Topic: observing a religious activity
Paper details:
Choosing a Video:
For this project you will be asked to observe a religious activity and write an essay out your experience. Due to social distancing concerns you are asked to find and watch a video of a religious service, ritual, or holiday online to write this report about. Your video should be at least ten minutes long and it should ideally be either a live stream or a recording or a live stream of the rite, service, or holiday. Finally, it must be from a religion other than your own religion. For example, if you are Catholic or Protestant, you should encounter a religion other than another kind of Christianity. The same goes for Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, and so on. This may involve some effort ahead of time to find a place of worship or meet someone of another faith.
Essay Instructions:
Your essay should be 3-4 pages long. It should have an introduction to the video and a very brief overview of the religion in your observation. In the body of the essay you should briefly describe and explain at least four features of the service which you can also use the textbook to explain. For example, if you are watching a Muslim prayer service you might note the direction people are facing when they pray and note that the textbook explains that Muslims pray facing Mecca (Brodd, et. al., 2019; p. 531). You will need to cite the textbook for these four references, as well as for any other instances in which you quote or paraphrase the textbook.
A good outline to follow for the essay is:
1. Introduction: introduce the video and the religion the video is from
2. Body: four paragraphs identifying features of the video and referencing the textbook for these features
3. Conclusion
4. References: include a citation and URL for the video as well as a citation for the textbook and any other sources you consulted.
