I watched Merlin tonight. Special Edition DVD, $9.99 at Best Buy. Such a great movie. So much pain, so much joy.
It got me thinking about one of the first times I heard the story of King Arthur, Merlin, Excalibur, and so on. There was obviously the Disney version. But in 3rd grade we read a version closer to the real "myth" than the disney one. Oh, and it was excalibur's SHEATH that was magical, not the sword.
Anyway, it got me thinking about these reading assignments. We had a bunch of them from this same series and publisher. Prince and the Popper, Tom Sawyer, King Arthur. During these assignments we were instructed to write down any words we didn't recognize. Everyone was to create a list and the people with the largest lists were rewarded. Being rewarded for not knowing words. Crazy, right?
Well I was always jealous. I seemed to just know the words, and these girls would always have larger lists of really complicated ones. I didn't put it together that perhaps having a small list was a good thing, you knew more words. All I cared about was the teacher praised the people who wrote words down. So, one day in reading King Arthur I came upon the word "tent." I was so trifled on the matter and so eager to find something to write down, I thought I'd found a winner. When I presented "tent" as a word I didn't recognize, how stupid did I feel when people were like "uhhh, you don't know what a tent is? the thing you camp in?" Of course I knew what tent was ... how could I be so dumb!
Hehe. Have at it, Steven James.
