Standing with the Ancestors: Fifty Years of Polyfest by Edith Amituanai and Susan Paris is a rich non-fiction text that celebrates Pacific youth, culture, and identity through the lens of Auckland’s Polyfest. Centred on students from Manurewa High School, the text explores how performing arts, language, and collective commitment connect young people to their ancestors, communities, and cultural values.

Through personal stories, historical context, and contemporary voices, students examine how culture is learned, lived, and passed on through dancing, singing, rehearsals, and festival performance. The text supports deep discussion about identity, leadership, belonging, and the role of schools and communities in sustaining Pacific cultures in Aotearoa New Zealand.

 

This pack contains wide range of response activities including:

• A guided reading plan exploring key literacy elements including inference and deduction, language use, making connection and text organisation, along with key questioning to promote emotional intelligence, metacognition and compassionate inquiry. 
• An independent learning contract complete with explainer videos for activity clarity
  
• A wide range of response activities to support developing and embedding key literacy skills including sentence and word work, spelling, and cloze activities. 

Curriculum Phase: Phase 3

Year Level: Year 7

English – Reading: comprehension of narrative non-fiction, inference, author’s craft, use of language and structure, themes, making connections

Social Sciences: identity, culture, community participation, continuity and change, cause and consequence, Pacific histories in Aotearoa New Zealand

Health and Physical Education: wellbeing, belonging, participation, collective identity, cultural expression

Text Type: Narrative non-fiction

 

Key words include: ancestors, Aotearoa New Zealand, Auckland, belonging, culture, community, dancing, diversity, education, festivals, identity, leadership, Manurewa High School, Pacific, Pacific cultures, Pacific youth, performing arts, Polyfest, rehearsals, schools, singing, social connection, student voice, teamwork, Tonga, Tongan culture, Tongan language, Tongans, tradition, youth