“He (Mark) is the most original author of the four.”
Anderson, Janice Capel and Moore, Stephen D. (ed.), “Mark and Method – new approaches in biblical studies”, Augsbury Fortress 1992. (p4)

Since we see him as an author with intentions, we should seek to see whether he put in the text “sign post” to point us towards certain emphasis. So I propose we should get an overview by reading the entire gospel through as an exercise. Now to do it in one setting would be ideal but that may not be feasible. So at least what we can do is do it together as a group. Now just reading would be fine but just so we can pay more attention in our reading I worked out a spreadsheet with verses divided into sections and I am asking you to fill in some specific information for each section so we may be able to see some patterns or observe any trends that we simply can do not see if we just look at a single segment of the text. We are looking at the forest now, not just the trees. There are five columns in the spread sheet you need to fill in: event title, event type, location, time and people. (Actually six, I have an optional column that you can fill in any special observations.) I want you to do it in a group, partly to be more efficient and partly so you can compliment each other, someone may observe something the others miss. You can do a division of labor if you so decided, one may observe “time” while another observes “location”.

The spreadsheet is attached to this blog entry.

(As reported by S.W.)
"In a TCBC first, students brought their laptops and recorded in a spreadsheet the different events and the corresponding details such as people, places and time in each section of Mark. The purpose of this activity is to gain an overview of Mark. Students gathered in small groups and shared a laptop in this exercise."