Last month, we dove into the best practices for fostering a biblical worldview in mathematics. In today’s blog, we are exploring critical thinking and essential questions for biblical integration in language arts and world languages. It is our hope that by sharing these questions, you are inspired and equipped to foster a biblical worldview within your language and reading classes.
The Importance of Language to God
Language is a big deal to God. After all, the first thing we read about God in the Bible is that he spoke the universe into existence. Is there a particular significance in the fact that God chose to create by speaking words?
I can’t explain it any better than what Cheree Hayes and the Bible Project Team explained in their article, How Do God’s Words Create? Words reveal identity—they are expressions of the mind, will, and character of a person. “We can observe much about a person based on what we see, but we can’t begin to know them personally until they speak to us.” As we study what God says, we can discern his attributes.
God is a communicator. Scripture tells us that he communicates through:
- creation (Romans 1:18-20, Psalm 19:1-2)
- his Word (2 Tim. 3:16-17, 1 Thes, 2:13)
- the Holy Spirit (1 Cor. 2:9-16, Acts 8:29)
- prayer and other people (Hebrews 1:1, 1 Samuel 13:13-14)
- circumstances (James 1:2-5)
If we pay attention to what he says through all of the communication methods, we can discern what he is like.
The subject area that most directly connects to communication is English language arts (ELA). ELA encompasses reading comprehension, word recognition, writing, spelling, and speaking. Just as you peel an orange to uncover juicy, delicious sections of citrus, each element of language arts is ripe with biblical truths just waiting to be revealed.
Planning Your Biblical Integration in ELA
In most schools, ELA is considered a separate subject from world language class. However, when thinking about Christ-centered instruction, the biblical truths revealed in ELA are evident in any language. So, let’s treat world language courses the same as ELA. The following suggestions and tips can be used for both ELA and world language courses.
Successfully planning ELA and world language units that foster biblical thinking begins with two steps:
- First, consider the curriculum concepts to be taught.
- Second, consider how aspects of language answer particular worldview questions.
Here are examples of biblical principles ELA teachers addressed as they planned their regular curricular units. (The essential questions listed below are specific to ELA content provided by individual teachers, but these questions can be stated more generally and applied to world language topics.)
Essential Questions for Biblical Integration in ELA & World Languages
Primary grade teachers and early level language teachers spend much of their language arts time focusing on word recognition and spelling. Phonics and spelling are the building blocks for reading and writing. While these elements of language may seem void of biblical principles, they actually reveal much about our God who created language. We need to think about phonics and spelling just like we think about math principles. With math principles, we can marvel at the consistency, order, and intentionality of God that is revealed. Similarly, phonics and spelling work because of the intentionality, order, and consistent rules of operation. Spelling and phonetic structure of words don’t happen by accident, they happen on purpose according to a set of rules for a given language. These rules of operation reveal the nature of God—the creator of language.
Do Words Happen by Accident or on Purpose?
This essential question was created by a kindergarten teacher as she embarked on her phonics program. Phonics is centered on the rules of reading, and the teacher considered this ahead of formulating her essential question. The teacher then summarized the connection between phonics and biblical principles this way:
All languages require letters or symbols to be put in a specific order to make words. We can’t simply dump out and expect random letter combinations to make words. God made language and language possesses rules that align with his nature.
Adam did not need to take a phonics class. Rather he naturally understood what God said to him. He was able to name the animals before Eve was created. This was because God gave man the ability to understand language as an image-bearing characteristic.
With writing, reading, and speaking, the curricular focuses are comprehension skills, creative expression, and grammar. Comprehension skills address the meaning of the message. Creative expression addresses the delivery of the message. Grammar addresses the structure of the message. The need to apply comprehension skills is seen in scripture as people are encouraged to correctly interpret, listen carefully, and seek after wisdom.
In Christian schools, we as teachers have the obligation to teach children how to analyze messages received. All messages come from someone, and each someone has a worldview. Students need to be able to determine if the message from the someone communicates ideas from a biblical worldview or some other worldview. Hillary Ferrer in her book, Mama Bear Apologetics: Empowering Your Kids to Challenge Cultural Lies, explains that we need to teach children how to be critical thinkers and analyze messages for the underlying worldview ideas. Reading comprehension is needed to discern truth from a lie.
How do we know if a Book Character has a Biblical Worldview or Not?
This is an essential question created by a 4th-grade teacher who desired to have her students apply critical literary analysis skills in a way that discovered worldview ideas. Ultimately the teacher wanted to equip her students in how to discern attributes of a person and how those attributes can indicate how that person perceives the world. Students were taught to analyze a character’s words, thoughts, and actions for underlying beliefs. Then students compared the character’s underlying beliefs with a biblical perspective to answer the given essential question.
Let’s look at one more example of how to create units with your own curriculum to discover biblical truth.
Is the use of Persuasion Ethical? How do you Know?
Most high school ELA courses include some focus on persuasive writing. The typical instruction involves teaching the ethos, logos, and pathos approaches for persuasion. However, from a biblical perspective, there are some ethical guidelines for persuasion. One high school literature teacher posed this essential question to his students, and then scripture related to ethics of the nature and content of communication were explored by students. From there, students had to defend their answers to the essential question with a brief explanation of guidelines to use when creating persuasive written works.
Worldview Questions are Key
These three example essential questions are a very small subset of essential questions that can be used in an ELA or world language program. Teachers have used these questions to prompt and guide students’ biblical thinking about elements of literature and the nature of language. As you plan your own Christ-centered learning opportunities, start building your list of questions you might ask to analyze characters, see the connections between language and God, and examine underlying worldview assumptions that are present in literature selections.
About Transformed PD
The mission of Transformed PD is to nurture the thinking and expertise of Christian school educators through relational teaching. We offer biblical professional development services and train educators on best practices for biblical integration in the classroom setting. Contact us to learn more about partnering with your school. Stay up to date with all that Transformed PD is doing and learn more about biblical integration in language arts and other subjects by subscribing to our monthly newsletter!
Be sure to visit other posts our series on biblical integration within each subject: Biblical Integration in Math, Biblical Integration in Social Studies, and Biblical Integration in Science
For more information about a biblical perspective on ELA, see the articles listed below.
Bette Bosma and Kathryn Blok. “A Christian Perspective on the Teaching of Reading” Calvin College Monograph Series, 1992, Accessed 5/28/2024
Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention. A Biblical Basis for Studying Literature. ERLC, 2014, Accessed June 15, 2024.
