Activity 4: The Rainbow Serpent – learning more about spiritual and cultural importance

Activity 4: The Rainbow Serpent – learning more about spiritual and cultural importance

Focus: Understanding that stories can connect places across Country and offer reasons why locations may be important.

Possible overarching question: How can a story connect different places, and what seen and unseen clues tell us why they might be important?

Step by step guide

• Step 1: Connecting to students’ prior learning

• Step 2: Setting the scene of The Rainbow Serpent

• Step 3: Shared reading of the Rainbow Serpent

• Step 4: Write a character description

• Step 5: Create a character portrait

• Step 6: Reflection and sharing

Required Resources:

• Teacher Support Material

• Four types of importance posters

• Definition of important places poster

• Map of Australia showing Rainbow Serpent (publicly shared examples)

• The Rainbow Serpent text or clip e.g. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjTM-MJKccg

• Noticing Template – Rainbow Serpent

• Picture Quilt template

Step 1: Connecting to students’ prior learning

Recap the four types of importance (social, cultural, spiritual, ecological) and place definitions, using the provided posters or your anchor chart.

Explain that the lesson will focus on spiritual and cultural importance by engaging with a Dreaming story, the Rainbow Serpent.

Step 2: Setting the scene of The Rainbow Serpent

Set the scene using the following script:

“Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples share many songs and stories. These stories can be told out loud and passed from one generation to the next.

Some stories name important places on Country, like rocks, cliffs, rivers, waterholes, or a certain tree. Sometimes you can see signs that a place is important, like rock art or scarred trees. However, not every important place has a sign you can see.

A story can have more than one version, and different families or communities may look after different parts of the same story.

Stories can link places that are far apart and help explain why those places are important.

Across Australia, many Aboriginal communities have Rainbow Serpent stories. The stories are not all the same, each community may tell it in its own way and use its own name.

Let’s look at this map. It shows some places where communities have shared Rainbow Serpent stories with the public. This is not a full list; there are more stories we do not see here.

Some knowledge is private or sacred. That means only certain people can know or share it, or it is told at special times. We respect that and learn from the parts that communities choose to share.”

Step 3: Shared reading of the Rainbow Serpent

Select one interpretation to share with your class (ideally connected to the Country your school is on, or otherwise age-appropriate). See the Teacher Support Material for options.

Provide each student with the Noticing Template – Rainbow Serpent to record:

• Places mentioned or shown (e.g. mountains, rocks, ponds, lakes, rivers).

• How Country changed during the story (e.g. water filled tracks; plants/animals woke).

• Examples of Caring for Country (e.g. care for land; follow rules; don’t take what is not ours).

• Words to describe the Rainbow Serpent.

Step 4: Write a character description

Using the Noticing Template, students write a text (from a sentence to paragraphs, depending on ability) describing the Rainbow Serpent. They may include its appearance and behaviour, its significance, and the role it plays in important places.

In pairs, students read each other’s writing and add one sentence using metalanguage to give feedback (e.g. “Your use of the adjectives ‘large and colourful’ helps the reader imagine the Rainbow Serpent.”).

Step 5: Create a character portrait

Students use the Picture Quilt template to draw their interpretation of the Rainbow Serpent and add descriptive words around the border. Display as a whole-class Picture Quilt.

Step 6: Reflection and Sharing

3 – 2 – 1: Students work in pairs to write or voice record three words describing the Rainbow Serpent, two places mentioned in the story, and one way to show caring for Country.