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ON COMMON GROUND Guide for Teachers and Students
For Teachers and Students: Questions and Projects
1. Exploring America's Landscape
The map of the United States has eighteen buttons, enabling you to visit cities and towns throughout the country. Choose a city or region you would like to visit in ON COMMON GROUND. Divide into teams to visit a city or region or to investigate a place that interests you. Read the introductory essay for each place, and use the maps to explore regions or neighborhoods. Be sure to use the Regional Directory to get the "big picture" of each city or region, and report to the class or group what you find.
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2. Places of Worship
When you watch the movie A Visible Difference, write down which religious centers interest you most. Which ones would you like to visit? Select one of the religious traditions, and look at its places of worship in the United States. Either explore the cities and regions one by one, or use the Index to look for Architecture, Places of Worship, and the like. You can also use the Centers button on the main router screen of each religious tradition. Clicking on Buddhist Centers brings up a box listing all the Buddhist centers profiled in the CD-ROM.
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What is the religious history of the city or region you visited?
How different is the city's religious landscape today from what it might have been
fifty years ago? One hundred years ago? Two hundred years ago?
What surprised you most about the city or region you explored?
Which of the religious communities you visited would you like to know more about? Use the Index to see other screens in the CD-ROM to find out more about Muslims, Vietnamese Buddhists, Catholics, and so on.
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Do you find examples of new architecture that is making a "visible difference" in the landscape of a particular city or region?
Describe the features of a church, synagogue, mosque, Hindu temple.
• What takes place in these houses of worship?
Do you find examples of "invisible" religious centers-in warehouses, storefronts, or homes?
· What can we learn about a religious tradition by looking at the places in which the community gathers?
• When reading the essays on each religious center, be sure to look up in the glossary any terms that are unfamiliar to you.
3. From Center to Tradition
Select one religious center you find interesting, and use the Connections to discover more about the religious tradition with which it is associated. Because the Centers essays are short, also use the Resources of the Tradition section and your own imagination to construct a portrait of the community and the kinds of weekly activities, holidays, rites, and rituals that might take place there. You might begin with one of the following:
