Summary of Te Tiriti O Waitangi

LI: To explain in fewer words what the text is about.

Our class reading task was to learn about the events of Te Tiri O Waitangi. Each group read an article to understand what Te Tiriti o Waitangi is about and the different events that took place during Te Tiriti o Waitangi. We completed two reading comprehension tasks to learn more about Te Tiriti o Waitangi.

After reading the Te Tiriti o Waitangi article, our reading group rolled a question dice (which decides whether we will ask a why, what, who, when, where or how question). Our group wrote four questions in total.

The questions we asked were ‘Why didn’t the Pakeha stay honest to the treaty?’, ‘Who was at fault for the conflict between the Maori and the Pakeha?’, ‘What gave the Maori the courage to speak up and stand for their rights?’ and ‘Where in NZ did Pakeha take most of the land from the Maori?’.

Once we thought of and wrote down the questions on a piece of paper, we moved on to writing a summary using keywords from the Te Tiriti o Waitangi article. First of all, our group skimmed through the article to find 20 important keywords.

Then, we eliminated some keywords and choose the 6 most important words from the first 20 words. Using those 6 words, we created a paragraph summary that included information about all of the events that happened in Te Tiriti o Waitangi.

Our summary included information about the signing of the treaty and what the treaty declared. It also included details about how the Pakeha betrayed the Maori and started a conflict between the two parties.

A fact about Te Tiriti o Waitangi that I found very interesting was that the conflict between the Pakeha and Maori was caused because the British Crown was forcefully taking the New Zealand land from the Maori to sell to the Pakeha.

I enjoyed learning more about the Te Tiriti o Waitangi and using my literature skills because I can build a stronger understanding of a book/article and share my knowledge of that text. I also enjoyed reading this article because I was able to find out the exact reason for the conflict between the Maori and the Pakeha which expands my understanding of Te Tiriti o Waitangi.