Excellent material designed to develop analytical and critical thinking: it helps students to build their skills in important areas like media analysis, comparing abstract ideas and discussing complex moral and scientific questions with the help of analysis of discourse.
By examining arguments from different angles and positions, and analysing quantitative data, the material develops empathy and tolerance by approaching the often sensitive and emotionally charged topic of religion in a thoughtful, impartial, analytical way.
The material is very flexible: chapters can be processed in any order depending on the needs of the students and the class; exercises and discussion topics have different levels of difficulty that allows for differentiation.
The structure is clear and simple with a short, concise note to teachers about teaching ideas, cross- curricular and differentiation opportunities.
Interactive recap exercises at the end of chapters help to summarise and solidify abstract ideas.
The content is of a high quality and is based on twelve positions of criticism and defense of Christianity in the media; the material takes the students seriously as the content is challenging.
The material is based on a qualitative approach with discourse and argumentative analyses and a quantitative approach where the students learn to handle 'big data'; both approaches are useful and prepare students for higher education.
Rich and engaging tasks give the students opportunities for discussion and for developing their own opinions.
The material brings in the voice of thinkers, authors, film-makers etc.; this expands the perspectives on many of the difficult questions that are considered.
The video clips are of high quality and relevant to the topics. Important notions are explained by clicking on the words in the texts; this makes the texts easier to read.
There are interactive tasks in separate chapters where students can test out their opinions.
The material has a very interesting conceptual approach - presenting various critical and contradictory positions on Christianity in the media.
Various types of activities encourage students to develop their analytical and critical thinking skills.
The author brings together a great variety of resources, including texts from newspapers and other media, cartoons, videos, photos and other visual materials.