1.

Lesson title: Iroquois Creation Story

2. Grade/Age of students: 4th grade

3. Materials/Equipment/Worksheets:
 Copies of the Iroquois creation story for each child
 Pencils or crayons for drawing
 Paper

4. Pre-assessment of student’s knowledge & skills:

In social studies, the children have been studying the Iroquois people for the last several
weeks, including their style of government, what they ate, and how they lived day to day.
In ELA, they have learned about different genres and been given the chance to categorize
different books and stories including realistic fiction, historical fiction, nonfiction, poems,
myths, etc. This story will build on their knowledge of myths as a genre, while
incorporating some information about the Iroquois culture.

5. Content-specific standards:
Native Americans and New York State
The Iroquois (Haudenosaunee- People of the Longhouse) and the Algonquin were the
early inhabitants of our state.
Important accomplishments and contributions of Native American Indians who lived in
our community and State
Common Core
RL.4.2 Determine a theme of a story, drama, or poem from details in the text; summarize
the text
RL.4.4 Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in a text, including
those that allude to significant characters found in mythology (e.g., Herculean)

6. Art form standards:

Students will create works of art based on their personal experiences as well as their
imagination.

7. Objectives: Students will be able to infer characteristics of mythology using the Iroquois
Creation story. Students will use the characteristics of mythology to create their own
myths.

8. Procedure:
Give each student a copy of the Iroquois Creation Story the night before and ask them to
read it carefully for homework.

a. Introduction and motivation 10 minutes

Have students take out the copy of the myth they read last night for homework. Ask
them to quickly sketch in three minutes a scene from the story they read.

Have three students share their pictures.

  Was it difficult or easy to visualize a scene from the story?
 Why do you think that?
Most students will say that it is easy to visualize because there are characters in the
story who interact and make it easy for us to make a picture in our mind of what is
happening. Show them different works of art that others created from the creation
story to reinforce that everyone’s mental pictures can be different and that is okay.

b. Activities/steps:
20 minutes:
Have a discussion with students about culture and myths, reinforcing the
characteristics of myths. Let them know that they will soon have an opportunity to
write their own myths to explain things about the world that are difficult to
understand, just as it was difficult for the Iroquois to describe how the world was
created so they developed this myth.

Have them turn and talk with a partner. With their partner, they should make a list of
everything they notice about the myth and examples of what they notice (things
appear to happen in the myth that could not happen in real life- a turtle turning into an
island, etc).

Generate a class list of common elements included in myths that students can refer to
when writing their own myths. Have students try to come up with as many as they
can, reinforcing the characteristic through examples from the Iroquois Creation Story.
Provide them with additional elements found in myths that may not have been in the
Iroquois story.
 Myths often explain things that happen in nature
 Myths often involve characters who are super human (are able to do things
that we cannot- lift heavy objects, live underwater, etc)
 The characters often feel human emotions (jealousy, sadness, etc) even though
they aren’t human
 Magic is often in myths
 Characters may turn from one thing to another

Different cultures who tried to explain difficult concepts often created myths to try
and explain the concept easily to each other (why the sky is blue, etc).

Remind students that a myth is a fictional story that was once thought to be true by a
group of people in order to try and explain mysteries of nature and of people. The
Iroquois people believed that this story explained how the world was created. Myths
have a lot of meaning to the people who created them, so they are often passed down
between generations and sometimes survive for thousands of years.

20 minutes- Have the class split into four groups. Each group will be responsible for
creating a short myth to explain:
 Why it rains
 Why the sun goes down and the moon goes up
  Why the seasons change
 Why there are stars in the sky
Remind them to look at the class generated list of elements of myths when creating
their story.

10 minutes- Students will switch stories with another group. One member of the
group will read another group’s myth out loud. The group will then be responsible
for answering the following questions about the new myth:
 What is this myth trying to explain about the world?
 What elements of mythology did the other group use in their story?
 What did they like about the myth?
 If there is any time left over, they should visualize the story happening in the
myth they read, and illustrate a scene from the story.

d. Assessment- Teacher will collect each group’s myths and answers to the questions they
recorded about a different group’s myth. Teacher will check that students were able to both
write a myth using proper elements and identify those elements in other stories.

9. Diversity
10. Differentiation