What do Christians believe? Learning Objective: To plan a written response to the question ‘what do Christians believe?’ To revise our learning from the unit. To plan an answer to the key question. To form an opening sentence/ paragraph for our written piece.

Let’s Recap! At the beginning of the unit you wrote down how much you already knew about Christianity on your grid. Now, add to your original grid with all of your new learning from the unit – flick back through your book to refresh your memory!

What do Christians believe? You are going to write an answer to the question ‘What do Christians believe?’ Your written piece needs to include key Christian beliefs and your learning from this unit.

A Model Piece of Writing You are going to read a section of text from ‘The World Religions Book’ which explains some of the key beliefs in Christianity. As you are reading look for features of the writing that you can use in your own written piece. What is the purpose of the text? What is the intended audience? What are the conventions of the text – e.g. is the language personal/impersonal? Are the paragraphs short or long? Is there anything you could use to help you with your own writing e.g. are there any words or phrases you could steal?

Writing to Explain You are going to be writing to explain the key Christian beliefs you have learned. So how do you write to explain? Explanations are designed to show your knowledge and to help others understand… Explanations will often start with a general statement to introduce the topic being explained. They follow a set of logical steps – in the correct order – otherwise it may not make sense. They use a range of connectives: Causal – because, so Sequential – then, next Comparative – although, in contrast They are written in the third person (he, she, it, they) Vocabulary may be straightforward to make it clear but sometimes more complex language and keywords may be used to demonstrate your understanding. Explanations benefit from a mix of short and long sentences. Also starting and ending paragraphs with short sentences or rhetorical questions (e.g. how does an engine work’?)

What do Christians believe? Choose one of the following questions: Explain what Christians believe about God. Explain what Christians believe about Jesus. Explain what Christians believe about the Church and worship.

Planning Now that we have looked at how to write to explain, we need to plan our own piece of writing. You need to think about what you are going to write in each paragraph – think about a logical order. You also need to think about what keywords and connectives you will use.

Modelling Writing