Source work • Years 7–8 • Unit 10 Week 4

Source Analysis: Famine Reports

Every account of the famine was written by somebody, for somebody, for a reason. This sheet gives you a way to read a source for what it says, who it serves, and what it leaves out.

Ingoa / Name

Akomanga / Class

Best for

Extension or a follow-up lesson after the cause analysis is complete.

Kaiako use

Bring one or two sources of your choosing. The frame works with a newspaper report, a parliamentary speech, a relief commission record or a modern article.

Ākonga use

Work through the four questions for each source, then compare two sources that disagree and explain why they might.

Linked next step

The same four questions reappear in the Source Evaluation Guide used for the assessment research.

Te Ao Māori lens

Whose account survives is never neutral. Māori histories of the same period were carried in kōrero tuku iho and waiata rather than in colonial print, and were long treated as less reliable for exactly that reason. Ask students who was in a position to write, and who was in a position to be believed.

Free to teach tomorrow, adaptable to your rohe

The frame is source-agnostic and ready to print. Te Wānanga helps when you want the same analysis built around sources from a New Zealand event.

Swap in sources from a local or iwi history your class is studying.
Generate a simplified version with sentence starters for each question.
Save your adapted source set in My Kete.

Adapt this in Te Wānanga Open Creation Studio Open My Kete

Kaiako planning snapshot

Use length: 25–35 minutes, or one full lesson with two contrasting sources.
Grouping: Individually first, then pairs to compare findings.
Prep: Choose and print one or two sources. The sheet holds the analysis, not the source.
Teaching move: Push hardest on question 4. Students find “what it says” easy and “what it leaves out” genuinely hard.

🧺 Kai systems ⚖️ Trade-offs

What this sheet already gives you

A reusable four-question analysis frame
Space for two sources side by side
A comparison task for sources that disagree
Prompts that name perspective and purpose explicitly
A short written judgement task

If a student writes “it is biased” and stops, ask them who the source was trying to persuade, and of what. Bias is a starting point for analysis, not a conclusion.

Ngā Whāinga Ako / Learning Intentions

We are learning to identify who made a source and why.
We are learning to notice what a source leaves out as well as what it includes.
We are learning to explain why two accounts of the same event can disagree.

Ngā Paearu Angitū / Success Criteria

I can name the author, date and likely audience of a source.
I can state the source's main claim in my own words.
I can name one thing the source does not tell me, and explain why that matters.

The four questions

Who made it, and when? An eyewitness in 1847 and a historian in 2001 are answering different questions.
What is the main claim? Say it in one sentence, in your own words.
What evidence does it give? Numbers, names, dates, things the writer saw themselves.
What does it leave out? Whose experience is missing from this account?

Source A

Question	Your answer
Who made it, and when?
What is the main claim?
What evidence does it give?
What does it leave out?

Source B

Question	Your answer
Who made it, and when?
What is the main claim?
What evidence does it give?
What does it leave out?

Where the two sources disagree

Find one point where your sources do not agree. Write down what each one says, then explain why they might differ — think about who wrote each one and who they were writing for.

Your judgement

If you could ask the writer of one of these sources a single question, what would it be, and what would their answer let you work out?