1. Orientations to the Teaching of Rabbinic Literature
Jon A. Levisohn
Brandeis University
January 27, 2008

2. What is a teaching orientation?
[An orientation is] a description not of a teacher’s “method” in some technical meaning of the word, but in a deeper sense, of a teacher’s most powerful conceptions and beliefs about the field he or she is teaching. It is the living expression of the philosophical questions… What is my view of the aims of education [in this subject], and how as a teacher do I attain those aims?
Holtz, Textual Knowledge (2003)

3. Holtz’s Map of Orientations to the Teaching of Bible
The Contextual Orientation
The Literary Orientation
The Reader-Response Orientation
The Jewish Interpretive (Parshanut) Orientation
The Moralistic/Didactic Orientation
The Personalization Orientation
The Ideational Orientation
The Bible Leads to Action Orientation
The Decoding Orientation

4. A Menu of Orientations to the Teaching of Rabbinic Literature
The Torah/Instruction Orientation
The Contextual Orientation
The Literary Orientation
The Cultural Studies Orientation
The Halakhic/Legal Orientation
The Historical Orientation
The Jurisprudential Orientation
The Encounter Orientation
The Interpretive Orientation
The Skills Orientation