Timeless Truths: Exploring Creation Myths and Dreamtime Stories in Years 7 to 10

Timeless Truths: Exploring Creation Myths and Dreamtime Stories is a resource book for teaching the nature of myth to junior and middle secondary students.

The myths are culturally diverse and allow an exploration of the fundamental concerns of human existence.

Throughout the book are activities for students which compare different views of the world, as well as:

• practise skills of reading words and images, writing, speaking and listening
• develop critical thinking
• promote independent learning

Contents

• Introduction
• Preliminary Questions

Creation Stories

• Introductory Activity: North America - The Delaware Indians
• Reading and Presenting Myths
• India - Brahma and Sarasvati
• Hebrew - Genesis
• China - Nu Kua
• Egypt - The Separation of Earth and Heaven
• Western New South Wales - The Ngemba and Muruwari Clan
• North America - The Cherokee Indians
• Contemporary Concept - Gaia
• Language Study

What We Are

• Western New South Wales - The Ngemba and Muruwari Clans
• Fiji - The Children of Ndengei
• Hebrew - Adam and Eve
• Greece - Prometheus and Pandora
• Prometheus Retold: The Golem
• Frankenstein
• Modern Prometheus

Life and Death

• General Activities
• Greece - Demeter and Persephone
• Babylon - Myth of Adapa
• People of the Kalahari - The Tortoise and the Hare
• Papua New Guinea - Death Enters the World
• Madagascar - Death Wish
• Greece - Orpheus and Eurydice
• India - Kali, Mistress of Death
• Norse - The Death of Baldur
• Doomsday

Myths as Cultural Exploration

• Japan - Izanagi and Izanami
• The Sun Goddess