Best for
Perspective analysis, source comparison, historical writing, and Treaty-focused inquiry where students need more than recall or timeline summary.
Aotearoa histories • Social Studies • Years 8-11 • Print-ready tomorrow
Treaty Stories Analysis
Use this handout to help ākonga compare how Te Tiriti is told from different perspectives. The goal is not to collect random opinions, but to notice how voice, evidence, language, and omission shape what a historical story becomes in Aotearoa.
Free perspective scaffold, premium adaptation path
This handout is ready now. Te Wānanga is useful when you want the same structure rebuilt around local iwi or hapū stories, rohe-specific sources, or a selected Waitangi Tribunal report.
- Add local archives, oral histories, or mana whenua material with teacher notes.
- Generate a supported version for source annotation or a senior essay-prep sheet.
- Save an adapted copy into My Kete and refine it in Creation Studio.
Kaiako planning snapshot
- Use length: 30-45 minutes for source comparison and short writing, or longer if students annotate full extracts.
- Grouping: Pairs work well for comparing perspectives before students write independently.
- Prep: Choose whether students will compare a textbook account, a Māori perspective source, a public-commemoration source, or another combination.
- Teaching move: Treat perspective as accountable interpretation, not as a free pass for unsupported opinion.
- Support / stretch: Use the comparison frame for support; ask students to evaluate how context changes narrative over time for extension.
Resources already provided
- Perspective lens questions
- Source-comparison grid
- Timeline and continuity prompts
- Structured paragraph frame
- Support and extension guidance on the page
If the lesson requires a source grid, comparison prompts, or writing frame, those supports are already built in.
Ngā Whāinga Akoranga / Learning Intentions
- We are learning how Treaty stories are shaped by perspective and purpose.
- We are learning how to compare what different sources include, emphasise, or leave out.
- We are learning how to explain why perspective matters in historical understanding.
Paearu Angitu / Success Criteria
- I can identify at least two different perspectives in a Treaty story or source set.
- I can explain how language or evidence shapes each account.
- I can write a supported comment about why perspective changes historical meaning.
Curriculum integration / Te Marautanga alignment
The companion page makes the curriculum intent explicit around historical interpretation, perspective, source evaluation, and Te Tiriti as an ongoing area of public understanding in Aotearoa.
Why Treaty stories can sound different
Historical stories are built from choices. Writers choose which voices to quote, which events to emphasise, what language to use, and what evidence counts as important. That is why accounts of Te Tiriti can sound very different even when they refer to the same broad events.
Through a mātauranga Māori lens, it matters whose mana, whenua, and whakapapa are centred. Treaty learning is strongest when students can notice both the information in a source and the position from which that information is being told.
Use these perspective lenses
Voice
Whose voice is strongest in this source? Who is being spoken for rather than speaking for themselves?
Evidence
What facts, examples, quotations, or details are used to build the story? What is ignored?
Purpose
Why might this source have been made? To explain, defend, persuade, commemorate, criticise, or challenge?
Consequence
How could this story shape what people think Te Tiriti means today?
Compare three source types
Official or textbook account
What is explained clearly? What does the account simplify or smooth over?
Māori perspective source
How do whenua, mana, whakapapa, or tino rangatiratanga shape the story being told?
Commemoration or public discussion source
What does the source want contemporary audiences to remember, debate, or question?
| Source | Whose voice is strongest? | What evidence is used? | What is missing or minimised? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Source A | |||
| Source B | |||
| Source C |
Continuity and change prompt
Then
How might this event or issue have been described at the time?
Now
How is it described now, and what has shifted in the language or emphasis?
Write your perspective analysis
Prompt
Choose one source or pair of sources. Explain how perspective changes the story being told, then justify your explanation with specific evidence.
Support, core, stretch
Support
Start with: "This source centres ... because it uses ..."
Core
Compare two sources and explain the most important difference between them.
Stretch
Explain how power, audience, or the historical moment might shape what becomes the "main" version of a Treaty story.
Kaiako note: where possible, bring in local iwi or hapū context so the work does not stay at a generic national level only.
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.