Description
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 a range of response activities complete with activity explainer videos for exploring thinking skills and developing emotional understandings and compassionate inquiry including:
- Blooms Higher Order Thinking activities
- Book Club guide for deepening text discussion
- A range of activities to explore emotional understanding, compassionate inquiry, empathy development, vocabulary and developing skills for self and co-regulation.
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
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