Best for
Treaty inquiry, source analysis, document comparison, and historical reasoning in social studies or Aotearoa histories units.
History • Aotearoa histories • Years 9-12 • Print-ready tomorrow
Te Tiriti Comparison Chart
Use this chart to help ākonga compare the Māori text of Te Tiriti o Waitangi with the English Treaty text carefully. The task slows students down so they notice meaning, perspective, and consequence rather than treating translation as a minor technical detail.
Free source-analysis scaffold, premium adaptation path
This version is ready to print as-is. Te Wānanga is useful if you want the same comparison structure for another Treaty text, a local agreement, or a lower-floor scaffold with simplified wording.
- Swap in a local land, river, or settlement source set from your rohe.
- Generate support, core, and extension question sets from the same chart.
- Save your adapted source-comparison sequence into My Kete for later reuse.
Kaiako planning snapshot
- Use length: 35-45 minutes for close reading, or longer if students turn their notes into paragraphs or seminar kōrero.
- Grouping: Model one row together, then move students into pairs before an individual evidence-based summary.
- Prep: Decide whether you want the emphasis on key kupu, source analysis, or present-day implications.
- Teaching move: Keep students comparing meaning, not counting vocabulary differences. Ask: “What changes when this word changes?”
- Support / stretch: Give one pre-highlighted row for support; ask students to connect the chart to a modern Treaty issue for stretch.
Resources already provided
- Side-by-side comparison table with key Treaty focus areas
- Vocabulary anchor cards for core kupu and concepts
- Write-on historical reasoning space
- Sentence starters for support and extension
- A matching teacher-only curriculum companion
If tomorrow’s lesson asks students to compare wording, record significance, or explain why the texts matter, those supports are already on the page.
Ngā Whāinga Akoranga / Learning Intentions
- We are learning how to compare historical texts carefully.
- We are learning how wording and translation affect meaning.
- We are learning why those differences still matter in Aotearoa.
Paearu Angitu / Success Criteria
- I can identify important differences between the Māori and English texts.
- I can explain why at least one difference changes meaning.
- I can support my explanation with evidence from the chart.
Curriculum integration / Te Marautanga alignment
The companion page makes the history and English links explicit around historical interpretation, source evidence, perspective, and language choices in significant Aotearoa texts.
Teacher-use note
Teach this as comparison, not as a “spot-the-difference” game. The historical point is that wording carries different ideas about power, authority, and responsibility, and those differences continue to shape public life.
Through a mātauranga Māori lens, students should understand that key kupu carry relational and cultural weight. Slow, respectful comparison is part of tikanga-rich Treaty learning.
Kāwanatanga
Often translated in relation to governance. Ask students what kind of authority the word might suggest compared with “sovereignty”.
Tino rangatiratanga
A phrase connected to continuing authority, leadership, and self-determination over people, resources, and taonga.
Translation matters
Two texts can be linked and still not carry identical meanings. That is why historical interpretation and perspective matter here.
Compare the texts
| Focus | Te Tiriti (Māori text) | English Treaty text | Why the difference matters |
|---|---|---|---|
| Article 1 | Kāwanatanga | Sovereignty | These terms can suggest different ideas about what sort of power was being agreed to. |
| Article 2 | Tino rangatiratanga over lands, homes, and taonga | Possession of lands, estates, forests, fisheries, and properties | The Māori text foregrounds continuing authority; the English text frames property differently. |
| Article 3 | Rights and shared obligations within a continuing relationship | Rights of British subjects | This raises questions about citizenship, equality, and what obligations the Crown continues to hold. |
Make sense of the significance
- Name the wording change. Which word or phrase seems most important?
- Explain the shift in meaning. What idea about power, authority, or rights is different?
- Connect it to consequence. How could that difference shape later arguments or decisions in Aotearoa?
Your evidence-based summary
Sentence starters
- The most important wording difference is...
- This matters because the Māori text suggests...
- The English text suggests...
- This difference still matters in Aotearoa because...
Write here
Support: focus on one row only. Stretch: explain how the comparison might change the way a later generation understands Treaty responsibilities.
Hononga Marautanga · Curriculum Alignment
Social Sciences — Tikanga ā-Iwi
Level 3–4: Investigate how historical, political, and economic processes shape societies; understand how people participate in communities to create change; analyse different perspectives on social, cultural, and environmental issues.
English — Research and Literacy
Level 3–4: Gather, evaluate, and synthesise information from multiple sources; construct well-reasoned arguments using evidence; communicate social science understanding clearly in written, oral, and visual forms.
Aronga Mātauranga Māori
Social Sciences taught well in Aotearoa should be uncomfortable — because the history of this land is one in which Māori and other communities have faced injustice, and in which those injustices are not yet fully addressed. Mātauranga Māori offers frameworks for thinking about social change that go beyond Western political theory: the concept of tino rangatiratanga (self-determination), of kotahitanga (unity in purpose), of utu (reciprocity across time) — these are not abstract ideas but working tools for analysing how power has been distributed and how it might be redistributed more justly. Social Sciences that centres these frameworks gives students the analytical vocabulary to name what they see in the world and imagine what could be different.
Ngā Rauemi Tautoko · Support Materials
This handout is designed to be used alongside the broader unit resources available at Te Kete Ako handouts library. Related resources from the same unit are linked in the unit planner. All resources are provided — no additional preparation is required to use this handout in your classroom.
📋 Teacher Planning Snapshot
Ngā Whāinga Ako — Learning Intentions
Students will engage with this resource to develop a decolonized understanding of Aotearoa's history — reading the past through the eyes of tangata whenua, examining primary sources critically, and understanding how colonisation continues to shape the present. This unit centres mana Māori as the starting point, not a footnote.
Ngā Paearu Angitū — Success Criteria
- ✅ Students can analyse a historical source for perspective, reliability, and significance — including identifying whose voices are centred or absent.
- ✅ Students can explain how a specific historical event — such as the NZ Wars, land confiscations, or the Dawn Raids — connects to present-day inequities and Māori-led responses.
Differentiation & Inclusion
Scaffold support: Provide annotated source analysis frames for entry-level access — guiding students through the OPCVL or SOLO process step by step. Offer extension tasks asking students to compare a colonial-era source with a contemporary Māori account of the same event, analysing how the historical narrative has been contested and reclaimed.
ELL / ESOL: Primary source language (particularly 19th-century English) presents specific challenges — pre-read sources with students and pre-teach archaic or specialist vocabulary. Allow students to express historical analysis in their home language first before translating to English. Bilingual glossaries support engagement without reducing intellectual demand. Some ELL students may bring first-hand experience of colonisation from other contexts — honour these as valid comparative perspectives.
Inclusion: Decolonized history can surface difficult emotions for Māori students encountering colonial violence and injustice in the curriculum for the first time. Create a trauma-informed classroom. Neurodiverse learners benefit from chunked tasks and clear analytical scaffolds. Ensure all students understand that the purpose of this unit is not guilt but understanding — and that understanding is the foundation of partnership and change.
Mātauranga Māori lens: Decolonizing history means more than "adding Māori perspectives" — it means recognising that the dominant historical narrative itself is a colonial artefact. Whakapapa is an alternative historical framework: tracing connections, obligations, and continuity across time. The NZ Wars were not distant events — their consequences live in land ownership patterns, economic disparities, and community structures today. Tino rangatiratanga — the right of self-determination — was not surrendered at Waitangi and has been asserted continuously through protest, legislation, and resurgence. Teaching this history is an obligation of Te Tiriti partnership.
Prior knowledge: Students benefit from foundational knowledge of the Treaty of Waitangi and its context. No specialist prior knowledge required for entry-level source analysis tasks — scaffolds are provided.
Curriculum alignment
- Aotearoa New Zealand Histories — Know: Understand that colonisation was a global process that had a specific and profound impact on tangata whenua in Aotearoa, and that Māori responses to colonisation have been continuous and varied.
- Do — Social Studies: Explore perspectives, use evidence to form conclusions, and share ideas — analyse primary sources, compare historical perspectives, and present findings.