Dragons & Deuteronomy

I should have titled my lesson today "Dragon Remix". It was so cross-content that it would made a curriculum specialist weep tears of jubilee. I started out with a journal entry in Language Arts conjuring up what the kids knew about dragons. What did they look like? What did they do? What kind of stories are they in? What do they represent? Then, we read an article, "There Be Dragons", studying it as an example of compare and contrast piece (representing the block type in lieu of the point-by-point type). The article compared and contrasted dragons in Eastern and Western lore. So, we discussed the organization from a reader's and writer's standpoint. And, we discussed the content as a transistion to reading a Chinese fairytale about Li Chi slaying the dragon, which refuted the article's point. This made for interesting discussion. Then, in Social Studies, we watched a United Streaming segment on Dragons. It was twenty-five minutes but worth the time. It discussed the origin of the idea of dragons (dinosaur bones, alligators were possibilities-- how mythmaking was a way to explain nature). It talked about the different roles dragons played in Eastern and Western culture. It delved into the dragon's role in feng shui and "riding the dragon". It also went into the Christian use of serpents and dragons. Finally, it talked about the use of "dragon" as symbol in modern culture. I thought it was awesome. Some of my students started out, "Dragons are fake." And, they ended up, "Ms. M, do dragons exist?" No, dudes, they don't. I guess my little sidestep into intellectual and social history was too much of a reach. C'est la vie.

Then, I donned my "student cap" to learn about Deuteronomy. A friend is teaching a study on this doozie of a book, and he's doing a splendid job. He really breathes to life into some dry passages. It was interesting to read the requirements of a king in Deuteronomy the day after the inauguration. It was sobering to realize how centrally the reading of Scripture was held. It's fascinating to treat Deuteronomy as sermon, which it was. Oscar Wilde penned, "God is in the details." So did Moses in Deuteronomy... there's nothing too minute. Super...and Ouch.