Mormon Studies in the 7th Grade Utah Studies Classroom

As my contribution to the Juvenile Instructor?s series on Mormon Studies in the Classroom, I thought I?d discuss the place of Mormonism in the Utah Studies course, which is a required class for all 7^th graders in the state?s public schools.  The structure, sources, and activities for such a class are necessarily tailored to a younger audience than those of the other courses that will make up this series, but I think it?s important to consider how less-seasoned?and more often than not, less-willing?students interact with Mormon studies.

I?m only in my second year teaching the Utah Studies Course, but have been given a lot of latitude by my school (which is a charter school that employs the Core Knowledge Sequence for its main curriculum).  So I?ve put a lot of thought into what I?d like my course to look like, where I think Mormonism should fit, and what I want my adolescent audience to take away from the course.

Course Objective:

The Utah Core Curriculum introduction to the Utah Studies Course says this: 

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Weekly Round Up

This week’s  Mormon Studies Round-Up:

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The King Follett Discourse: The Nous

With Joseph Smith having given the King Follett Discourse one-hundred seventy years ago this day, I thought I would put up a post from my dissertation that addresses one of the themes from the Discourse. Here I discuss the Platonic concept of the nous, or the uncreated part of the soul that was divine.

I put this analysis in the context of discussing the Book of Abraham, so this is the part where Abraham discusses “intelligences.”

The Nous.  Using the term ?intelligence? to describe pre-mortal beings was similar to the Platonic concept of the nous; indeed, intelligence is one way to translate nous in to English, mind is another.  Smith used both terms to describe a similar concept. 

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From the Archives: Helen Mar Kimball blessing and the dating of her marriage to Joseph Smith

The marriage of Helen Mar Kimball to Joseph Smith is certainly one of the most controversial polygamous relationships in LDS Church history. [n1] Relying upon the work of Andrew Jenson, the marriage has generally been dated to sometime in the month of May 1843. [n2] I recently read a blessing given to Helen Mar Kimball by her father Heber C. Kimball, dated May 28, 1843, available at the LDS Church History Library.

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Walking into the Waters of Baptism

We here at JI have an exciting announcement. A few months ago, Amanda and Natalie stumbled across a particularly moving passage in a nineteenth-century diary in which a small child was healed after being run over by a wagon on the Mormon Trail. Imagining the child?s broken, crumpled body being healed while his mother wept nearby affected the two who began to wonder how people who seemed so reasonable could have believed in the possibility of divine miracles. After several days of fervent prayer, they decided to ask the missionaries to visit them in Natalie?s home in Lansing. After finally reading the Book of Mormon, they realized Joseph Smith was a prophet and that he never could have written something so beautiful and inspiring as the Book of Mormon as a young, uneducated man. Both JIers will be baptized next week in the Lansing 2^nd Ward.  Please welcome them as your brothers and sisters in Christ.

Note: Amanda has also recognized her importance as a mother and will no longer be completing her dissertation at the University of Michigan.  You may keep up with her at her new mommy blog komotodragons.wordpress.com

Weekly Round-up: Go the Crap to Sleep Edition

Let me begin with a mea culpa. It was my turn to do the round-up this week and I completely forgot about it till I was sitting in Au Bon Pain after church, eating a lemon cupcake and wondering if the baby was going to fall asleep so I could do some work. (She?s still awake right now, but I have my fingers crossed that she?ll fall asleep soon or that her father will magically return and relieve me of my childcare duties.)

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Choosing Modesty

By now most of us probably know about the story Hannah?s New Dress. I will let Peggy Fletcher Stack describe the scenario from her excellent and multilayered article Does Mormon Modesty Mantra Reduce Women to Sex Objects from from February 28th:

One of them tells of little Hannah, who wanted to wear to the zoo a red-and-white sundress that her grandma had given her, but she noticed it didn?t have any sleeves. So her mother put a T-shirt under it. “Now I am ready to go to the zoo,” said the child.

The message is implicit: modesty matters and should matter even to the youngest members of the church. What is most striking about this story is that the young girl is the one who recognizes the problems with the dress.

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Searching for Wellness, Finding Mormonism

For today’s post we welcome back Susanna Morrill, friend and occasional contributor to the JI.

I have been thinking about Nancy Peirson?s journal since I first ran across it years ago during my dissertation research. It is a fantastic resource for tracking the earliest, lived religious practices of Mormons, especially medical and health practices. I am at the beginning of this project centered on Peirson?s journal; these are some initial thoughts on the subject. Nancy Peirson was baptized into the LDS Church in 1838 and remained a faithful Mormon until she died en route to Salt Lake City in 1852. Peirson was part of the Richards family, a sister to Willard Richards.  Peirson recorded her life in a journal written from 1846 to 1852. Health, illness, and death are central themes in this journal. Regularly and carefully recording the health of her friends, neighbors, and family, Peirson became increasingly fixated on illness and disease as she dealt with a painful tumor on her side, a malady that probably led to her premature death. She created a network of Mormon correspondents, a network that was focused on discussions of health and illness. Most of these correspondents were her siblings: Willard, Rhoda, Levi, and Hepsy Richards (among others). In these exchanges we see how the family?s pre-Mormon Thomsonian health practices smoothed the way for their conversions to the LDS faith.

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Vernacular Architecture and Religious Practice

Last year I drove from Salt Lake City to Logan for the first time.  One of the things that I found most captivating along the route was the barns.  They were so different from the ones where I live. I found both the basic structure and the pitch of the roof to be intriguing, and wondered what it was about the environment and culture that made them so different from the barns I was familiar with.  I would imagine that to anybody who lives locally or drives that route often, the barns are unremarkable.  This is the challenge of vernacular architecture ? the ordinariness of a building almost renders it invisible.  However ordinary buildings and landscapes are revealing indicators of culture and identity and in some cases religious practice.

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Pathways for Female Socialization

Jennifer Brinkerhoff Platt is currently an assistant visiting faculty member in Brigham Young University’s Department of Ancient Scripture. A former seminary and institute instructor, she earned a PhD from Arizona State University in lifespan developmental psychology, focusing on women and social issues.

In the past week I attended a stake activity days event, young women?s new beginnings and a relief society birthday celebration.  While each was carefully planned, well attended and inspiring I couldn?t help but wonder how effective it might have been had the three events been combined to celebrate a female trajectory of discipleship. A clearly celebrated sisterhood across the lifespan is something I feel is lacking in the Church. LDS females lack delineated rites of passage. Activity days for 8-12 year old girl and young women programs such as personal progress are posed to set females on a path of goal setting but lack rich ritual behavior and frequent association with women of varying ages over a span of years. Further, it seems the three female auxiliaries often function territorially rather than as homogenous, unified sisters. Having said that, I?m intrigued by the possibilities of next week?s intergenerational gathering in the historic General Women?s Meeting of the Church. I?m hopeful that this initiates a pathway for female socialization including increased frequency of gatherings of this type in localized communities.

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