Tuhituhi - Writing in NCEA Level 3 Te Reo Māori
What this domain rewards
Tuhituhi at Level 3 asks for extended texts - pūrākau, reports, persuasive pieces, formal and informal letters, creative writing - in te reo Māori. Marks come from content and structure, grammatical accuracy and range, vocabulary, spelling and macrons, punctuation, and cohesion.
Plan before you write
Fix purpose and audience first, because they set the register. E hoa mā opens informally; Tēnā koe e te Kaiwhakahaere opens a formal letter; a report needs a clear opening statement before detail. Sketch three or four paragraph headings in Māori, then write to them.
Grammar checks that pay
Check possession: tāku/tā for things you control or that are active (tāku pukapuka), tōku/tō for inherent or passive relationships (tōku whare, tōku whānau). Check that the passive ending matches the verb - -tia, -ngia, -ria, -hia, -kia, -mia, -whia, -aia. Keep ana with e … ana and never attach it to ka.
Cohesion
Link ideas as fluent writers do: nō reira, otirā, engari, ā, kātahi ka, i tērā wā, hei mutunga. Vary sentence openings so not every sentence begins with ka.
Worked example
Draft: I haere au ki te kura. I ako au i te reo Māori.
Revision: I taku taenga ki te kura, i ako au i te reo Māori.
Reasoning: te taenga is the nominalised form of tae, and i taku taenga fixes the time as past. This removes the repeated i … au, keeps the tense correct, and shows morphological control - the kind of structure that lifts a grade.
Traps
- Writing tāku whare or tōku pukapuka, which inverts the a/o categories.
- Omitting macrons where they belong (Māori, kōrero, wānanga, pānui) or adding them where they do not; check every word.
- Following English word order, for example Au kei te haere instead of Kei te haere au.
- Long runs of ka … ka … ka with no linking words between them.