Building Religious Tolerance Through Buildings

Created Feb. 7, 2024 by Dina Moskowitz, Amina Sheikh, Daniel Rinehart


Lesson Focus and Instructional Purpose

This interdisciplinary unit incorporates math, social studies, and ELA, focusing on medieval European religious architecture, religious tolerance, and the Crusades.

Unifying Essential Question(s)

How does architecture embody cultural belief systems? How does math inspire and inform art and architecture?

Subject Area Question(s)

  • Social Studies: What is tolerance? What are the consequences of intolerance?
  • Math:  How is math used to create a building? How does Math inform and inspire art?
  • ELA/Art: What can art show us about individual and societal beliefs and values?

Collaborative Learning Objective(s)

  • Students will be able to compare and contrast characteristics of Jewish, Christian, and Muslim architecture during the Middle Ages.
  • Students will be able to calculate the scale of a model of a medieval building.
  • Performance task: Students will be able to create a historically and mathematically accurate model of a medieval European house of worship.

Subject Area Learning Objectives

Math

  • Solve real-world and mathematical problems involving area, volume and surface area of two- and three-dimensional objects composed of triangles, quadrilaterals, polygons, cubes, and right prisms.
  • Describe the two-dimensional figures that result from slicing three-dimensional figures, as in plane sections of right rectangular prisms and right rectangular pyramids.
  • Draw (freehand, with ruler and protractor, and with technology) geometric shapes with given conditions. Focus on constructing triangles from three measures of angles or sides, noticing when the conditions determine a unique triangle, more than one triangle, or no triangle.
  • Solve problems involving scale drawings of geometric figures, including computing actual lengths and areas from a scale drawing and reproducing a scale drawing at a different scale.

Social Studies

  • Analyze the geographic, political, economic, religious, and social structures of the civilizations of Medieval Europe.
  • Describe the spread of Christianity north of the Alps and the roles played by the early church and by monasteries in its diffusion after the fall of the western half of the Roman Empire.
  • Discuss the causes and course of the religious Crusades and their effects on the Chris­tian, Muslim, and Jewish populations in Europe, with emphasis on the increasing contact by Europeans with cultures of the Eastern Mediterranean world.
  • Know the history of the decline of Muslim rule in the Iberian Peninsula that culmi­nated in the Reconquista and the rise of Spanish and Portuguese kingdoms.


Standards Addressed


 Mathematics  ELA/Literacy  Social Studies
 CCSS.MATH.PRACTICE.MP3  CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.R.1 Understand the intellectual exchanges among Muslim scholars of Eurasia and Africa and the contributions Muslim scholars made to later civilizations in the areas of science, geography, mathematics, philosophy, medicine, art, and literature.
 Draw (freehand, with ruler and protractor, and with technology) geometric shapes with given conditions. Focus on constructing triangles from three measures of angles or sides, noticing when the conditions determine a unique triangle, more than one triangle, or no triangle. Support claim(s) with logical reasoning and relevant, accurate data and evidence that demonstrate an understanding of the topic or text, using credible sources.  Discuss the causes and course of the religious Crusades and their effects on the Chris­ tian, Muslim, and Jewish populations in Europe, with emphasis on the increasing contact by Europeans with cultures of the Eastern Mediterranean world.
 Solve real-world and mathematical problems involving area, volume and surface area of two- and three-dimensional objects composed of triangles, quadrilaterals, polygons, cubes, and right prisms. Gather relevant information from multiple print and digital sources, using search terms effectively; assess the credibility and accuracy of each source; and quote or paraphrase the data and conclusions of others while avoiding plagiarism and following a standard format for citation. Know the history of the decline of Muslim rule in the Iberian Peninsula that culmi­nated in the Reconquista and the rise of Spanish and Portuguese kingdoms.



Close Reading Text Set


Anchor Text

Pope Urban II: Call for a Crusade, 1095

Supporting Texts


Subject Title of Supporting Text URL of Supporting Text
Social Studies/Math Islamic Art and Design http://www.greatbuildings.com/types/styles/islamic.html
Social Studies/Math Mosque Architecture https://student.societyforscience.org/article/math-world
Math Math of the world http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/articles/t/teachers-resource-maths-and-islamic-art-and-design/


Organized Text Set Tied to Learning Objectives

  1. Pope Clement's call for a Crusade Text - Students will be able to describe European Christian attitudes towards other religions
  2. Description of Jerusalem Text - Students will be able to evaluate what contributes to religious tolerance
  3. Destruction of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre Text - Students will be able to evaluate the importance of buildings to religious communities


Student Activities and Tasks


Text-Dependent Questions

  • Have students go through the "Asking the right question" protocol for each text and develop their own questions; repeat the procedure for brainstorming before starting the final project. 

Protocol can be found here: http://rightquestion.org/educators/resources/

Formative Assessment Strategies and Tasks

  • Quiz after instruction on each major social studies content area
  • Daily exit slips linking the content/text of the day to the essential question (e.g. Based on Pope Urban II's speech, what can we infer about religious tolerance in the Catholic Church in the 11th century?)


Culminating Assessment

  • Students will design medieval houses of worship and building paper representations of these designs.


Background Knowledge and Prerequisite Skills


Pre-requisite Learning

  • Understanding of major beliefs of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.
  • Understanding of the Crusades

Pre-assessment of Readiness for Learning

  • KWL chart for each religion; "Right Question Protocol" for the Crusades


Organization of Instructional Activities

  • Weeks 1-3: Group work - reading and text-dependent questions about monotheistic religions; Learning to take lecture notes.
  • Week 4: Math: students will explore geometric relationships through pattern blocks; Visual Thinking Strategies using examples of Islamic Art. Social Studies: Students will compare and contrast Muslim, Jewish, and Christian experiences during the Crusades through readings, text-dependent questioning, and a fishbowl discussion.
  • Weeks 5-7: Students will compare and contrast religious art and architecture during the medieval ages and evaluate what art and architecture showed about the values and beliefs of each community; students will begin creating floor plans of a house of worship and then build the house of worship.

  • Notes on differentiation: students will work on reading and questions in small groups using a reading protocol; students who read below grade level should either receive an annotated reading with summaries and key vocabulary, or a modified reading that adapts primary sources into language at their reading level.


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