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| True or False?? |
It's been great to see the different blog posts from all the all the many different civilizations and see the connections that have been found as they pertain to oral knowledge. One thing that has been hard for personally, is to find a way in which I can relate things to my own life when learning about something that existed 3 thousand years ago. I believe that because of that aspect there, the presentation of King Benjamin's speech taught me many things because of how personal it is to me and my life.
So from the final that we took, there are a few things that jumped out at me as we were all doing our recitations as to why I think Oral Knowledge is unique. I'll try and share a few.
Understanding
Being apart of an oral presentation taught me more about the subject than anything that I had done previously. Having spent 2 years teaching specifically from the Book of Mormon and on many accounts directly from the words of King Benjamin, I felt pretty confident as to my understanding of what King Benjamin was teaching. Now, you don't have to serve and teach for two years by any means in order understand what was King Benjamin was teaching his people, but there were things that I learned and understood better after memorizing and also sitting in on the recitations of these verses that didn't come to me as i've studied the written text in the past.
Recollection
One thing that is somewhat disappointing is that there were many other things that struck me as important and things that I learned as we went through the presentation, but regrettably I don't remember all of the things because I never wrote them down and the knowledge gained came and went. So to not have a written text to go back on and re read, it makes it difficult. Had I taken the time to write some of these things down after class, I am sure I wouldn't be in this bind.
Oral Knowledge has a unique way grabbing ones attention and portraying knowledge in a different aspect. Like James mentioned afterwards though, there were times where it was more difficult to pay attention and we could fall into the habit of mindlessly listening...until someone began to recited their lines with force and emotion.
Unity
Another thing that I realized or noticed was the unifying effect it had on the whole class. To have both Dr. Burton and Dr. Petersen right in there with the ENTIRE class on the recitations just made everything else that much more real. It didn't feel like a test and as though we were being critiqued, but instead we were ALL apart of something. If we were to give everyone a short book in class of some written text and said read the whole book in 30 mins and then we'll discuss things afterwards, it simply would not have the same effect. Oral knowledge brings us together.
Oral Knowledge appeals to me, there's something about it that catches my eye and aids my learning. I don't know what exactly why, but the unit final that we had helped to me to realize this in a form in which I wouldn't have expected.
I was really cool what we did for class. I too was skeptical about how it would turn out. Man was I surprised how well it turned out. It really put things into perspective for me. I really thought that the King Benjamin speech wasn't interesting but it really is.
ReplyDeleteI was on a spiritual high that lasted all day after that, it was so awesome! Not only was this experience extremely powerful spiritually but I agree with Kody: I don't think I could have learned the power of oral knowledge any better way. Dr Petersen and Dr. Burton could have told us about it, we could have read about it, we even could have read the speech aloud in class but there was something about preforming the speech and listening to it that was just... powerful! I can't think of any other way to say it! and I couldn't help but keep thinking about King Benjamin and what a rhetorical genius he was.
ReplyDeleteI guess I'm the odd one out on this one. While I thought the idea was cool, I did not think it was an accurate assesment as to how much we learned from this unit. For an activity, yes- it was cool. Not for an assesment. However, I will say that I did come away with a greater understanding of King Benjamin's speech. It has much more significance for me now due to the oral presentation of it.
ReplyDeleteI do agree with Amanda that it wasn't really good for an assessment of what we learned, but I did really like it as an activity. It really reminded me that this was a speech, not an essay. It was meant to be spoken. Even though we probably all know that the Book of Mormon is true, sometimes I forget, then am reminded by things like this that those words written there actually were spoken to people more than two thousand years ago. They were real people, and the speech was a real speech.
ReplyDeleteI didn't know I was getting myself into a drama class when a signed up for Honors 201, but I guess things turn out how they do. It was fun to be able to see the whole class get through everything considerably smoothly (quite a lot nicer than I had imagined it in my head for sure!). But I do think you brought up an interesting point early in this post that I had been thinking about: I really feel returned missionaries had a cool step-up on us "year-til" boys. I want two years of practice on speaking the Lord's word before I do an assignment like this :( Can't wait to get out there and serve!
ReplyDeleteWell I don't think we were given this type of assessment just for the purpose of testing our understanding of oral knowledge and hopefully we don't look at it as just an assessment. I think it would quite be hard to teach us the importance of oral knowledge unless we participated in some sort of activity such as the one we did, I myself have never really done something like this and for that I appreciated it and it helped me understand things in a unique way.
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