Living in Christ

The Living in Christ series is a comprehensive four-year high school religion curriculum that presents Catholic theology in an engaging, accessible manner for students.

The courses in Living in Christ address the U.S. Catholic Bishops’ high school curriculum framework and provide additional content that expands on the framework.

The second edition of our popular Living In Christ series offers updated navigation, organizing and synchronizing curriculum across both teacher guides and student books.

• Teacher Guide (TG) aligns with the student book for easy navigation and use.
• TG provides a visual overview of each unit’s learning plan, including enduring understandings, essential questions, knowledge and skill goals, and key vocabulary.
• TG includes abundant learning activities to help students master enduring understandings for each unit.
• TG and online teaching resources provide variety of summative and formative assessments.
• Reflection questions have been added throughout each chapter in the Student Book to invite the students to apply their learning to their own life and spirituality.
• Online resources allow easy adaptation and personalization of all student activities and handouts.

Second edition is available for the freshman and sophomore courses: The Living Word, Jesus Christ, The Paschal Mystery and The Church. They are available in multiple formats.  We offer the textbooks in print, as interactive E-Books, and iBooks, so that the students can view their books on multiple devices and in a format that works for them.

iBooks: An iBook is a digital version of a print book that is downloaded to your iPad device through the iTunes store. iBooks offer functionality such as bookmarking, highlighting, copying, note taking, search functionality, and the ability to share content from the iBook with others digitally.

E-Books: A digital version of a print book that can be viewed on multiple platforms, such as iPads, Android tablets, or on a web browser (PC or Mac). Our eBooks are offered directly from Saint Mary's Press. 

Living in Christ:

• Makes the most of the wisdom and experience of the Catholic high school teacher as they empower and guide students to participate in their own learning.
• Engages students' intellect and responds to their natural desire to know God.
• Encourages faith in action through carefully crafted chapter questions, lessons, activities, service learning, and summative projects that address multiple learning styles.

What you will find:

Student book. The student books provide all the catechetical content needed for the course and explain Catholic theology in a clear, accessible, and engaging manner. The learning experiences and the students' understanding are enhanced through the inclusion of a variety of supplemental sidebars. The "Pray It!" sidebars help the students to explore and deepen their prayer lives, the "Live It!" sidebars help the students to connect the teaching to their daily lives, and the "Catholic Wisdom" sidebars provide insight into our Catholic faith, often presented in the words of important Catholic figures from the past and the present. Additional sidebars expand on the content, addressing the Scriptures, doctrine, the liturgy, and more.

Teacher Guide. The guides for teachers have been carefully crafted to assist the teacher in leading the students to a deep understanding of the content. Each guide for teachers presents eight units that build upon each other over the course of a semester. Each unit contains clearly defined objectives, detailed assessment options (with rubrics), clearly explained teaching steps, and engaging learning experiences. The guides for teachers provide a wide variety of exercises to engage the different learning styles of the students. The guides for teachers also offer suggestions on how to use additional resources such as the Bible, primary source documents, music, and movies to enhance the students' experience.

Additional Online Teacher Resources.  Saint Mary’s Press also offers teachers a rich variety of supplemental resources for each course, including backgrounds articles, handouts, activities, PowerPoints, assessments, links, and much more.  This extensive collection of support materials can be found at http://www.smp.org/resourcecenter/books/

"Saint Mary's Press has met the Bishops' framework while keeping the excellent pedagogical approach from their earlier books!"

—James Baird, religion teacher, Sacred Heart Cathedral Prep, San Francisco, California.

Unique Features:

The Living in Christ series utilizes the best of Saint Mary's Press' nearly 70 years of publishing experience and contemporary educational methodologies to create courses that move the students to a deeper understanding of the content and its life applications. Living in Christ enables teachers to customize their lessons to accommodate their scheduling needs and the diverse needs of their students.

These are the guiding principles behind the Living in Christ curriculum:

• Resources should empower the teacher to guide the students' learning.
• Learning is about both knowing the content and understanding it.
• Learning is about acquiring both skills and knowledge.
• Learning is both an individual and a communal activity.
• Research, reflection, and conversation are essential for the learning process.
• The Gospel message and Church teaching must be connected to the lived experience.

One of the ways the Living in Christ curriculum addresses these guiding principles is through the use of Understanding by Design, backwards design, and innovative assessments. Understanding by Design, backwards design, and assessments build upon and complement one another in the development of curriculum.

Understanding by Design:

Understanding by Design focuses on the importance of the students' understanding of the key learning objectives and making the connection between what they have learned and their lives.

With this principle in mind, each unit in the Living in Christ curriculum is designed to address the essential topics related to the unit and to present them to the students in a format and organization that enhance comprehension. The key understandings the students are to achieve are clearly stated at the beginning of each unit, and the teacher is encouraged to share these understandings with the students. This enables the teacher and the students to be aware of the ultimate goals of the unit. The key understandings are then explored in the unit through individual and communal learning experiences. At the end of each unit, the students will possess both knowledge of the content and a deeper understanding of how it relates to their lives.

Backwards design is a process for designing a curriculum that begins with the end in mind, and then for developing the curriculum to achieve that end.

The development of each course in the Living in Christ curriculum began by using Understanding by Design to determine what the key understandings for each unit would be and then using backwards design to create the unit. The starting point for the backwards design was to determine how the students would be assessed on their understanding of the topics. The unit was then created to guide the students in achieving the desired outcome.

Assessments:

Assessments are an integral part of the Living in Christ curriculum. Each unit contains a cumulative assessment that is designed to assess the students on the key understanding for the unit. The cumulative assessments are creative assessment options that the students work on over the course of the unit and presented at the end of the unit. These assessments appeal to a wide range of learning styles and enable the students to creatively demonstrate their level of understanding.

Each unit also contains a variety of other assessment options. In addition to traditional assessments, such as a test bank and quizzes, each unit in the Living in Christ curriculum provides preassessment and formative assessment options.

Preassessments are simple ways the teacher can determine, at the beginning of a unit, the knowledge and understandings that the students already possess going into the unit. Formative assessments are exercises that allow teachers to assess students' understanding as the unit progresses. Each of these types of assessments assists the teacher in customizing the unit to the needs of the students as well as to accurately assess student progress and understanding.

Additional Online Teacher Resources:

The Living in Christ innovative teacher resources fully integrates student and teacher components in a dynamic and intuitive format, offering a rich variety of resources, PowerPoints, assessments, and articles.

The Living in Christ Online Teacher Resources enriches and empowers teachers with:

• Background articles on content covered.
• Background articles about specific teaching methods and overall educational approaches.
• PowerPoints to augment the main presentations.
• Ongoing assessments for each unit to gauge students' learning and understanding.
• Handouts to enhance learning.
• A test generator.
• Online vocabulary quizzes.
• and much more!