10 Plagues / 10 Commandments: Ideas for Catechists
When I taught Confirmation I, one of my favorite classes to teach covered the Exodus story. We spent two classes on it. The first was spent watching the Ascension Press’s video from Venture: The Bible Timeline for High School, lecture, and discussion. Normal class.
The second class was the exciting one, and year after year the kids got more and more into it. I want to share what we do, which became a very effective tool in helping the students know and remember both the Plagues and the Commandments. Using this lesson will help your students better know, remember, and understand them. It will provide the opportunity for a big class project that you can take pictures of and show off to the parents/RE Director, and it will give a little break to the normal class routine.
As with all of these ideas, it’s important to be flexible. My class structure, class size, pastor’s patience, and class time are going to be different than yours. Take these ideas, make them your own, and run with them.
Assignment Itself
The assignment itself is straight forward. Each student is assigned a Plague or Commandment. That student needs to someway visually represent that Plague or Commandment to the class. The student needs to be able to articulate the answer to three things:
1) What is their Plague or Commandment? Frogs
2) How does their visual represent that Plague or Commandment? Wearing green to represent a frog
3) What does their Plague or Commandment mean? It would have been gross to have all of the frogs all over your food and in your bed
The students don’t need to teach the class anything beyond the answer to those three questions.
Give the students some general ideas. They can write and perform a song about their Plague/Commandment. Maybe they dress up in a way to reference it. Maybe they bring in a visual reminder, or something that speaks to it.
Dividing it Up
You don’t want everyone to show up as a Frog, so it’s important to assign to each student a specific Plague or Commandment. Another reason specific assignment is necessary is that the 10 Commandments have different numbering. Scripture itself does not specifically number and separate these commandments. As a result, Catholics have a different numbering from Protestants. If you just tell a student to do the 3rd Commandment, you don’t know what you’re going to get.
I also suggest having each individual student do their own. It’s likely that, with groups, you will have students who just rely on the other student(s) to do everything. In addition, this lesson is not really geared towards groups. It also provides more creativity among the students, as they each have to think of their own ideas.
Day of Class
Call up each Plague one by one. If multiple students have the same Plague/Commandment, then bring all of that number up at one time. After I ask the student each of the three questions above, I briefly flesh out a little more the Plague/Commandment. Always find something specific to compliment the student on (if you just say “neat“ or “good job,“ it signals that you weren’t really paying attention or you’re just making it up).
Once you go through the Plagues, then start on the Commandments. Again, only one at a time.
If any students did not do some type of visual, then I usually find a way to both involve them still in the class while also providing them with an “embarrassing“ consequence. For example, I will have a student read, in front of the class, about each Plague as we go through them. Or I might have that student read all Ten Commandments from the Bible. This involves them more deeply in class, and the “punishment“ is essentially something they have to do every day at school.
After we go through all of them, if time permits, I will usually show a clip from The Prince of Egypt movie, specifically from the musical number regarding the Plagues themselves, and I continue to show them through the 10th Plague. Obviously it depends on how many students you have.
Other Considerations
Think about who is going to do what Plague/Commandment. If you have a student who struggles in class, give them an easier one. This lesson is about helping to remember the Plagues/Commandments, breaking up the monotony that sometimes comes from the same class structure week after week, and building up the confidence and comradery of the class.
Also an important consideration: be careful about giving a student either “Do not Kill“ or “Do not Commit Adultery.“ Those two can easily go sideways. I have, at times, assigned them to my more mature students, who I know won’t do something dumb or inappropriate as their representation of the Commandment.
Importantly, don’t rely on the kids to remember. WRITE DOWN who has which Plague/Commandment, remind students each class about the date AND which is their Plague/Commandment, AND send a reminder email each week to parents (including a list of which student has which).
Previous Good Examples
I’ve had some tremendous success with this. If you pump it up as fun and exciting, they will too. Here are some ideas my students have had in the past.
Plague 1: Turning the Nile into blood. The student created an old-school diorama, with a playdoh Moses beside some water. While answering the Three Questions, she poured red Kool-Aid into the water, turning it red.
Plague 7: Thunderstorm and hail. A student wore black clothing with a cardboard cloud. He then took little white “snowballs“ he bought from the store, and used them to pelt his friends in class (during his presentation, NOT during the rest of class).
Plague 8: Locust swarm. Student drew, in an Egyptian style, a picture of a pharaoh running away from a bunch of locusts. He was even doing the Egyptian dance while running away.
Plague 9: Three days of total darkness. The student wore all black. Simple but straightforward.
Commandment 1: Worship God alone. Student brough in her cellphone. She had actually changed the wallpaper for her screen to the words “God“. She pointed out that we can make idols and gods out of anything, not just statues. She said cellphones can become idols, especially when we spend more time on our phone than reading our Bible, praying, or spending time with family and friends. As I pushed her further, we talked about how the things associated with cellphones, such as social media, can become idols through excessive use of Facebook or Instagram.
Commandment 4: Honor your father and mother. A student brought in her very worn scapular. She explained that her mother gave it to her years ago. She thought it was stupid at first, and only wore it because her mom asked her to. Then, over time, she started growing attached to it. She finally realized what it really meant, both religiously for her and emotionally from her mother.
Commandment 5: Do not kill. The student read the story of Cain and Abel. I was confused at first, but he explained that, as I had said in class, this was the first murder, and he wanted to show how murder has been around from the beginning and that we know it’s wrong whether there is a commandment about it or not.
