English 2: Creation Stories

We will be reading from Fantastic Worlds for the next week or so. There are a variety of creation stories in the world and we cannot hit them all. It is important to remember that all of these stories were (or are) the basis for people's religious or non-religious belief systems. We read these stories to as literature, respecting the faiths that created them, but focusing on language, symbolism, and what was important to each group via their stories.

• Terms that came up:
• firmament: basically, the sky or the atmosphere
• day: a measurement of time; there is no indication this reflects our modern definition of a day as 24 hours
• meat: food, not the flesh of an animal
• Opening Paragraph—What does the book seem like it will be like based on the cover? The table of contents? What stories do you think you’ll be reading?
• Paragraph 1: What do the following stories have in common: northern tribal creation story, southern tribal creation story, the flood/Noah’s ark, the Tower of Babel, the Blackfoot Genesis—use only the stories you are familiar with or discuss why you haven’t ever heard of these stories.
• Paragraph 2: Based on the first creation story (pgs. 41-43), what was the most important day of creation? What was created on that day? Back it up and explain.
• Paragraph 3: Why did Adam and Eve really get kicked out of Eden? What was this supposed to teach people? Back it up and explain.
• Paragraph 4: Summary of "The Blackfoot Genesis (pgs. 47-50)
• Paragraph 5: How does Old Man from "The Blackfoot Genesis" compare to God from "Genesis"? What are their flaws? What makes them interesting? Why do both sets of people feel as though they were punished? What brought on those punishments? Back it up and explain.