (15 points).

1. How does assessment impact student learning?
2. What type of assessment can you use?
3. What makes a good assessment good?
4. How good is your assessment?
5. How can you make your assessment even better?
6. How proficiently do you want your students to use a Biblical perspective?
7. How much practice do your students need?
8. What makes a good rubric good?
9. How can you use a rubric?
10. How can you use assessment data?
11. What's your vision for using assessment?
12. How committed are you to having your students apply a Biblical perspective to what they learn?

1. Videos: Teach and assess Biblical perspective, Biblical perspective assessment helps, Assessment helps students value and get proficient at Biblical perspective,
2. Teacher testimonials regarding using assessment
3. Self-assessment: To get started with using assessment, take this self-assessment
4. Tutorial: Use assessment to help students understand and apply a Biblical perspective
5. Use assessment

1. How many 4s, 3s, 2s, and 1s do I have?
2. What satisfies/concerns me about the data?
3. Which items would it be helpful to learn more about?
4. What will I do?

1. Videos: Teach and assess Biblical perspective, Biblical perspective assessment helps, Assessment helps students value and get proficient at Biblical perspective,
2. Teacher testimonials regarding using assessment
3. Tutorial: Use assessment to help students understand and apply a Biblical perspective
4. Use assessment
5. To learn more about using assessment, explore these 12 questions

1. Prompt: Trace one part of God’s creation (music, animals, our intellect, families, etc.) through its creation, fall, redemption, and restoration.
2. Due: Your project must be finished by Tuesday, April 21, at the beginning of class. What “finished” and “turned in” look like will depend on what you do.
3. Purpose: The purpose of this assignment is to help you understand the ideas of creation, fall, redemption, and restoration, and to help you start to see how these ideas apply to everything in school and life.
4. Options: This is intentionally very open-ended. You can make a poster, write a paper, write a song, write a poem, do a dance, write a speech, make a PowerPoint, etc. We encourage you to talk to us about what you want to do. We will evaluate each person’s work on its own merit.
5. Helpful Questions: These questions can help guide your thinking about the part of God’s creation you have chosen. 

• I learned how because we are made in God’s image, we should not hurt ourselves or others, because we are hurting God and His wonderful creation.
• We read and see cruel events through newspaper or TV or in our daily life. When we see such things, we begin to feel sorry for the people who are suffering and try to become compassionate. However, we only keep that feeling for a moment and go back to our usual life. Therefore, I learned that in order to show a real compassion like God does to us, we need to take action and try to make a change.
• It’s so true how we see something as terrible, but we don’t do anything. We say, “That’s somebody else’s problem,” but really, as God’s people, we should do something.
• I learned clearly why this world can’t survive without God. Without God, there would be no equality among peoples, and nobody would have value. And if this were the case, there would be no reason for any of us to regard any other human with any kind of respect or dignity. Everything would be equally meaningless, wars and chaos would ensue, people would be killing each other, and no one could survive. But God gives us meaning, purpose, and a reason to live.

1. Forgiveness is ceasing to feel resentment against those who deserve it….
2. One speech, one sentence, one word, can change the world. It can either corrupt or rebuild.
3. Scripture refers to this peace in an analogy—“The wolf will live with the lamb, the leopard will lie down with the goat…for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord” (New Internatioal Version, Isa. 11.6, 9). Without complete shalom in the world presently, we as God’s creations are “subjected to frustration” and we “groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for…the redemption of our bodies” (Rom. 8.20, 23). In order for us to attain this ideal, we must “act justly,” “Love mercy,” and “walk humbly with [our] God” (Mic. 6.8). Shalom is peace in every aspect of creation, and it is the full restoration of God, so people have an obligation to join God to work towards this ultimate goal as God does so, too.
4. God has given everyone many different gifts and talents, and none of them is any more important than the others. As Paul says to the Romans, “we have different gifts, according to the grace given us…. If [one’s gift] is serving, let him serve; if it is teaching, let him teach; if it is encouraging, let him encourage; if it is contributing to the needs of others, let him give generously” (Romans 12.6-8). It is our duty as servants of God to work to build shalom into this world, to build unity and loving relationships through whatever gifts we have.
5. Once we comprehend what shalom is, we are all responsible for using our gifts to work toward it. This leaves two problems: first, that people may not know that the world is lacking shalom, and second, that they may not bother to make any difference. This is what is so necessary about stories like Cry, the Beloved Country: they help us understand shalom and show the results of either using your gift to help bring shalom to our world or just using it for yourself. How will you now live?
6. …although I did not generate gossip about this person myself, to my shame, I did not stand up against it. Regrettably, I even laughed along occasionally, graduating from tacit agreement to a deepening evil…. Whether this girl had heard the bad things said about her or not, churning rumors or gossip about anyone or secretly taking pleasure in someone else’s dismay, is against what God created us to do.
7. I have been challenged to think how I could bring shalom in my community. Contributing in bringing shalom is a very difficult thing to do, but I came up with a tiny action toward it. That is to help my mom wash dishes. Her fingers suffer from bone deformation. They can suddenly start hurting, and she often has a hard time washing dishes. By helping my mom, I would be able to bring shalom in my house because my mom will suffer less. In shalom, love sweeps away suffering and pain. I would be part of it if I could wash the dishes and make her suffer less.

1. What was the assessment? (What type of assessment did you use? What was the prompt?)
2. How’d your students do on demonstrating their understanding/application of a Biblical perspective?
3. How’d you prepare your students to demonstrate Biblical perspective on your assessment?
4. What satisfies/concerns you about how you prepared your students?
5. What excites/challenges you about the assessment results on Biblical perspective?
6. To maintain and/or increase student learning about Biblical perspective, what 2-3 things do you want to keep doing/start doing?
7. Other insights?
8. What 2-3 SMART actions steps will you take to modify instruction (lesson plans, assessment prompt, unit map)?

1. Give each student his/her assessment data. Provide students with class time to reflect on the data and to write down 1-2 action steps they want to take to improve their performance.
   
2. Use the data to modify your unit plans.
   
3. Talk about common assessment data with teachers at your grade level and/or in your academic department. Collaboratively develop a team action plan for improving student learning.
   
4. As a faculty, tabulate assessment data in terms of schoolwide outcomes. Use the tabulated data for setting learning targets for increasing student achievement of the schoolwide outcomes.