Brooke Kistner

Lesson Plan

Introduction:
Topic: Jonathan Edwards, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God
Length: 90 minutes
Standards of Learning 11.3: Given Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God and recalling
previous day’s lecture on Great Awakening/Enlightenment Era/Age of Reason, students
will be able to identify relationships between American religious literature, history and
culture.

Learning Objectives:
 Given a lecture on the Great Awakening/Enlightenment Era/Age of Reason, students
will be able to identify specific important events during those years.
 Given this lecture and Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, students will be able to
identify connections between American literature, history and culture of the Great
Awakening/Enlightenment Era/Age of Reason.
 Given an in-depth analysis of Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, students will be
able to compose a persuasive essay.

Content: The students will learn about Jonathan Edwards’s life. Students will then make
a connection between Edwards’s life and the time period while reading Sinners in the
Hands of an Angry God.

Materials: Textbooks containing the sermon, PowerPoint presentation, a dozen donuts,

journals (notebooks), Great Awakening/Enlightenment Era/Age of Reason lecture notes,
summaries/discussion questions from reading (given as homework the previous night)

Teaching and Learning Sequence:

Introduction: (3 mins)
Call attention to the front of the room. Inform the students we will be discussing
last night’s reading of Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God and yesterday’s lecture on
Great Awakening/Enlightenment Era/Age of Reason. After the discussion, the students
will be presented with a challenge. Have students get out notes from yesterday,
discussion questions (HW) and their journals.

Anticipatory Set: (15 mins)

On the PowerPoint presentation, display a picture of a person ridiculously dressed
(or if a student can be asked to put on prop clothes before class). The teacher will start a
discussion about what the students think of person in the picture. After students offer
their opinion, they will attempt to persuade the rest of the class to see the photograph as
they do, via their journals. Once students have been given about 7 minutes to write, a
few students may share their thoughts.
Lesson Development:
Give a short lecture on Jonathan Edwards’s life: (15 mins)
Jonathan Edwards 1703-1758
- He was converted at age 18 despite several years of being troubled of spiritual
matters
- 24 yrs. he became assistant to his grandfather, then married Sarah Perrepont.
Grandfather died in 1729, and he took over
- He caused the church to become troubled about spiritual matters
- 1736-1746 he published 4 works that investigate the Holy Spirit’s work in
people’s lives
- 1741 he preached his most famous sermon: Sinners….which essentially was at the
beginning of the Great Awakening
- People began opposing his preaching
- He tried to reinstate the Puritan practice of regular candidate for membership: to
give full, public testimony of how God worked in his life and brought him to
conversion
- Eventually people became so upset with his ministry he offered to resign, yet his
offer was refused… in 1750, church council did vote him off and he was asked to
leave the church
- He then moved to Massachusetts when offered president of Princeton, but he died
of smallpox before he took position

Help Students highlight yesterday’s lecture: (5 mins)

- Precursors for Enlightenment can be traced to 17th century and earlier- associated
with the years 1730s and 1740s
- Didn’t occur in one place specifically, but throughout the whole nation
- Inspired the Declaration of Independence, Declaration of the Rights of Man, Bill
of Rights
- Reason regarded as basis of authority, not God
- George Whitfield continued the movement across the colonies
- The number of churches doubled between 1740 and 1780
- Great Awakening dealt with church corruption caused by Half-Way Covenant
- Jonathan Edwards helped the movement in America
- Age of reason described as deistic (natural religion)
- Great Awakening resulted in doctrinal changes and influenced social and political
thought

Pose the following questions about the reading to class: ( 45 mins)

- Thinking about your persuasion paragraphs, what sort of argument
does Edwards use to reach his audience? Also, what were his motives
in delivering this sermon? (He was trying to persuade the people to
recognize they are headed down a path of destruction for their
acceptance of the Half-Way Covenant; direct them to specific
examples of this. As part of his persuasion, he uses strong convictions
against the church. He was driven by the corruption in the church and
 their deviation from scripture. Students may offer a variety of
answers, but should be encouraged to show examples for support.)

- How effective is his argument? What makes his argument effective?

(It’s pretty effective, in that, eventually he was asked to leave the
church and people opposed his preaching. He uses scripture to support
his argument; which, with the point he’s trying to make about the Half-
Way Covenant, scripture would seem relevant to his audience.
Students will be directed to specific parts of the sermon that support
this idea. Students may offer other answers, but encourage them to
direct the class to passages in the sermon that support their response.)

- Who is his audience? How do you think his audience responded to the
sermon? (His audience is the congregation he preaches to every
Sunday. Answers will vary. But, the majority of them, while hearing
this, didn’t think Edwards was speaking to them. They possibly
assumed he was speaking to someone else around them. Some may
have thought he was speaking right to them, and caused a great fear
within their hearts. Again, whatever answer the students give, ask
them to refer to the sermon to support their conclusion.)

- How would you have acted if you were in this audience? (Answers
will vary. Students should be encouraged to offer support for their
thoughts.)

- Recalling yesterday’s lecture, what evidence of the Great Awakening

and Edwards’s culture can we see in the sermon? What sort of
doctrinal changes do you think occurred after his sermon? (Students
should recall Edwards began the Awakening movement in America, so
we see a lot in his sermon: conviction of deviating from scripture,
people’s choice to turn their own ways, their choice to lean on reason
and others…Students should be encouraged, as before, to give
evidence by pointing the class to specific parts of the sermon.)

- How did Edwards’s culture affect his lifestyle? (He chose to live a life
according to what he believed scripture said, instead of following the
culture to lean on reason and logic. Because of his lifestyle, many
churches were started to attack the Half- Way Covenant.)

- If any questions arise throughout the discussion, students may pose

them. Students will then be allowed to pose their discussion questions.
Closure: (12 mins)
Recap on the connections between the Great Awakening/ The Enlightenment Era and
Edwards’s sermon. Display a real five dollar bill to the students. Tell them they are to
pretend the teacher is a wealthy veterinarian with three young children. The students are
to write a well supported essay (no longer than a page hand-written) attempting to
persuade the veterinarian (teacher) he/she deserves the five dollar bill. Tomorrow the
teacher will read the essays and determine a winner of the five dollars.

Evaluation:
Assessment will be completed through students’ interaction during the class discussion
and answers offered. They will also be evaluated on their persuasion essays, in how they
develop their argument, support their position and cater to their audience. Students will
receive participation credit for the discussion, and a homework grade for the essay.

Reference:
http://www.doe/virginia.gov
Chin, Beverly Ann & Wolfe, Denny. 2000. Glencoe Literature The Reader’s Choice:
American Literature. New York, New York: Glencoe McGraw-Hill.