Jim Blynt's NEH Site - Course Info

World Religions:
General Course Information

Buddhist stupa (above) and footprints of the Buddha (right) representing
his life and teachings

World Religions is a multi-disciplinary Humanities course that meets for a double block of time each day and counts as the students' English and History credit for the ninth grade. The course incudes elements from various disciplines, including literature, history, philosophy, religion, music, and the fine arts. Everything in the course revolves around the theme of world religions, and students are expected to acquire knowledge about the faith traditions of the world in addition to examining some of the great questions of humankind. The course is divided into eight units, as follows:

1 / Introduction to Religion
2 / Judaism
3 / Christianity
4 / Islam
5 / Hinduism
6 / Buddhism
7 / Taoism & Confucianism
8 / Primal Religions

A Sample of Introductory Documents and Materials:

Course Description	Holiday Project
Rules for Doing Comparative Religion	Guidelines for Interreligious Understanding
Religion Vocabulary	Introductory Project

Texts for the Buddhism Unit:

The World's Religions by Huston Smith

The World's Wisdom: Sacred Texts of the World's Religions by Philip Novak

Blue Jean Buddha: Voices of Young Buddhists by Sumi D. Loundon, Jack Kornfield, eds.

The Buddha and the Terrorist: the Story of Angulimala by Satish Kumar

Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse

Organization of This Site:

Each of the links at the left leads to a different section of the unit. For each section, you will find factual and discussion questions based on the main text, Huston Smith's World Religions (these questions, which I have written over several years, serve as a sort of "catechism," guiding students through reading that can be difficult). Next you will find a list of readings appropriate for each section from the primary source text, The World's Wisdom. Finally, each section contains numerous resources, readings, idead, and activities appropriate for a wide variety of high school student levels, as well as photos and artwork having to do with the topic.