My Tūrangawaewae by Georgina Barnes is an informative non-fiction text that weaves art-making with personal identity to explore how students express who they are and where they belong. Through a school-wide tapa art project at Sylvia Park School in Auckland, the text follows four classes as they work with artist Alexis Neal (Ngāti Awa, Te Āti Awa) to design individual squares that represent their tūrangawaewae — a place where they feel connected and grounded. The narrative explains how students used symbols and patterns inspired by Pacific tapa traditions to show what makes them unique, including family, culture, memories, and interests.

The text describes the creative process step by step, from planning designs on grids and using mathematical measurement, to making collograph printing plates with textured materials and printing proofs before creating the final artwork. It also highlights the values of teamwork and manaakitanga as students supported one another and celebrated seeing their identities displayed together as one large artwork. Informative, visual, and community-focused, the text supports students to understand identity, culture, and belonging through lived experience and voice.

The text is ideal for integrated learning across literacy, the arts, mathematics, and social sciences, supporting inquiry into identity, cultural expression, collaboration, and creative process 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 2
Year Level: Year 4

English (NZC Levels 2–3): reading for meaning and enjoyment, identifying key ideas and processes, understanding informational and explanatory texts, interpreting visual information, building vocabulary related to art and identity

The Arts – Visual Arts: exploring cultural patterns and symbols, creating and presenting artwork, using materials and texture, reflecting on creative process

Mathematics: measurement, grids and shapes, spatial awareness, patterns and repetition

Social Sciences – Aotearoa New Zealand Histories: identity and belonging, cultural heritage, continuity and change, community participation, understanding place

Text type: Non-fiction, informational text, procedural explanation, cultural narrative

Key words include: tūrangawaewae, tapa, Pacific art, patterns, symbols, identity, belonging, culture, Sāmoa, Pacific cultures, Māori perspectives, Alexis Neal, Sylvia Park School, collaboration, teamwork, manaakitanga, collograph, printing plate, collage, texture, grids, measurement, mathematics in art, creativity, design, visual arts, community, whānau, school community, pride, process, reflection