This Submission contains:
- Comments on the Draft English Curriculum. Pages 1- 3.
- Argument for Prescription. Page 4 – 5.
- Prescription in the English Curriculum. Page 5.
- Suggestions for Prescribed and Recommended Titles. Pages 6-18
- Language and Trust in the Curriculum. Comments about language used in curriculum documents regarding Māori borrowings into NZ English and sex-specific language. Page 19.
- COMMENTS ON THE DRAFT ENGLISH CURRICULUM
I support the Draft English Curriculum (March 2025):
- It is knowledge-rich because it is subject-based and designed for epistemic coherence
- It provides a standardised curriculum for all students across the nation
- It recognises that student achievement requires teaching methods using direct teacher instruction and well-planned student activities
- It recognises cognitive science learning principles in the curriculum design and in teacher planning for content delivery
Once finalised this curriculum will make a significant contribution to increasing educational achievement for all New Zealand students regardless of sex, race, location, and individual needs.
The following 8 points describe features in the Draft English Curriculum I support including my recommendations for further development.
- ENGLISH – A SCHOOL SUBJECT
The Draft Curriculum defines English as a bounded subject with a distinct body of knowledge – English language and English literature. This is knowledge that is disciplinary derived and accountable. It recognises that the curriculum’s specific purpose is the study of English language and literature both for its own intrinsic value and to enable students to attain high standards of language use in their own work.
Proposition
School Subject English is the study of the written and spoken language and literature in the English language that functions as the instrument of thought and means of communication[i].
- ENGLISH LANGUAGE CONTENT
English language content is specified and prescribed – Grammar: e.g. construction rules and punctuation; Vocabulary – e.g. semantics, etymology, morphology, pronunciation, spelling.
Resources required will include:
- General and Specialised Vocabulary Lists (e.g. Green and Lambert, 2018)
- Spelling Lists
- Grammar textbooks containing practice exercises
Students should also keep their own vocabulary lists that are continued from year to year so that they can see the development of their vocabulary across time. In the senior years these lists will contain increasing numbers of specialised words.
- ENGLISH LITERATURE CONTENT
The genres of English literature are included – poetry, novel, short story, non-fiction, Shakespearean works, drama, literary analysis, and visual works.
Specific titles are in the Suggested Works List appended to the draft document. The Draft Curriculum notes that the list is incomplete.
I have made the case for prescribed titles below and included an extensive list below – see pages 5-18 of this Submission.
Although I have not included collections of traditional stories in Section C below, I would like to see specified myths and legends in the final curriculum document. Students should be taught the source of many literary symbols and allusions that have influenced English (and NZ English). They include Biblical, Greek, Roman, Old and Middle English (e.g. Arthurian), Viking, Polynesian, and Māori and refer to creation beliefs, morality (heroes and villians), and human universality (birth, growth, death).
Proposition
Traditional Stories are aboutcreation mythologies, legends, and folklore containing humanity’s universal themes which provide the symbolic repertoire for literary allusions in English language and literature.
- READING
Reading is both a secondary cognitive (mental or intellectual) ability and an accompanying set of specific skills that are developed in daily practice. Along with the teacher-directed study of prescribed literary works, teachers should encourage reading for pleasure by directing students to a range of books. The final English Curriculum should expand on the Draft by explicitly referring to the practices that should be taught for students to acquire a lifelong love of reading.
These practices include:
- A daily reading routine
- Vocabulary knowledge for comprehension abilities and decoding skills
- Confidence in book selection
- Reading a range of genres
- Keeping a reading log from year to year
- Sharing favourite titles with others, including family members of different generations
- Knowledge about the history of public and school libraries and their use
- WRITING
Writing is a secondary cognitive ability. It requires abilities and skills that are even more demanding than those required for reading. Language structural components and features (grammar and vocabulary) should be specifically taught through the analysis of the prescribed quality literature (see list below) so that students appreciate what good writing actually is. Daily essay and creative writing develop the abilities and skills which enable students to apply that appreciation to their own work. Given the sheer difficulty of writing well, the process takes many years of teacher directed study and concentrated practice.
- CURRICULUM DESIGN
Coherence: The Draft English Curriculum content is designed according to the coherence of its epistemological structure (knowledge-that) using the scientifically justified Curriculum Design Coherence Model (CDC Model)[ii]. This can be seen in the reference to content as ‘know-that’, content which precedes and drives its use in connected skills of ‘know-how-to’. I recommend that the internal workings of the CDC Model be shown so that it is clear exactly how coherence is achieved through the logical relationships established between concepts and content.
Progression: The content’s coherent structure enables intentional progression from least abstract to most abstract. This guides selection content from junior to senior years.
Propositions are used in the CDC Model to assert, propose or claim the meaning of a topic and to frame its design. I discuss the primary of meaning as the driver of word choice in Section E but wish to alert the reader to it here.
- COGNITIVE SCIENCE
The CDC Model’s coherent curriculum design supports teaching sequencing as demonstrated in the Draft English Curriculum. Such deliberative sequencing recognises the cognitive science principles of prior learning, working and long-term memory, formative and summative assessment, historical time perception, and cognitive overload. Intentional curriculum design and teaching sequencing connects teaching to learning by recognising these cognitive processes.
- TEACHING METHODS
The most effective teaching methods are direct teacher instruction of content that has already been designed. The teacher’s professional work is to plan and teach that content and the accompanying student practice activities. The Draft Curriculum recognises this.
Thankfully the Draft excludes the failed ‘learnification’ methods of the 2007 Curriculum. These were responsible for teachers’ loss of authority as experts. Instead they became ‘faciliators of learning’[iii]. Students no longer studied subjects but became ‘learners’ pursuing their own unformed interests.
- THE ARGUMENT FOR PRESCRIPTION IN THE NATIONAL CURRICULUM
- The purpose of a national curriculum is to transmit the modern nation’s collective representations to each generation. These representations are the cultural connection between the past and the future. Their unifying function creates and maintains society’s cohesion and enables democratic governance for a pluralist society. They enable a modern pluralist society in which people do not share the same heritage but are committed to a shared future.
Therefore what is in a nation’s curriculum concerns the nation generally and is not of interest only to those in the education sector or to localised interest groups. The curriculum is a public matter. This is my main reason for encouraging members of the public to make a submission on the Draft English Curriculum.
- The authority for knowledge is located in the subject itself, an authority drawn from the foundational discipline’s provisional body of knowledge, to which the school subject is accountable. Subject content selection is not authorised by teacher or student preferences, nor is it justified by interests which arise from outside the subject, including for example, teachers’ political ideology or a community’s religious beliefs.
- Teachers’ professionalism includes autonomy over how they teach what is already in the curriculum. But there are limits even to a teacher’s autonomy over the methods used in the classroom. The most effective teaching method is when subject material is taught explicitly using direct teacher instruction. Then a range of carefully planned activities provide students with practice in using the content. This approach also has the advantage of restoring teacher authority. The teacher is the pedagogical expert, justifying claims for professional status.
The argument against curriculum prescription rests on four main claims which were used to justify the 2007 New Zealand localised curriculum. They led to the decline in New Zealand education standards.
The claims are:
- That teachers are professionals therefore should have autonomy over what they teach (the curriculum) as well as how they teach (pedagogy).
- That the curriculum should teach localised content drawn from students’ experience. This claim gives the authority for curriculum selection and justification to the local community. It is a ‘place-based’ and local experience approach to the curriculum that has seen the emptying out of subject knowledge in some schools. However, place-based experiential knowledge cannot be designed using epistemic structuration principles – that requires subject concepts which are recognised epistemic structures by the CDC Model.
- That teaching should consist of the student-centred, social constructivist methods of the past 20 years. These ‘learnification’ methods include inquiry learning, project learning, therapeutic education, outcomes-based and skills-based approaches. They are discredited.[iv]
- That culturally responsive pedagogies lead to educational achievement. Numerous claims that evidence exists for the success of this teaching method are not substantiated[v]. Educational achievement is the result of being taught subject knowledge, regardless of heritage.
- PRESCRIPTION IN THE ENGLISH CURRICULUM
I support the Draft English Curriculum’s prescription of grammar, vocabulary, and the literary genres of poetry, the novel, short story, drama, oratory, non-fiction, and visual works.
I would go further to require –
PRESCRIBED LITERARY TITLES
- Prescribed titles are essential for the integrity of English as a subject. They are justified because they are the subject’s language and literary repertoire – its body of knowledge. The literary repertoire or canon consists of poetry, prose, oratory, and drama which are universally recognised for their quality.
- Prescribed historical titles are essential for four reasons:
- They have ‘stood the test of time’ and the scrutiny of literary criticism.
- They deal with universal, age-old themes about humanity, and at the same time, contain the language, beliefs, practices, and specific cultural mores of the place and time in which they were written. By studying historical works, students understand that they cannot impose contemporary morality and language upon the past. They gain understanding about why discrimination and prejudice may no longer be tolerated, realising that such tolerance remains limited to those parts of the world which recognise universal human rights.
By understanding the universality of life’s experiences, despite those experiences being located in time and place, students accept the universal human being as the primary mode of existence and as the political category for democracies which adhere to universal human rights. Citizenship cannot be understood or exercised without this acceptance.
- The understanding of change over time develops students’ historical time perception. This is an essential secondary cognitive ability. It replaces the spontaneous primary cognition which locks students into a ‘presentist’ mode of thought unable to understand human agency as the cause of change over time. (The study of etymology also contributes to the development of historical time perception.)
RECOMMENDED TITLES are justified because:
They may be:
- Of high quality but the work is too new to have passed the test of literary critique to ensure a place in the canon
- Of high quality but there are limits to the number of prescribed works that can be taught in any given school year
- Popular works that will contribute to students’ enjoyment of reading
- MY SUGGESTIONS FOR PRESCRIBED AND RECOMMENDED TITLES
I have included specified titles for the main literary genres in the prescribed lists below. This is to ensure that major works of the English literary canon are read by all New Zealand students. I recognise that the list should be subject to critique and change on a regular basis.
There are also recommended titles that teachers may wish to include along with the prescribed one.
I have included a proposition for each genre so that the concepts which define the genre are made explicit. The propositions provide the reasons for the selection and justification of content and are required if the curriculum is designed using the CDC Model’s design method. I know that others may challenge my propositions and propose a superior definition. After all, saying what poetry is, or why Shakespeare matters has exercised scholars for centuries. The challenge is to be welcomed – all part of the relentless criticism of the truth-seeking scientific method.
POETRY
Proposition
Poems are works of literary quality written in English, in New Zealand English, in translation into English from Māori and other languages. They contain layers of meaning, pleasing sounds, vivid imagery, and a connection of sound and images to meaning that stimulate and intrigue generations of readers across time and place.
| Year 7 | Year 8 | Year 9 | Year 10 | Year 11 | Year 12 | Year 13 |
| Prescribed | Prescribed | Prescribed | Prescribed | Prescribed | Prescribed | Prescribed |
| Rain, Hone Tuwhare (1992) The Tyger, William Blake (1794) Jabberwocky, Lewis Carroll (1906) The Magpies, Denis Glover (1941) Nana, Glenn Colquhoun (1999) Beowulf Modern excerpts from the Old English epic | Funeral Blues, W. H. Auden (1936) For a five-year-old, Fleur Adcock (1964) O Captain! My Captain! Walt Whitman (1865) Sea Fever, John Masefield (1902) Sonnet 130 William Shakespeare (1609) Journey of the Magi T.S. Eliot (1923) I’m Nobody, Who are You? Emily Dickinson (1891) | Milking Before Dawn, Ruth Dallas (1953) Daffodils, William Wordsworth (1804) Sea Call, Hone Tuwhare (1975) An Irish Airman Foresees His Death, William Butler Yeats (1919) The Road Not Taken, Robert Frost (1915) Sonnet 27 William Shakespeare A Poison Tree, William Blake | The Old Place, Hone Tuwhare (1983) High Country Weather, James K. Baxter (1945) Ozymandias, Percy Bysshe Shelley (1818) [sonnet] Ode to Autumn John Keats (1820) Sonnet 18, William Shakespeare Drunken Gunners, M.K. Joseph No Man is an Island, John Donne (1624) The Raven, Edgar Allan Poe (1845) | How Do I love Thee ? Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1845) Because I could not stop for death, Emily Dickinson (1863) Elegy for an Unknown Soldier, James K. Baxter Dulce et Decorum Est, Wilfred Owen (1921) The Lake Isle of Innisfree, William Butler Yeats (1888) Sonnet 75, William Shakespeare Fire and Ice, Robert Frost (1920) | Darkness, Alfred, Lord Byron (1816) The Canterbury Tales: General Prologue (opening verses), Geoffrey Chaucer (1476) Sonnet 138, William Shakespeare She Walks in Beauty, Lord Byron, (1832) I have a Rendezvous with Death, Alan Seegar (1817) Ode to a Nightingale John Keats (1819) | The Sun Rising, John Donne (1633) Sonnet 116 William Shakespeare (1609) This be the Verse, Phillip Larkin (1971) Elegy in a Country Churchyard (1751) On Passing the New Menin Gate Siegfried Sasson (1919) Ode on a Grecian Urn John Keats (1819) |
| Recommended | ||||||
| Caterpillar, Christina Rossetti Early, Rachel Bush (2011) The Naming of Cats, T.S Eliot (1939) Boy’s Song, Sam Hunt (1991) Five Poems About Auckland, Renee Liang (2008) In Flanders Field, John McCrae (1915) Rosary, Courtney Sina Meredith (2018) Caterpillar, Christina Rossetti Little Girl, Be Careful What You Say, Carl Sandburg (1978) Tāmati, Zane Scarborough (2013) | Afakasi Chameleon, Selina Tusitala Marsh (2015) Night Mail, W.H Auden (1936) Taumarunui on the Main Trunk Line, Peter Cape attributed (1957) (folk) You Are Old, Father William, Lewis Carroll (1865) (nonsense verse) “Hope” is the thing with feathers, Emily Dickinson (1861) Waiheke, James Brown (2018) Gus The Theatre Cat, T.S Eliot (1939) God’s Plan, Oliver Wendell Holmes [limerick] If, Rudyard Kipling (1943) Aunties Are Boss, Maeraea Rakuraku (2013) | Unity, Selina Tusitala Marsh (2016) The Highwayman, Alfred Noyes (1906) [ballad] A Consumer’s Report, Peter Porter (1970) The Charge of the Light Brigade, Alfred Lord Tennyson (1854) [ballad] The Lady of Shalott, Alfred Lord Tennyson (1842) [ballad] Requiem, Robert Louis Stevenson | On Joining Pasifika (For Jo), Karlo Mila (2005) Song at Summer’s End, A. R. D. Fairburn (1947) Strange Fruit, Abel Meeropol (1937) The Identification, Roger McGough (1972) Ulysses Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1842) A noble sacrifice — Hoea ra te waka nei, Apirana Ngata, P. H. Tomoana, P. H. In Māori and English | Refugee Mother and Child, Chinua Achebe (1971) Late Song, Lauris Edmond (2000) The Thought Fox, Ted Hughes (1957) My Father Scything, Sam Hunt (2008) Mother to Son, Langston Hughes (1922) Stormy Weather, Kevin Ireland Resistance, Cilla McQueen (2002) An African Thunderstorm, David Rubadiri (1963) To Any Reader, Robert Louis Stevenson (1885) | Metaphors, Sylvia Plath (1959) Poems from Nga Moteatea The Songs, Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Collected by A.T. Ngata, Translated by Pei Te Huinui Jones. Facsimile published in the 1970s. On his Blindness, John Milton Do not go gentle into that good night, Dylan Thomas (1952) | The Little Miracles, Malika Booker (2019) To a Friend, Allen Curnow (1997) Papatūānuku, Karlo Mila (2020) Child in the Gardens: Winter, Vincent O’Sullivan (2004) Brueghel’s Two Monkeys, Wislawa Szymborska (1957) The Sea is History Derek Walcott Holy Sonnet 10 John Donne (1633) |
Poetry Anthologies
Poems from Nga Moteatea The Songs, Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Collected by A.T. Ngata, Translated by Pei Te Huinui Jones. Facsimile publishedin the 1970s.
Maori Poetry: An Introductory Anthology [translation and commentary], Margaret Orbell (1978)
As recommended in the Draft English Curriculum, Suggested Text List.
NOVEL
Proposition
The novel is a literary genre of the modern era which uses imaginative elements of fiction such as setting, plot, character, and stylistic features to develop an extended and coherent story about the human experience.
Prescribed
| Year 7 | Year 8 | Year 9 | Year 10 |
| The Snow Goose, Paul Gallico (1940) | The Haunting, Margaret Mahy (1982) | The Whale Rider, Witi Ihimaera (1987) | Animal Farm, George Orwell (1945) |
Recommended
| Year 7 | Year 8 | Year 9 | Year 10 |
| The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, L. Frank Baum (1900) Running on the Roof of the World, Jess Butterworth (2017) Danny the Champion of the World, Roald Dahl (1975) Truth About Everything, Bridget Farr (2022) The Night Diary, Veera Hiranandani (2018) The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson (1911) The Chronicles of Narnia, C. S. Lewis (1950) The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe, C.S. Lewis (1950) Anne of Green Gables, Lucy Montgomery (1908) Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH, Robert C O’Brien (1971) Bridge to Terabithia, Katherine Paterson (1977) Black Beauty, Anna Sewell (1877) Dawn Raid, Pauline, Vaeluaga Smith (2018) Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson (1883) Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry, Mildred D. Taylor (1977) Teacher selection | Harry Potter series, J.K. Rowling (1997) Watership Down, Richard Adams (1972) Little Women, Louisa Alcott (1868) Before We Were Free, Julia Alvarez (2002) Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll (1865) Lizard’s Tale, Weng Wai Chan (2020) The Graveyard Book, Neil Gaiman (2008) Under the Mountain, Maurice Gee (1979) Once, Morris Gleitzman (2005) Coming Back, David Hill (2004) Finding, David Hill (2018) Life on the Refrigerator Door, Alice Kuipers (2007) How to Bee, Bren MacDibble (2017) Goodnight Mr Tom, Michelle Magorian (1981) Warhorse, Michael Morpurgo (2002) Private Peaceful, Michael Morpurgo (2003) Hatchet, Gary Paulsen (1987) Holes, Louis Sachar (1998) The Silver Sword, Ian Serraillier (1956) The Hobbit, J. R. R. Tolkien (1937) Refugee Boy, Benjamin Zephaniah (2001) Teacher selection | The Call of the Wild, Jack London (1903) The Crossover, Kwame Alexander (2015) The Bridge over the River Kwai, Pierre Boulle (1952) The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, John Boyne (2006) The Chocolate War, Robert Cormier (1974) One, Sarah Crossan (2015) The Bone Sparrow, Zana Fraillon (2017) The Fat Man, Maurice Gee (1994) Out of the Dust, Karen Hesse (1997) See Ya, Simon, David Hill (1992) Moby Dick Herman Melville (1851) Welcome to Nowhere, Elizabeth Laird (2017) Falling into Rarohenga, Steph Matuku (2021) Trash, Andy Mulligan (2010) Z for Zachariah, Robert C. O’Brien (1974) Dear Martin, Nic Stone (2017) Ghost Boys, Jewell Parker Rhodes (2019) The Wooden Horse, Eric Williams (1949) Teacher selection | The Poet X, Elizabeth Acevedo (2019) Hollow Fires, Samira Ahmed (2022) The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, Sherman Alexie (2007) Future Girl, Asphyxia (2020) I Am Not Esther, Fleur Beale (1998) The Thirty-Nine Steps, John Buchan (1915) Ender’s Game, Orson Scott Card (1985) The 10pm Question, Kate De Goldi (2008) Oliver Twist, Charles Dickens (1838) Bugs, Whiti Hereaka (2013) Legacy, Whiti Hereaka (2018) The Pōrangi Boy, Shilo Kino (2020) To Kill A Mockingbird, Harper Lee (1960) The Outsiders, S. E. Hinton (1967) The Giver, Lois Lowry (1993) Tomorrow When The War Began, John Marsden (1993) Flight of the Fantail, Steph Matuku (2018) Long Way Down, Jason Reynolds (2017) Unwind, Neal Shusterman (2007) The Age of Miracles, Karen Thompson Walker (2012) Teacher selection |
Prescribed
| Year 11 | Year 12 | Year 13 |
| Lord of the Flies, William Golding (1954) Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen (1813) | Life of Pi, Yann Martel (2001) Great Expectations, Charles Dickens (1868) | A Soldier’s Tale, M.K. Joseph (1976) Tess of the D’Urbervilles, Thomas Hardy (1891) |
| Year 11 | Year 12 | Year 13 |
| The White Tiger, Aravind Adiga (2008) The End of the World Is Bigger Than Love, Davina Bell (2020) Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury (1953) The God Boy, Ian Cross (1957) The Inheritance of Loss, Kiran Desai (2006) Great Expectations, Charles Dickens (1868) Nimblefoot, Robert Drewe (2022) Oracles and Miracles, Stevan Eldred-Grieg (2007) The Old Man and the Sea, Ernest Hemingway (1952) Sleeps Standing: Moetū, Witi Ihimaera and Hēmi Kelly(2017) Tangi, Witi Ihimaera (1975) The Map of Salt and Stars, Zeyn Joukhadar (2018) Flowers for Algernon, Daniel Keyes (1959) Picnic at Hanging Rock, Joan Lindsay (1967) Man Alone, John Mulgan (1939) The Things They Carried, Tim O’Brien (1990) The Joy Luck Club, Amy Tan (1989) The Hate U Give, Angie Thomas (2017) A Mistake, Carl Shuker (2019) Of Mice and Men, John Steinbeck (1937) The Redemption of Elsdon Bird, Noel Virtue (1988) Kitchen, Banana Yoshimoto (1988) The Book Thief, Markus Zusak (2005) Teacher selection | Once were Warriors, Alan Duff (1990) Things Fall Apart, Chinua Achebe (1958) Purple Hibiscus, Chiamamanda Ngozi Adichie (2003) Sense and Sensibility, Jane Austen (1811) A Thousand Moons, Sebastian Barry (2020) The Red Badge of Courage, Stephen Crane (1865) Where We Once Belonged, Sia Figiel (1996) Potiki, Patricia Grace (1986) The Secret River, Kate Grenville (2005) The Kite Runner, Khaled Hosseini (2003) Paradise of the Blind, Dương Thu Hương (2002) Passport to Hell, Robin Hyde (1936) The Imaginary Lives of James Poneke, Tina Makeriti (2018) The Bone Tree, Airana Ngarewa (2023) 1984, George Orwell (1949) Greta and Valdin, Rebecca K. Reilly (2021) Wide Sargasso Sea, Jean Rhys (1966) The Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger (1951) The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald (1925) Home Fire, Kamila Shamsie (2017) How to Loiter in a Turf War, Coco Solid (2022) Kāwai, Monty Soutar (2022) Station Eleven, Emily St. John Mandel (2014) The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinberg, (1939) Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Robert Louis Stevenson (1886) Gulliver’s Travels, Jonathan Swift (1726) Petals of Blood, Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o (1977) Teacher selection | Norwegian Wood Haruki Murakami (1987) The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood (1985) Half of a Yellow Sun, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (2007) Sydney Bridge, Upside Down, David Ballantyne (1968) The Pilgrim’s Progress, John Bunyan (1678) Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte (1847) Glory, NoViolet Bulawayo (2022) The Plague, Albert Camus (1947) The Rehearsal, Eleanor Catton (2008) The Promise, Damon Galgut (2021) Plumb, Maurice Gee (1978) The Odd Women, George Gissing (1893) Sprigs, Brannavan Gnanalingam (2020) Tess of the D’Urbervilles, Thomas Hardy (1891) Kurangaituku, Whiti Hereaka (2022) The Bone People, Keri Hulme (1983) The Matriarch, Witi Ihimaera (1986) Never Let Me Go, Kazuo Ishiguro (2005) Checkerboard Hill, Jake Kake (2023) Auē, Becky Manawatu (2021) No Country for Old Men, Cormac McCarthy (2005) Atonement, Ian McEwan (2001) Moby Dick, Herman Melville (1851) Attraction, Ruby Porter (2019) Fever Dream, Samanta Schweblin (2014) Frankenstein, Mary Shelley (1818) Dracula, Bram Stoker (1897) The Underground Railroad, Colson Whitehead (2016) Teacher selection |
SHAKESPEARE
Proposition
Shakespeare’s works have made aunique and lasting contribution to English vocabulary, grammar and metaphorical language with the plays’ plot complexity and character psychological depth developing the literary genres of comedy, history, and tragedy.
Shakespeare is to English what the periodic table is to chemistry. For that reason, I propose the teaching of at least one Shakespeare play a year from year 9.
| Year 7 | Year 8 | Year 9 | Year 10 |
| Extracts For example: Romeo & Juliet monologue: Act 2 Scene 2, “O Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo…” As You Like It monologue: Act 2, Scene 7, “All the world’s a stage…” | Extracts For example: Hamlet soliloquy: Act 3 Scene 1, “To be, or not to be…” Macbeth soliloquy: Act 5, Scene 5, “Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow… | A Midsummer Night’s Dream Julius Caesar | Macbeth Romeo and Juliet |
| Year 11 | Year 12 | Year 13 |
| Hamlet Much Ado About Nothing Henry IV Part 1 | Othello Twelfth Night | King Lear The Tempest As You Like It |
SHORT STORY
Proposition
The Short Story is a literary genre which condenses elements of fiction such as character and setting to illuminate the human experience in a particular moment of time and place and is a genre of significance in the development of New Zealand literature.
Recommended(at least four short stories a year from the recommended list)
| Year 7 | Year 8 | Year 9 | Year 10 |
| New Zealand Short Stories The Seahorse and the Reef, Witi Ihimaera (1977) Beans, Patricia Grace (1981) Cow-Pats, Frank Sargeson (1978) The Long-Shanked Teddy, Margaret Mahy (1990) Angel Beads, Jane Westaway (1948) The Jacket, Graeme Lay (1989) Benny, Bernard Beckett (2015) International Short Stories Teachers’ Selection Half a Creature from the Sea, David Almond The Secret of the Purple Lake, Yaba Badoe Quest: Stories of journeys from around Europe, Daniel Hahn (Ed) (2017) Tales from India, Bali Rai, Puffin Dragons at Crumbling Castle and Other Stories, Terry Pratchett Into the Jungle: Stories from Mowgli, Katherine Rundell Teacher selection | New Zealand Short Stories Dear Mr Cairney, Graeme Lay (1985) Yellow Brick Road, Witi Ihimaera (1977) Whaea Fire, Ria Masae (2021) Freddie Bone, Tessa Duder (2006) The White Dress, Amberlea Gordon (2019) Match Report, Kate De Goldi (2014) It Used to Be Green Once, Patricia Grace (1975) International Short Stories Teachers’ Selection The Umbrella Man, Roald Dahl (1980) Lamb to the Slaughter, Roald Dahl (1953) Unbelievable, Paul Jennings (1987) Mystery & Mayhem, Katherine Woodfine (Ed), Farshore (2016) Teacher selection | New Zealand Short Stories Butterflies, Patricia Grace (1996 The Voyage, Katherine Mansfield (1921) Rainbow Club, Lani Wendt Young (2021) A Great Day, Frank Sargeson (mid 1930s) In Search of the Emerald City, Witi Ihimaera (1977) Fish Heads, Apirana Taylor (1988) Tales of Tails, Lauren Keenan (2021) The Silk, Joy Cowley (1984) International Short Stories Teachers’ Selection All Summer in a Day, Ray Bradbury (1954) Breaking the Pig, Etgar Keret (2001) Examination Day, Henry Slesar (1958) On the Sidewalk Bleeding, Evan Hunter (1956) The Fun They Had, Isaac Asimov (1951) The Test, Angelica Gibbs (1940) Teacher selection | New Zealand Short Stories The Doll’s House, Katherine Mansfield (1922) Going for the Bread, Patricia Grace (1987) No Speak English, Lani Wendt Young (2021) The Whale, Witi Ihimaera (1987) Aunty Lucky, Serie Barford (2015) Father and Son, Owen Marshall (1981) The Kumara Plant, Apirana Taylor (1989) International Short Stories Teachers’ Selection Singing My Sister Down, Margo Lanagan (2004) The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas, Ursula K. Le Guin (1973) The Sniper, Liam O’Flaherty (1923) The Thing Around Your Neck, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (2009) The Toymaker and His Wife, Joanne Harris (2007) Teacher selection |
Prescribed
| Year 11 | Year 12 | Year 13 |
| International The Happy Prince, Oscar Wilde (1888) The Lottery, Shirley Jackson (1948) | International The Necklace, Guy de Maupassant (1884) Story of your Life, Ted Chiang (1998) | International The Tell-tale Heart, Edgar Allan Poe (1843) This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen, Tadeusz Borowski (1946) |
| New Zealand | New Zealand | New Zealand |
| The Woman at the Store Katherine Mansfield (1912) Selection from His Best Stories Witi Ihimaera (2009) | The Fly Katherine Mansfield (1922) Selection from His Best Stories Witi Ihimaera (2009) | Prelude Katherine Mansfield (1918) Selection from His Best Stories Witi Ihimaera (2009) |
Recommended
| Year 11 | Year 12 | Year 13 |
| New Zealand Short Stories The Doll’s House Katherine Mansfield (1922) The Last Summer, Beverley Dunlop (1988) The Totara Tree, Roderick Finlayson (1984) The Terrible Screaming, Janet Frame (1969) A Way of Talking, Patricia Grace (1975) Collection: Pounamu, Pounamu, Witi Ihimaera (1972) His First Ball, Witi Ihimaera (1987) Rush, Nick Low (2017) Her First Ball, Katherine Mansfield (1921) Rush, Nick Low (2017) Pātea Pools, Airana Ngarewa (2021) For All The Saints, J.C. Sturm (1955) Māori Art, Alice Tawhai (2007) Crocodile, Albert Wendt (1986) International Short Stories In a Bamboo Grove, Ryūnosuke Akutagawa (1921) Sonny’s Blues, James Baldwin (1957) An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge, Ambrose Bierce (1890) The Signal-man, Charles Dickens (1866) The Gift of the Magi, O. Henry (1905) The Lottery, Shirley Jackson (1948) The Monkey’s Paw, WW Jacob (1902) Rip Van Winkle, Washington Irving (1819) A Horse and Two Goats, RK Narayan (1970) Let it Snow, David Sedaris (2003) Teacher selection | New Zealand Short Stories The Future is Koe, Shelley Burne-Field (2021) A Small Story, Maurice Duggan You Are Now Entering the Human Heart, Janet Frame (1969) The Bath, Janet Frame (1965) All Part of the Game, A.P. Gaskell (1984) Collection: The New Net Goes Fishing, Witi Ihimaera (1977) Better Graces, Sam Keenan (2019) Collection: The Best of Shonagh Koea’s Short Stories, Shonagh Koea (2013) The Garden Party, Katherine Mansfield (1921) The Fat Boy, Owen Marshall (1984) The Master of Big Jingles, Owen Marshall (1982) Afkasi Pours Herself Afa Cuppa Coffee Selina Tusitala Marsh (2009) Famished Eels, Mary Rokonadravus (2017) Conversation with My Uncle, Frank Sargeson (1936) Jerusalem, Jerusalem J.C. Sturm (1982) International Short Stories Civil Peace, Chinua Achebe (1971) Hands, Sherwood Anderson (1916) The Kiss, Anton Chekhov (1887) Stories of Your Life Ted Chiang The Yellow Wallpaper Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1892) The Overcoat, Nikolai Gogol (1842) The Ransom of Red Chief, O Henry (1907) The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, Washington Irving Emergency, Denis Johnson (1991) Music at Annahullion, Eugene McCabe (2004) We Didn’t Like Him, Ahkil Sharma (2013) The Body Snatcher, Robert Louis Stephenson (1884) Minutes of Glory, Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o (2019) The Magic Shop, H.G. Wells (1903) Teacher selection | New Zealand Short Stories Pawn Broken Eleanor Catton (2010) Cicada Cingulata: The Birth of Rehua, Anahera Gildea (2017) The Kaumatua and the Broken Man, Keri Hulme The Thrill of Falling, Witi Ihimaera (2011) The Affectionate Kidnappers, Witi Ihimaera (1989) Man’s Inhumanity To Man, John A. Lee (1984) How Pearl Button Was Kidnapped, Katherine Mansfield (1912) Life of Ma Parker, Katherine Mansfield (1921) Mr Van Gogh, Owen Marshall (2008) Good Form, Vincent O’Sullivan An Attempt at an Explanation, Frank Sargeson International Short Stories The Country Husband, John Cheever (1954) My Life, Anton Chekhov(1896) B24, Arthur Conan Doyle (1899) A Simple Heart, Gustave Flaubert (1877) Hills Like White Elephants, Ernest Hemingway A Village After Dark, Kazuo Ishiguro (2001) The Metamorphosis, Franz Kafka (1915) Extra, Yiyun Li (2003) The Love of a Good Woman, Alice Munro (1998) A Good Man is Hard to Find, Flannery O’Connor (1953) Teacher selection |
DRAMA
Proposition
Historical and contemporary plays written in English or in translation use language and staging techniques, dialogue, conflict, and action to evoke tension, excitement, and empathy in portraying the universal human experience.
Recommended (at least one play from the recommended list)
| Year 7 | Year 8 | Year 9 | Year 10 |
| The Trial: School Journal Level 4 May (2017) The Game: School Journal Level 4 (November 2019) The Name Game: School Journal Level 4 (May 2019) Like, Share, Subscribe: School Journal Level 4 (November 2020) Teacher Selection | Much Ado: School Journal Level 4 (November 2018) Waiting for Toni: School Journal Level 4 (May 2016) Last Match: School Journal Level 4 (May 2020) Teacher Selection | Girls in the Boat, Alice Austen (2018) A Song For Ella Grey, Zoe Cooper and David Almond (2024) The Roses of Eyam, Don Taylor (1970) Te Raukura: The Feathers of the Albatross, Harry Dansey (1979) Free!, David Grant (2009) Mockingbird, adapted by Julie Jensen (2015) Hating Alison Ashley, Robin Klein (1988) Alice Dreaming, Ned Manning (2010) Real Dramas: A Collection of 10 Plays, Sue Murray (2001) Teacher Selection | John Lennon and Me, Cherie Bennett (1996) Left To Our Own Devices, Dale Dunn and Lynn Goodwin (2014) Maui and Sina, Helen Tau’au Filisi (2015) The Diary of Anne Frank, Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett (1955) A Raisin in the Sun, Lorraine Hansberry (1959) Across the Barricades, Joan Lingard (1972) An Inspector Calls, J. B. Priestley (1945) The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, adapted by Simon Stephens (2013) Teacher Selection |
Prescribed
| Year 11 | Year 12 | Year 13 |
| End of the Golden Weather, Bruce Mason (1962) | Once on Chunuk Bair, Maurice Shadbolt (1982) | The Crucible, Arthur Miller (1953) |
Recommended
| Year 11 | Year 12 | Year 13 |
| Adam and Eve, Mikhail Bulgakov (1931) The IT, Vivienne Franzmann (2023) And What Remains, Miria George Death of the Land, Rowley Habib (1978) Niu Sila, Oscar Kightley and Dave Armstrong (2007) Hamilton, Lin-Manuel Miranda (2016) The Winslow Boy, Terence Rattigan (1946) Twelve Angry Men, Reginald Rose (1955) War Horse, Nick Stafford (2011) Foreskin’s Lament, Greg McGee (1981) Teacher Selection | Antigone, Sophocles (441 BC) The Cherry Orchard, Anton Chekhov (1904) Amajuba: Like Doves We Rise, Yaël Farber (2002) Dancing at Lughnasa, Brian Friel (1990) Purapurawhetū, Briar Grace-Smith (1996) Moon on a Rainbow Shawl, Errol John (1957) Time Stands Still, Donald Marguiles (2010) Wednesday to Come, Renée (1985) Kongi’s Harvest, Wole Soyinka (1965) The Importance of Being Earnest, Oscar Wilde (1895) Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Tennessee Williams (1955) When Sun and Moon Collide, Briar Grace-Smith (2007) Teacher Selection | Medea, Euripides (431 BC) Ophelia Thinks Harder, Jean Betts (1993) Top Girls, Caryl Churchill (1982) W;t, Margaret Edson (1995) Murder in the Cathedral, T.S. Eliot (1935) Falemalama, Dianna Fuemana (2006) A Doll’s House, Henrik Ibsen (1879) Woman Far Walking, Witi Ihimaera (2000) Waiora: Te Ūkaipō, Hone Kouka (1997) The House of Bernarda Alba, Federico Garcia Lorca (1936) Shuriken, Vincent O’Sullivan (1986) The Homecoming, Harold Pinter (1965) An Experiment with an Air Pump, Shelagh Stephenson (1998) Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, Tom Stoppard (1991) The Duchess of Malfi, John Webster (1613) A Streetcar Named Desire, Tennessee William Teacher Selection |
VISUAL WORKS
Proposition
Visual Works is the production and reception of visual imagery (moving or static) in film, advertising, illustration, social media, and other media where the purpose is to inform, describe, entertain and persuade.
Recommendations
| Year 7 | Year 8 | Year 9 | Year 10 |
| Still Visual Works El Deafo, Cece Bell (2014) Pashmina, Nidhi Chanami (2017) Comic Man, Kate de Goldi (School Journal Level 4 October 2015) Real Friends, Shannon Hale and LeUyen Pham (2017) Allergic, Megan Wagner Lloyd and Michelle Mee Nutter (2021) Muse, Paul Mason and Mat Tait (School Journal Level 4 May 2020) Hushed, Paul Mason and Mat Tait (School Journal Level 4 May 2017) Wind Chimes, Paul Mason and Mat Tait (School Journal Level 4 November 2017) Mophead, Selina Tusitala Marsh (2019) The Fight, Sarah Penwarden and Scott Pearson (School Journal Level 4 November 2017) Battle, Maria Samuela and Ant Sang (School Journal Level 4 November 2014) Sky High, Robert Sullivan and Tim Gibson (School Journal Level 4 June 2014) Cicada, Shaun Tan (2018) Guts, Raina Telgemeier (2019) Teacher Selection | Still Visual Works Window, Jeannie Baker (1991) Jane, the Fox & Me, Fanny Britt (2012) Be Prepared, Vera Brosgol (2018) New Kid, Jerry Craft (2019) Anne Frank’s Diary: The Graphic Adaptation, Anne Frank, Ari Folman and David Polonsky (2017) Origin Story, David Larsen and Ross Murray (School Journal Level 4 May 2017) Dodinga, 1858, Paul Mason and Gavin Mouldey (School Journal Level 4 November 2020)Press B, Paul Mason and Mat Tait (School Journal Level 4 May 2021) Four Eyes, Rex Ogle and Dave Valeza (2023) Maui: Legends of the Outcast, Robert Sullivan and Chris Slane (1996) Something Alive, Jem Yoshioka (School Journal Level 4 June 2018) Press B, Paul Mason and Mat Tait (School Journal Level 4 May 2021) The Secret Garden on 81st Street, Ivy Weir (2021) Teacher Selection | Still Visual Works Piece by Piece: The Story of Nisrin’s Hijab, Priya Huq (2021) Mexikid, Pedro Martin (2021) White Bird, R. J. Palacio (2019) Parachute Kids, Betty C. Tang (2023) The Arrival, Shaun Tan (2006) Moving Visual Works Fantastic Mr. Fox, dir. Wes Anderson (2009) Koro’s Medal, dir. James Barr (2011) Big Fish, dir. Tim Burton (2003) Avatar, dir. James Cameron (2009) Whale Rider, dir. Niki Caro (2002) Bend It Like Beckham, dir. Gurinder Chadha (2002) Billy Elliott, dir. Stephen Daldry (2000) New Boy, dir. Steph Green (2007) Rabbit-Proof Fence, dir. Phillip Noyce (2002) Stand By Me, dir. Rob Reiner (1986) The Breadwinner, dir. Nora Twomey (2017) Hunt for the Wilderpeople, dir. Taika Waititi (2016) Remember the Titans, dir. Boaz Yakin (2000) Teacher Selection | Still Visual Works Illegal, Andrew Donkin, Eoin Colfer and Giovanni Rigano (2017) The Graveyard Book: Graphic Novel, Neil Gaiman and P. Craig Russell (2015) Almost American Girl, Robin Ha (2020) The Odyssey, Gareth Hinds (2010) A First Time for Everything, Dan Santat (2023) Moving Visual Works Life is Beautiful, dir. Roberto Benigni (1997) Edward Scissorhands, dir. Tim Burton (1990) Minari, dir. Lee Isaac Chung (2020) Lion, dir. Garth Davis (2016) The World’s Fastest Indian, dir. Roger Donaldson (2005) Barbie, dir. Greta Gerwig (2023) The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, dir. Mark Herman (2008) 10 Things I Hate About You, dir. Gil Junger (1999) Milk & Honey, dir. Marina Alofagia McCartney (2012) Spirited Away, dir. Hayao Miyazaki (2001) The Hunger Games, dir. Gary Ross (2012) Two Cars, One Night, dir. Taika Waititi (2003) Teacher Selection |
NON-FICTION
Proposition
Non-fiction includes a range of prose types in speech and writing which contain content and language features designed to inform, persuade, and create other effects that require critical judgement by readers.
I have only provided recommendations for orations, biographies, memoirs, autobiographies, and essays.
Other examples of prose types which also exemplify the proposition for each year level include: Journalism news reports, profile pieces, reviews, column/opinions, instructional guides, debates, textbooks, letters, social media posts.
Memoir, biography, autobiography, letters
Recommended
| Year 9 | Year 10 | Year 11 | Year 12 | Year 13 |
| The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank (1947) Jonah: My Story (Revised Edition, 2004), Jonah Lomu I Am Malala: The Story of the Girl Who Stood Up for Education and was Shot by the Taliban by Malala Yousafzaiwith Christina Lamb (2013) Valerie, the Autobiography (with Phil Gifford) (2012) Willie Apiata VC: A Reluctant Hero, Paul Little (2008) Teacher Selection | Ernest Rutherford: Just an Ordinary Boy, Alistair Hughes and Maria Gill (2023) Uncle Tungsten: Memories of a Chemical Boyhood, Oliver Sacks (2001) Long Walk to Freedom by Nelson Mandela (1994) Teacher Selection | Angela’s Ashes, Frank McCourt (1996) Chinese Cinderella, Adeline Yen Mah (1999) Ngatokimatawhaorua, the Biography of a Waka, Jeff Evans (2024) Maori Boy: A Memoir, Witi Ihimaera (2014) Into Thin Air, Jon Krakauer (1996) Radioactive: Marie and Pierre Curie: A Tale of Love and Fallout, Lauren Redniss (2010) Teacher Selection | Whitiki! Whiti! Whiti! E! Māori in the First World War, Monty Soutar (2019) Blue Latitudes, Tony Horwitz (2020) Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou (1969) An Angel at my Table: The complete Autobiography, Janet Frame, (1998) Teacher Selection | Goodbye to all that, Robert Graves (1929) The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Samuel Pepys (1825) Bread and Roses: Sonja Davies Her Story, Sonja Davies (1984) Na to Hoa Aroha, from Your Dear Friend. The Correspondence of Sir Apirana Ngata and Sir Peter Buck (1998) Teacher Selection |
Oration
Recommended
| Year 9 | Year 10 | Year 11 | Year 12 | Year 13 |
| I have a Dream, Martin Luther King (1963) Nobel Speech, Malala Yousafzai (2014) Teacher Selection | Their Finest Hour, Winston Churchill (1940) Address to the United Nations on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Eleanor Roosevelt (1948) Teacher Selection | Gettysburg Address, Abraham Lincoln (1863) Freedom or Death Emmeline Pankhurst (1913) Ain’t I A Woman, Sojourner Truth (1851) Teacher Selection | Pericles Funeral Oration, Thucydides (c. 429 BC) Speech at the Rivonia Trial, Nelson Mandela (1964) I Have A Dream, Mary Wollstonecraft (1792) Spanish Amada Speech, Elizabeth I (1588) Teacher Selection | On the Crown, Demosthenes, (330BC) Quit India, Mahatma Gandhi (1942) Questioning the Universe, Stephen Hawking (2008) Teacher Selection |
Essay
Recommended
| Year 11 | Year 12 | Year 13 |
| Self-Reliance, Ralph Waldo Emerson (1841) The Secret History of Black England, Zadie Smith (1922) The Death of a Moth Virginia Woolf (1942) Teacher Selection | Why I Write, George Orwell (1946) A Modest Proposal, Jonathan Swift (1729) Florence Nightingale, Eminent Victorians Lytton Strachey (1918) On the Duty of Civil Disobedience, Henry David Thoreau (1849) Teacher Selection | Shooting an Elephant, George Orwell (1936) Notes of a Native Son, James Baldwin (1955) Concerning Whare-Kura: Its Philosophies and Teachings, Hongi Hare, Journal of the Polynesian Society. (1898, Vol. 7 No. 1, March, pp. 35-41) Teacher Selection |
LANGUAGE FEATURES
Proposition
Language used in poetry, prose, drama, and other media provides the tools for the analysis of literary works and contributes to students’ essay and creative writing.
(Each year level includes and builds on the concepts already taught.)
| Years 7 and 8 | Years 9 and 10 | Year 11 | Years 12 and 13 |
| Figurative alliteration, metaphor, onomatopoeia, repetition, simile, personification, cliche, pun Structural contrast, rhetorical question, | Figurative anthropomorphism, emotive language (connotation and denotation), euphemism, hyperbole, extended metaphor Sonic: assonance, consonance, sibilance Structural contrast, imperative, listing, repetition, rhetorical question Referential allusion, genre, symbol | Figurative anachronism, analogy, imagery (auditory, gustatory, kinaesthetic, olfactory, tactile), irony, neologism, semantic field, understatement, zoomorphism Sonic Types of sound (fricative, glide, liquid, plosive, sibilant), Structural antithesis, inversions of grammatical order, listing, parallelism, syntactical functions (declarative, exclamative, imperative, interrogative, prognostication) Referential Sources of allusions | Figurative litotes, imagery (auditory, gustatory, kinaesthetic, olfactory, tactile, synaesthesia), metonymy, synecdoche Sonic Effects of sound (cacophony, euphony) Structural interruptions and unfinished sentences Referential Types of reference (burlesque, derivative work, homage, pastiche, parody and meta parody, satire) |
- LANGUAGE AND TRUST IN THE CURRICULUM
Political interests control the curriculum’s language when disciplinary authority is usurped by ideologies. This happened to the New Zealand curriculum from the 1990s. Within a tightening straitjacket of permitted language, words were disconnected from meaning. George Orwell described this ideological tactic as thought corrupting language and language corrupting thought. The solution was to let meaning choose the word.
The Te Matawai Maihi Maori Strategy and Implementation Approach launched by Cabinet Directive in December 2018[vi] illustrate what happens when words choose meanings to serve ideologies. Te Maihi Karanua’s three Audacious Goals were to drive the meaning of public policy. The goals were truly audacious with ‘Aotearoatanga’ intended as the outcome for Audacious Goal One – a transformation of what New Zealand is as a nation.
From 2018 to 2023 Te Maihi Karanua was an imposed experiment in ideological control. The public service, publicly funded media, and the health and education sectors obeyed without hesitation and, in most cases, without question. The intention, to change the nation by changing New Zealand English, would occur, not through the usual organic process of word borrowing, but by top-down degree. The strategy kicked off at a remarkable pace with national radio and television presenters eager to demonstrate how we were to speak in the new nation.
Given that it is a direct way to reach entire generations the Refreshed English Curriculum of January 2023 would be a powerful vehicle for the strategy’s Three Audacious Goals. However, its potential ended abruptly with the March 2025 Draft English Curriculum. The new curriculum, if the final version is true to the Draft, will return language to the real world, one where real-life meaning drives word choice. Because it is subject-based – its content is clearly disciplinary-derived and accountable – ideologies are more easily detected and removed. A few traces of Te Maihi Karanua do remain in the Draft, more likely by oversight than intent. There is a relapse to the ideology on page 6 and in some headings, for example the Draft is authorised by Te Poutahu of Te Tahuhu of te Matauranga of Te Kawanatanga of Aotearoa and the nation is Aotearoa New Zealand. These minor details can be remedied.
On the whole the Draft does remove ideology. Māori word borrowings are again recognised as the organic process of language change and a key defining feature of New Zealand English.
A subject-based English curriculum includes Māori words in these ways:
- Commonly accepted borrowings in vocabulary lists and in etymological study.
- Titles: e.g. Pounamu Pounamu; Poems from Nga Moteatea, Na to Hoa Aroha, from Your Dear Friend. The Correspondence of Sir Apirana Ngata and Sir Peter Buck; Whitiki! Whiti! Whiti! E! Māori in the First World War; Ngatokimatawhaorua, the Biography of a Waka.
- Biographical information about authors.
- Characters in literature, including conversations (e.g. in Pounamu, Pounamu) and context features such as placenames and events.
Sex-specific words and meaning
While Te Maihi Karanua is one ideology that made astonishing headroads in just five years, it is not the only ideology to permeate the curriculum.
The subsumption of female-specific words into male words or the removal of the female term demonstrates the unintended, ‘be careful what you ask for’ consequences of 1960s’ feminism. We believed, wrongly as it turned out, that changing the words would change meaning. Supported by the postmodern ideas that language creates reality (all you need to do it to make people think and speak in the new required way), a new vocabulary emerged to re-create the relationship of female to male.
Heroine was subsumed by hero, actress by actor, waiter by waitress. The sex neutral ‘principal’ replaced headmaster and head mistress. In extreme cases, words were removed completely – widow and widower disappeared in the desire to equate divorce to death.
Feminism scored the ultimate own goal when words for the female sex itself were removed completely. The nadir was the removal of the word which holds the most meaning for women – woman itself. Once a word goes, then so does the very referent – the adult female and what it means.
My advice is to watch the language is all curriculum documents so that no word escapes your scrutiny. Consider the greatly improved 2025 Draft Relationships and Sexualities Framework. For all the improvements on its predecessor, the document reveals that ideological influences still attempt to compete with biological reality. Thankfully male and female did make an appearance – it would have been impossible to refer to genital parts without these words – but it was a reluctant mention. What is astonishing is the omission of girl and boy, she and he. If reality is to be acknowledged, those four words should be there.
In the real world, the last word must surely go to Mad Hatter and the March Hare. When Alice told the Mad Hatter that she didn’t think, his reply was – then you shouldn’t talk. The March Hare advised – say what you mean. The purpose of the English curriculum is to ensure that young New Zealanders can think meaningfully and can communicate those considered thoughts. Meanings in the English language are built on centuries of use and change. Knowing how others use them helps us to trust language.
The scientific method is to test everything. Orwell’s question – what comes first, the meaning or the words – provides us with a truth-telling language test. It should be applied not only to the English Curriculum but to all other curriculum subjects so that we can indeed trust the meaning of a word.
[i] The line ‘the instrument of thought and means of communication’ is paraphrased from Emile Durkheim and refered to in Pierre Bourdieu’s paper ‘Symbolic Power’. Originally published in Annales, 1977, No 32, pp. 405-11. Translated by Richard Nice, in Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies. Birmingham. (In the original the phrase ‘instrument of thought’ is ‘Instruments for knowledge and construction of the objective world. ‘Means of communication’ refers to language/culture vs speech/behaviour.)
[ii] Rata, E. (2021). The Curriculum Design Coherence Model in the Knowledge-Rich Schoool Project. Review of Education. Vol. 9, No. 2, June pp. 448–495.
Rata, E. (2025). Logic in the Curriculum Design Coherence Model: How the Model creates coherence. In McPhail, G, Pountney, R, Wheelahan, L (2025).Emerging Perspectives from Social Realism on Knowledge and Education Curricula, Pedagogy, Identity, and Equity.Routledge. Chapter 8.
[iii] Rata, E. (2017). Knowledge and Teaching, British Educational Research Journal. 43(5), 1003-1017.
[iv] Tim Surma, Claudio Vanhees, Michiel Wils, Jasper Nijlunsing, Daniel Willingham, John Hattie, Nuno Crato, Daniel Muijs, Elizabeth Rata, Dylan Wiliam, & Paul A. Kirschner. (2025). Developing Curriculum for Deep Thing: The Knowledge Turn. Springer.
[v] Lynch, C. & Rata, E. (2018) Culturally responsive pedagogy: A New Zealand case study, International Studies in Sociology of Education, 27:4, 391-408.
[vi] The Te Matawai Maihi Maori Strategy and Implementation Approach was approved as a Cabinet Directive, 13 December 2018.
Audacious Goal 1: Eighty-five percent of New Zealanders (or more) will value te reo Māori as a key part of national identity.
Audacious Goal 2: One million New Zealanders (or more) will have the ability and confidence to talk about at least basic things in te reo Māori.
Audacious Goal 3: One hundred and fifty thusand Maori aged 15 and over will use te reo Māori as much as English by 2024.
Outcome – Aotearoatanga (Nationhood); Matauranga (Knowledge and skills): Hononga (Engagement)
Te Maihi Karanua was officially launched in Waitangi Week 2019. It directed cultural change within the public sector. This produced the escalation of language and cultural commissars in the public service from 2019 including the Ministry of Education.
Te Maihi Karanua Implementation Plan targets 3 priority groups. They are: Young People, Proficient Speakers, Public Service. The Māori Language Commission, Taura Whiri i te Reo was required to support the initiative throughout the public service.