Monday 12 May 2014

Term One Writing

Students are sharing a piece of their writing from Term One

7 comments:

  1. Replies
    1. What happened before the Maori Land Wars? Why did it start?
      The Maori Land Wars basically began when misconceptions of how the British and how the Maori gained ownership to the land emerged. When the British settlers came to Taranaki, they thought that the Maori were not utilising the land enough so they wanted to buy the land off them, thinking that they could better utilise the land. But what the settlers did not know was that the Maori’s understanding of land ownership was completely different from the British. The Maori gained ownership to a piece of land by inheriting it from the ancestors, but the way the British saw it, land could be bought from each other with money. The British and the Maoris did have one thing in common though; they both agreed that only the rightful leader or governor of the land could buy more land or sell their own land.
      The first misunderstanding or rather, backstabbing, occurred between the Maoris. Te Teira, a Maori sub-chief, sold some land under Wiremu Kingi, the Maori chief’s, nose. 60,000 acres of Maori land was sold behind the other Maori’s backs, must be a new record. The land was sold to Governor Browne, one of the British settlers. Now, several laws were broken prior to the sale of the Te Atiawa iwi’s land.

      Before the sale of the some 60,000 acres of Maori land, there was a meeting in the Maori Courthouse involving the Maori chiefs, Wiremu Kingi and Te Teira amongst them and the British Governors, Governor Browne, Governor Grey and parts of the British Crown’s counsel.

      Governor Browne made a speech on the 8th of March in 1859. Speaking of the conditions of the sale of Maori land to British settlers. He said that if the feud between those who wanted to sell their land and those who didn’t continued, stern measures would follow.

      After Governor Browne finished his speech, Te Teira stood and offered to sell 600 acres at Waitara. Most thought that this was a result of Browne’s speech but it really was not. An offer to sell the land had been made several days before the meeting, which Governor Grey had refused twice. Governor Browne accepted the offer on the condition that Teira could prove his title to the land. Wiremu Kingi was not pleased about this offer, for Te Teira had not spoken to himself about the sale of his own land before and being a sub-chief, Te Teira had no right to sell land without the permission of his chief, who was Wiremu Kingi himself.

      Wiremu stood abruptly and after stating that the sale of the Waitara land was forbidden, he left the Courthouse. Wiremu had said that his word was set above that of the Queen’s and that if he did not agree to the sale of his land, it would not be sold. But Governor Browne would not allow Wiremu Kingi’s word set aside the words and orders of the Queen, and the land was sold in the end anyway.

      Note that Wiremu was a respectable chief and he knew the settlers well. Wiremu could write and communicate with the British, and was also well liked by his own people.

      When Governor Browne had accepted Te Teira’s offer to sell the Waitara land, he had contradicted a rule that he himself had laid down several years before that acknowledged the right of the chieftains to forbid or not forbid the sale of their land. Two of Browne’s ‘followers’ McLean and Richmond, were at the meeting and they knew of the law that Browne had broken but they failed to tell him. Soon, Governor Browne told McLean to investigate Teira’s title in Waitara but McLean only went to Otaki and Queen Charlotte to drum up some support from the other Te Atiawa land owners.

      By Michael Mischeski

      Delete
  2. SPLASH! I caught a trout a good sized one too. Dad told me to catch bait for the hinaki. And what did I do? Oh that’s right, I caught the bait - silly me. Dad chopped the fish up and and put it in the hinaki. Chuck the hinaki in a place where it is deep, and make the hole face the way that the current is going. Because eels swim up the current. Me and dad went to the river to get out of the house. Then we went down the road and the road that we went down was called Rangitiki River. I caught another trout and it was pulling as hard as 5 elephants pulling my line it was about to snap my line and then that would have been it, but no I brought it up and it was a brown trout . Did you know that brown trout can grow bigger than rainbow trout? Me and dad set 6 lines and we even made a line out of a stick. Ko ko we heard ruru and then my line pulled like a rocket ship setting off. Man that took a couple of minutes to pull in. eels look ugly but they’re yummy. They take for ever to gut and scrape all of the moss off of them. Oink we here a pig it trotting across the road but it’s a little one, so we left it. We smoke the trout it smells like McDonald’s. Yummmmm. Finally they’re smoked. PUKANA! KAI TIME NOW.




    By Maddox Higgins-Ohlson

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi - what a great piece of writing - I really feel the excitement of you pulling up the eels! Great job :) I'd love to share this with my students - I'm a teacher too, they may learn something from the way you write!

      Delete
  3. Cookery
    I clutched the bag of ingredients as if it was a bag of silver and gold as I made sure I had everything on the recipe: 4 eggs, Caster sugar, Red food colouring and Icing sugar. Lexi had the rest of the ingredients. After morning tea, me and Lexi dashed to the staff room. My mum was a bit late so we had to start by ourselves. 4 minutes later mum came into the staff room, just after we put in the eggs that Lexi forgot to beat. She helped Lexi start on the marshmallow as I mixed the wet ingredients with the dry ingredients. Then I had to put it in the baking tray and put it in the oven. After that we had to boil the water, food colouring, gelatine and sugar to make the marshmallow. Then we had to add in the egg whites and the icing sugars then we were supposed to beat it till it was light and fluffy like a marshmallow but…. It didn’t turn out quite as it was supposed to it was more like sticky, sticky, gloop! I smothered the pink stickiness onto the hot brownie then placed it in the fridge to set. 30-40 minutes later we brought the marshmallow brownie out of the fridge it still hadn’t set quite properly but still the boys that where baking now wanted to have a piece they were hanging around the brownie like ravenous vultures so we cut them the first pieces Rachel was there as well so we gave her a piece as well, then she cut some pieces for us and our class. when we came in with the cake a lot of people where oohing and awing over soft chocolate brownie and the slippery, sticky, gooey pink marshmallow topping. As we gave everyone their brownie and delicious sweet gloop I wished I could have another piece so me and Lexi did, YUM!!! By Sophie

    ReplyDelete
  4. Our trip to the East Cape

    Swish swoosh swish swoosh the fresh salty sea water crashing stumbling and tumbling upon the soft sandy sea shore. Dried out driftwood scattered across the beach like the pieces of an unfinished puzzle. Soft laughter in the distance tickled my spine with shivers. Bright stars twinkled in the night sky
    Loud cars screeched noisily past my tent. The sounds were unbearable. It sounded like frightened herds of elephants getting hunted down by cave men. Every five minutes herds would race past.
    I still felt major car sick from the LONG, LONG, LONG trip here. It felt as if we had travelled to China and back ten times on the windiest, loopiest road.
    Every minuet my eye lids got heavier and heavier, but no matter how hard I tried to sleep, I couldn’t. It was impossible to sleep with loud cars screeching past our tent and my Dads loud snoring. I slowly crept out of my tent and tugged at mum trying to wake her up. ‘Mum, can we go for a walk, I can’t sleep.’ ‘Okay,’ she moaned in exhaustion. We ended up sitting down somewhere not too far from our tent on the soft sand. Hours passed. I slowly feel asleep. Early that morning I jumped up and rubbed my eyes and saw the most magical and beautiful sunrise, with red, yellow and orange shimmering in the early morning rays of the sun as the fresh salty sea water crashed stumbled and tumbled upon the sandy sea shore.

    Tukaha

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. This is another great piece - well done all these Writers - I've enjoyed reading this.

      Delete