Younger teens need a religious education program that addresses real-life teen issues and different learning styles. The Discovering Program is a comprehensive set of 14 six-session minicourses and teaching resources that help you create religion classes focusing on relationship-building, active student participation, and sound religious principles.
For Catholic teens in grades six through eight, the minicourse format is organized by grade level and gives program coordinators and teachers the flexibility to organize the courses into a curriculum that meets the unique needs of their students. The detailed teaching guides, full-color student booklets, and video resource material provide everything you need for a successful curriculum.
To see all the books in the series, click on the Components tab above.
Minicourses
Each Discovering minicourse includes a teacher's guide and a student booklet. Teaching guides feature step-by-step instructions and checklists, active learning strategies, prayer guidance, and copies of student booklets for easy reference. Student booklets feature creative and engaging learning strategies, imaginative stories, and an eye-catching, full-color design with insightful sidebars.
Components
This manual for the coordinator of Discovering is designed as a companion piece for the video training resource titled A Video Orientation for the Program Coordinator.
This manual for teachers of Discovering courses is designed as a companion piece for the training video titled A Video Workshop for Teachers. Teachers can consult their program coordinator for further information.
This video orientation for the program coordinator provides a thorough overview of the philosophy and the structure of the Discovering Program. It also includes helpful information on scheduling the curriculum, recruiting and training teachers, and managing the program.
This video workshop for teachers introduces volunteers to the format of the Discovering courses and prepares them to teach any of the courses.
Being Catholic identifies specific aspects of Catholicism, enables adolescents to consider what it means to be a Catholic Christian, and helps them integrate a sense of Catholic identity with their identity as persons.
Praying invites young people to identify and reflect on various images of God and provides them with opportunities to practice a variety of prayer forms.
Making Decisions teaches the decision-making skills needed when adolescents encounter tough choices, including moral dilemmas. This course helps students identify influences on their decision-making and consider the consequences of their decisions.
Growing Up Sexually helps students to understand and discuss the changes associated with puberty and to apply the Roman Catholic approach to issues of sexual morality.
Celebrating the Eucharist helps young people understand and appreciate the origins, history, and central meaning of the Eucharist. This course fosters more active involvement in the celebration of the Mass.
Learning to Communicate explores effective interpersonal communication, helps students understand and practice communication skills, and allows students to assess their strengths and weaknesses regarding communication.
Seeking Justice focuses on human dignity, respect, compassion, and responsibility for creation while connecting these themes to the lives of students. Grounded in the Scriptures and in Catholic social teaching, this course helps young people face justice and peace issues in ways appropriate to their age.
Understanding Myself encourages students to recognize and understand factors that shape self-concept, to identify individual giftedness and refine personal values, to target areas requiring growth and improvement, and to assess the role of Christian faith in their lives.
Exploring the Bible is a skill-centered course that helps young people learn what the Bible is, where it came from, how to use it, and how it can relate to their own lives. This course also teaches how the Church uses the Bible in its liturgical seasons and communal worship.
Becoming Friends centers on starting and maintaining healthful friendships and ending weak or destructive friendships, differentiates between healthful and unhealthful relationships with persons of the same or other sex and with significant adults, and relates human friendship to friendship with God.
Exploring the Story of Israel acquaints students with the story of the people of Israel as recorded in the Old Testament and with the major themes that permeate these Scriptures.
Meeting Jesus helps students clarify their understanding of Jesus and his message and encourages them to develop a deeper relationship with Jesus through prayer.
Gathering to Celebrate helps young people understand and appreciate the Church's Seven Sacraments as rites that celebrate Christ's living presence and activity within the community of faith.
Dealing with Tough Times provides young people with the understanding and skills required to deal with the difficult experiences of life associated with this age group. This course centers on loneliness, rejection, stress, and loss, and it suggests specific approaches to help young people learn to cope.
