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  Teaching religious studies is a challenging task in our secular world.
Whilst debates about modern topics are more accessible, getting students to study the life of Jesus can be more tricky.
Cartoon Jesus worked really well for me when I was training to be a teacher of RS in Liverpool. It gave the Year 8-9 students I was working with a excellent medium to work with. For visual learners, they had clear visual clues as to the narrative's development of the Gospel story. For those of more theatrical and active learning persuasion, I got students to act out sections of Cartoon Jesus - to great effect. It helped students get under the skin of Jesus and the events of his time. It got them engaged in the text and interested in what was going on. It worked far better than just using text.
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John Medcalf was an inspiring, compassionate priest with a great sense of justice and humour. He was also excellent at telling a great yarn. He brings all of these qualities to the text Maggie Organ has so brilliantly illustrated. Her cartoon images are exactly what you want for such a cartoon: they help bring to life the events in the text; like the adage: less is more.