News Reporter Role Helps Students Learn About Easter

Here’s an idea to help children, youth and possibly even young adults to get some new perspectives on the traditional Easter story. First, read the scriptures about the Holy Week happenings to the class. Next, divide the class into teams of "news reporters" (with 2 to 4 persons per team). Assign each team a specific part of the Easter story (Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem, the Last Supper, Jesus’ trial, the Crucifixion, the Resurrection, etc.). Their assignment is to write a news report of the event as if they were modern day newspaper or TV reporters at the scene. Encourage the reporters to use their imagination to add their own comments about what they "saw" and some of the surrounding events that they can imagine happening. If you have a video camcorder available, you might have class members prepare a TV newscast to report the "news" from Jerusalem during Easter week. By encouraging the class members to take a look at the Easter events and retell them from the prospective of a news reporter, you are helping the students gain new understandings of events that will be brand new for some and old and familiar to others.

(This article appeared in the "Spring, 1993" issue of "The Herald.")