← NBE3U First Nations, Métis & Inuit Voices

NBE3U · Exam review

First Nations, Métis & Inuit Voices Exam Review

A practice exam with questions from all 5 units, then the key facts from every lesson, unit by unit. For a deeper look at one unit, open its test review.

Unit test reviews

Practice exam

35 questions, the same number from each unit. Each one shows the lesson it comes from.

Unit 1: Starting an Inquiry: Self-Location, Questions and Ways of Knowing
1
Which of these is the strongest inquiry question?
Unit 1: Three Distinct Peoples and the Words That Name Them
2
Which three peoples does section 35 of the Constitution Act, 1982, recognize?
Unit 1: Kinship, Land and Identity
3
In a sample passage written for this lesson, a narrator says: 'Ask me where I'm from and I'll tell you about my aunties before I tell you about the town.' What does this most suggest?
Unit 1: Deconstructing Stereotypes and Representation
4
At which stage do you ask who made a text, when, for which audience and for what purpose?
Unit 1: Deconstructing Stereotypes and Representation
5
An early twentieth-century photograph shows a family in older clothing with no modern objects in view. What is the most careful reading?
Unit 1: Appropriation, Appreciation and Cultural Protocols
6
A classmate wants to use a sacred figure from an Anishinaabe oral tradition as a character in a horror story. What is the best advice?
Unit 1: Identity Today
7
A character in a novel lives in Toronto, rarely visits her home community, and is learning her language online. How should an analysis treat her identity?
Unit 2: Forms of the Oral Tradition
8
Which statement best describes what the Haudenosaunee use wampum for?
Unit 2: Culturally Appropriate Listening
9
You are unsure of the protocol for an event where a Knowledge Keeper will share stories. What should you do?
Unit 2: Talking Circles, Discussion and Respectful Dialogue
10
Why does the circle format change how people listen?
Unit 2: Story Structure and Worldview
11
In the Mara sample passage, what makes the structure cyclical rather than linear?
Unit 2: Story Structure and Worldview
12
What do you call an ending that does not state the lesson and leaves the meaning for the listener to work out?
Unit 2: Analysing Speeches and Oratory
13
Which sentence is the strongest analysis?
Unit 2: Speaking to Communicate
14
What kind of question invites a story or explanation instead of a one-word answer?
Unit 3: Text Forms in Contemporary Indigenous Literature
15
A writer wants a long silence to be visible to the reader, not just described. Which form gives the most direct tool for that?
Unit 3: Stylistic Elements: Humour, Language, Time, Dreams and Point of View
16
A character stands in pouring rain after a disastrous day and says, 'Well, this is going great.' What kind of irony is this?
Unit 3: Close Reading Indigenous Poetry
17
Match each poet to a description.
Louise Bernice Halfe
Marilyn Dumont
Billy-Ray Belcourt
Jordan Abel
Unit 3: Reading and Staging Indigenous Drama
18
Match each dramatic element to what it does.
Stage direction
Aside
Lighting change
Blocking
Unit 3: Reading Non-Fiction and Argument
19
Put these events in order from earliest to latest.
1. 1Seven Fallen Feathers is published
2. 2The last of the seven student deaths examined in the book
3. 3The first of the seven student deaths examined in Seven Fallen Feathers
4. 4The federal government releases the White Paper
5. 5The Indian Association of Alberta publishes Citizens Plus
Unit 3: Residential Schools, Survival and Resilience in Literature
20
How many Calls to Action did the Truth and Reconciliation Commission release in 2015?
Unit 3: Indigenous Futurism and Speculative Fiction
21
Why does the idea that many Indigenous communities have 'already survived the end of a world' matter for reading Moon of the Crusted Snow?
Unit 4: Sovereignty, Self-Determination and Self-Government
22
Which term is mainly about the working institutions a people uses to run its own affairs?
Unit 4: Treaties, Wampum and Land Claims
23
Which is the best reason the oral and written understandings of a historic treaty can differ?
Unit 4: How News Media Frame Indigenous Issues
24
Fictional headline: 'Camp cleared from construction site.' What framing choice does this headline make?
Unit 4: Reading Indigenous Film and Television
25
A shot lasts 4 seconds in a film shot at 24 frames per second. How many frames is it? (Give a whole number.)
frames
Unit 4: Reading Indigenous Film and Television
26
Which sentence is the strongest film analysis?
Unit 4: Social Media, Music and Digital Activism
27
Why do algorithms tend to spread outrage and graphic content?
Unit 4: Indigenous Media and Creating Your Own Media Text
28
Match each media form to one of its conventions.
Podcast episode
Poster
Short documentary
Social video
Unit 5: Truth and Reconciliation: The Reports and the Calls
29
How many Calls to Action did the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada issue?
Unit 5: Meaningful Allyship in Reading, Writing and Speaking
30
Which action is an example of speaking over rather than speaking up?
Unit 5: Writing for Change: Letters, Op-Eds and the Calls to Action
31
The sports and reconciliation section runs from Call 87 to Call 91, inclusive. How many Calls is that? (Give a whole number.)
Unit 5: Writing Creatively: Personal Narrative and Poetry
32
A personal narrative must be at most 300 words. The draft has 412 words. How many words must be cut? (Give a whole number.)
words
Unit 5: Writing Creatively: Personal Narrative and Poetry
33
Why do strong personal pieces often begin with a small, concrete detail?
Unit 5: Building a Literary or Persuasive Essay
34
In a persuasive essay, why include a counter-argument?
Unit 5: Research, Citation, Revision and Reflection
35
Which is the most useful reflection on a finished essay?

Key facts by unit

Unit 1: Identities, Kinship and Representation

Starting an Inquiry: Self-Location, Questions and Ways of Knowing

Positionality is the position you speak from; self-location is stating that position openly, including the limits of what you know.
An open inquiry question cannot be answered with yes, no or one fact, and usually asks how or why.
Two-Eyed Seeing (Etuaptmumk), shared by Mi'kmaw Elder Albert Marshall, means seeing with the strengths of Indigenous knowledges through one eye and Western knowledges through the other, and using both together.
Relational knowledge treats knowledge as made of relationships; a researcher is accountable to the people and places the knowledge comes from.
Narrow a topic by nation, region, time period, author or form, and keep the people at the centre of it in view.
Indigenous knowledge in an inquiry must come from named, cited First Nations, Métis or Inuit sources, and oral knowledge only with permission.

Three Distinct Peoples and the Words That Name Them

Section 35 of the Constitution Act, 1982, names three Aboriginal peoples: the Indian (First Nations), Inuit and Métis peoples.
Indigenous is the umbrella term; the most specific name — nation and community — is the most accurate and the most respectful.
Inuit is plural and means 'the people'; one person is an Inuk. Never write 'Inuits' or 'Eskimo'.
Métis refers to a distinct nation with its own history, language (Michif) and governments, not to anyone with mixed ancestry.
There are more than 600 First Nations in Canada, speaking languages from several unrelated language families.
Status means registration under the Indian Act — a federal legal category that does not decide who is First Nations.

Kinship, Land and Identity

In many First Nations, Métis and Inuit texts, identity is relational: a person is located by family, community, nation, and land and water.
Kinship systems differ by nation — for example, Haudenosaunee clan membership passes through the mother's line.
Land and water often act as relatives, teachers or sites of loss rather than as setting; test by swapping in a generic place.
A memoir narrates a stretch of the writer's life; a personal essay reflects on one idea through experience and usually has a turn.
A memoir speaks for its writer's experience — build claims about wider patterns on several sources, not one.

Deconstructing Stereotypes and Representation

Explore describes the representation; deconstruct asks who made it, when, for whom and why; reconstruct studies or creates texts that represent people accurately, led by the people represented.
The 'vanishing' image claimed the peoples were disappearing, making assimilation policy look like natural fate.
A romanticized or 'noble' image is still a stereotype: it flattens people into one trait and places them outside the present.
Every representation reflects its historical period, the creator's cultural background, and the social and political conditions of the time.
Staged 'authenticity', such as early photographs that removed signs of modern life, is a representation choice, not a record.
Mascots and costumes turn living peoples into props; several major teams, including Edmonton's CFL team in 2020, have dropped such names.

Appropriation, Appreciation and Cultural Protocols

Cultural appropriation is taking from a culture without permission, credit or benefit to its people, usually across a power imbalance.
From 1884 the Indian Act banned the potlatch, and the ban was not removed until 1951; outsiders now sell what communities were punished for practising.
Eagle-feather headdresses belong to specific Plains nations, where they are earned; worn as costume they disrespect those nations and erase all others.
Canadian copyright protects individual works for the creator's life plus 70 years; Indigenous cultural property is often collective and has no expiry.
Article 31 of UNDRIP affirms Indigenous peoples' right to control their cultural heritage, traditional knowledge and cultural expressions.
Before using anything, ask: whose is it, is it sacred or earned, was it offered or taken, who benefits, and is the context respected?

Identity Today

There is no single way to be First Nations, Métis or Inuk: urban and on-reserve, fluent and learning, are all real forms of identity.
The Sixties Scoop, from the 1950s into the 1980s, removed large numbers of Indigenous children into mostly non-Indigenous homes; many texts are about finding the way back.
Two-Spirit is an Indigenous umbrella term adopted in 1990; it is not a general synonym for LGBTQ+ and many nations also have their own terms.
Language nests, mentor-apprentice programs and immersion rebuild languages; Canada passed the Indigenous Languages Act in 2019.
Belonging rests on kinship, community and nations' citizenship processes — not appearance, fluency, location or an ancestry test.
Reconstructing texts come from the people represented and show present-day complexity instead of a single image.

Unit 2: Oral Traditions and Storytelling

Forms of the Oral Tradition

Oral traditions carry history, law, values, relationships and language — they are records, not just entertainment.
Forms belong to specific nations: Haudenosaunee wampum and the Thanksgiving Address, Gitxsan adaawk, Anishinaabe aadizookaanag and dibaajimowinan, Inuit katajjaq, Métis fiddle and Michif storytelling.
Oral records stay reliable through trained tellers, repetition, public witnessing and objects such as wampum.
In Delgamuukw v. British Columbia (1997), the Supreme Court of Canada required that Indigenous oral histories be given real weight as evidence.
Audible features — naming the source, repetition, place names, direct address, humour and pause — carry meaning the way punctuation and structure do on a page.

Culturally Appropriate Listening

Protocols belong to specific nations and communities, so the respectful approach is to ask rather than assume.
Hearing a story does not give you permission to retell, record or publish it.
Some stories belong to particular people or groups — for example, a Gitxsan adaawk belongs to a specific House.
In Anishinaabe tradition, certain traditional stories are told only in winter, when snow is on the ground.
Listen to the end without interrupting, hold questions until invited, and treat pauses as part of the text.
Acknowledge a teller by name, nation or community, setting and date, and share only what you were permitted to.

Talking Circles, Discussion and Respectful Dialogue

In a talking circle only the person holding the talking piece speaks, the piece moves in order, and anyone may pass.
Circle practices differ between nations; follow the keeper's instructions rather than a general rule.
Seminar moves respond to others: build on, ask for evidence, clarify, disagree respectfully, synthesize and invite.
Respectful disagreement targets an idea, offers another reading, and gives evidence.
Discuss sensitive history as real events affecting real families, and never ask a classmate to speak for their people.
Self-assessment looks at the kind and balance of your contributions, then sets one specific goal.

Story Structure and Worldview

Structure carries worldview: how a story is shaped suggests how time, change and responsibility work.
A linear plot moves through exposition, rising action, climax, falling action and resolution.
Cyclical stories return to their start with a difference; episodic stories build meaning across connected, self-contained episodes.
Trickster and transformer figures belong to specific nations — Nanabush (Anishinaabe), Wesakechak (Cree), Raven (Haida and other Northwest Coast nations), Kluskap (Mi'kmaq and other Wabanaki nations) — and are not interchangeable.
Describe a figure's role and what their stories teach; do not retell sacred or ceremonial stories.

Analysing Speeches and Oratory

Analyze a speech through speaker, occasion, audience, purpose, subject and tone before looking at devices.
Ethos is credibility, pathos is emotion and values, logos is reason and evidence, and kairos is the fit with the moment.
Chief Dan George delivered 'A Lament for Confederation' at Empire Stadium in Vancouver on July 1, 1967, Canada's centennial.
Autumn Peltier of Wiikwemkoong addressed the UN General Assembly on World Water Day in 2018, at age 13.
Mary Simon, an Inuk from Nunavik, was installed as the first Indigenous Governor General on July 26, 2021, and began her address in Inuktitut.
In spoken texts, delivery, language choice and tone shifts are evidence to analyze alongside the words.

Speaking to Communicate

Tell stories you have the right to tell — your own, your family's with agreement, or ones you wrote — and never speak for First Nations, Métis or Inuit people.
Pace, pauses, volume, repetition and responding to the audience are the core storytelling skills.
A meaningful land acknowledgement names specific nations and treaties, uses present tense, is in your own words, is pronounced correctly and points to learning or action.
An acknowledgement is not permission to use a nation's stories or symbols, and it is not a substitute for action.
Record, edit and publish someone's voice only with their informed consent, and never cut it so the meaning changes.
Good reflection uses evidence and ends in one specific, practical next step.

Unit 3: Reading Contemporary Indigenous Literature

Text Forms in Contemporary Indigenous Literature

Form is a choice that shapes meaning: ask why the writer chose this form and what a different form would lose.
Literary texts are read for implied meaning and interpretation; informational texts are read for claims, evidence and perspective.
Memoir separates the narrating self (now) from the experiencing self (then), and the writer controls what is revealed.
Graphic novels make meaning through panels, gutters, images and silence as well as words — the images are part of the text.
Poetry, drama and spoken word are built for the ear and the stage, so read them aloud to hear how they mean.
Fluency means reading with enough ease to focus on meaning, not reading fast.

Stylistic Elements: Humour, Language, Time, Dreams and Point of View

Every stylistic claim needs four parts: name the element, give the evidence, explain the effect on the reader, and connect it to a theme.
Irony is a gap: verbal (said vs meant), situational (expected vs what happens), dramatic (what the audience knows vs what a character knows).
Untranslated words from an Indigenous language often signal that the language belongs in the text, and ask readers outside it to do the work.
Non-linear and circular structures let the past act on the present, and make the reader assemble the order of events.
Shifting point of view spreads authority across several narrators, so no single account is the whole truth.

Close Reading Indigenous Poetry

Analyze an image in three layers: what is literally there, what it is compared to, and what the image's qualities suggest.
Enjambment runs a sentence over a line break and pulls the reader forward; an end-stopped line pauses; a caesura breaks a line in the middle.
The speaker of a poem is a constructed voice, not automatically the poet.
Code-switching moves between languages within a text; in Indigenous poetry it can centre a language that governments tried to suppress.
Erasure poetry removes words from a source and keeps the survivors in order; found poetry reframes non-poetic language as a poem.
Louise Bernice Halfe (Cree), Marilyn Dumont (Métis), Billy-Ray Belcourt (Driftpile Cree) and Jordan Abel (Nisga'a) are major contemporary poets to know.

Reading and Staging Indigenous Drama

Subtext is what a character means but does not say; in drama it is carried by action, pause and staging.
Stage directions are part of the text: read them for actions that contradict the words and for meaningful silences.
Dramatic irony occurs when the audience knows something a character does not; staging can create it by letting the audience see what characters cannot.
In Tomson Highway's The Rez Sisters (1986), seven women set out for the biggest bingo in the world while Nanabush, seen by only some of them, moves among them.
Drew Hayden Taylor, from Curve Lake First Nation, often uses comedy to approach painful history, as in Someday (1991).
Readers' theatre relies on voice: a narrator reads key stage directions, and pace, tone and pause carry the performance.

Reading Non-Fiction and Argument

An argument has a claim, evidence, reasoning, often a counterargument, and usually a call to action.
A fact can be checked; an interpretation explains or judges; reported speech is a fact about what someone said.
Harold Cardinal's The Unjust Society (1969) answered the federal White Paper, turning the 'Just Society' slogan against the government and arguing that the policy was assimilation.
Tanya Talaga's Seven Fallen Feathers (2017) investigates the deaths of seven First Nations students in Thunder Bay between 2000 and 2011, linking them to a longer history.
Loaded words such as 'challenge', 'tragedy' or 'choice' carry frames that assign responsibility differently.
Perspective is not bias: judge an argument by its evidence and reasoning, not by whether the writer has a stake.

Residential Schools, Survival and Resilience in Literature

More than 150,000 First Nations, Métis and Inuit children attended residential schools; the last federally run school closed in 1996.
The Truth and Reconciliation Commission released 94 Calls to Action in 2015.
Survivance, a term used by Anishinaabe scholar Gerald Vizenor, combines survival and resistance: reading for active presence and strength, not only victimhood.
Retrospective narration, delayed revelation, gaps and framing narratives let writers handle trauma without turning it into spectacle.
In Indian Horse (2012), Saul narrates as an adult in recovery, and telling his story becomes part of his healing.

Indigenous Futurism and Speculative Fiction

Indigenous futurism imagines Indigenous people, languages and knowledge in the future; the term is associated with Anishinaabe scholar Grace Dillon.
Speculative fiction uses a 'what if' premise to comment on the real past and present, through echo, reversal, continuity and warning.
The Marrow Thieves (2017) by Métis writer Cherie Dimaline imagines schools that echo residential schools in a future where Indigenous people are hunted for their marrow.
Moon of the Crusted Snow (2018) by Anishinaabe writer Waubgeshig Rice follows a northern community facing collapse with knowledge it already carries.
A theme is a full-sentence claim the text supports, not a one-word topic.
Reflecting on reading strategy means naming the difficulty, the strategy used, whether it worked, and what you will change.

Unit 4: Sovereignty, Treaties and Media

Sovereignty, Self-Determination and Self-Government

Sovereignty is about the source of authority; self-determination is the right to choose a people's political status and development; self-government is the institutions that run affairs day to day.
An inherent right is recognized, not granted: it comes from nations having governed themselves before the Crown arrived.
Section 35 of the Constitution Act, 1982 recognizes and affirms existing Aboriginal and treaty rights of the Indian, Inuit and Métis peoples.
UNDRIP was adopted by the UN General Assembly in 2007; Article 3 affirms the right to self-determination. Canada passed a law to implement it in 2021.
Nunavut was created on April 1, 1999, following the 1993 Nunavut Land Claims Agreement. It is a public government with an Inuit majority.

Treaties, Wampum and Land Claims

A treaty is an agreement between nations; section 35 of the Constitution Act, 1982 recognizes and affirms existing treaty rights.
Oral and written understandings differ because of interpreters, English-only texts, promises spoken but not written, and different ideas of what makes an agreement binding.
The Two Row Wampum shows two vessels side by side on one river, each with its own laws, neither steering the other, joined by peace, friendship and respect.
Specific claims concern the Crown's obligations under existing treaties or its management of First Nations lands and assets; comprehensive claims arise where land rights were never dealt with by treaty.
The Numbered Treaties were signed from 1871 to 1921; modern treaties began with the James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement in 1975.

How News Media Frame Indigenous Issues

Framing is the set of choices — what to emphasize, whose voice leads, which image runs, what background is included — that shapes a story without changing its facts.
Check five places: word choice, whose voice comes first, images and captions, headline structure, and missing context.
Passive headlines ('camp removed') can hide who acted; active headlines name the actor.
Episodic coverage reports single events; thematic coverage explains the history and system behind them.
No media text is frame-free: deconstruction explains the effect of choices rather than declaring one correct side.

Reading Indigenous Film and Television

Shot size controls emphasis: long shots establish place, close-ups reveal emotion.
Low angles suggest power or dignity; high angles suggest vulnerability or control.
Diegetic sound exists in the story world; non-diegetic sound, such as score and voice-over, is added for the audience.
Editing creates meaning between shots; cross-cutting makes two lines of action comment on each other.
At 24 frames per second, shot length in frames is seconds × 24, so pacing can be measured.
Indigenous filmmakers often bend genre conventions so the genre carries history it once ignored, as Rhymes for Young Ghouls does with horror.

Social Media, Music and Digital Activism

Idle No More began in Saskatchewan in November 2012, sparked by Bill C-45, and spread through a hashtag, teach-ins and round dances.
The National Inquiry into MMIWG issued its final report in 2019 with 231 Calls for Justice; Jaime Black's REDress Project began in 2010.
'Water protector' is the term many Indigenous-led movements use for themselves; using it is a framing choice.
Music is a media text: analyze sound, language, visuals and context, and never reproduce lyrics.
Algorithms rank posts by predicted reactions, which rewards outrage and builds filter bubbles; engagement rate = interactions ÷ views × 100%.
Responsible sharing means verifying, crediting creators, avoiding graphic trauma images, respecting consent and acting beyond the share.

Indigenous Media and Creating Your Own Media Text

APTN launched in 1999 as a national network in Canada, broadcasting in English, French and Indigenous languages.
Alanis Obomsawin, an Abenaki filmmaker, made Kanehsatake: 270 Years of Resistance (1993) with the National Film Board of Canada.
Codes are technical (camera, sound, editing), symbolic (setting, colour, objects) and written (titles, captions, lower thirds); conventions are the familiar patterns of a form.
Plan a media text through purpose, audience, form, research and permission, structure, creation and revision, and credit.
Reflection applies framing questions to your own work: whose voice came first, what was left out, and what effect did the choices have?

Unit 5: Writing for Reconciliation

Truth and Reconciliation: The Reports and the Calls

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission released 94 Calls to Action in 2015: Legacy (1 to 42) and Reconciliation (43 to 94).
More than 150,000 First Nations, Inuit and Métis children attended residential schools; the last federally run school closed in 1996.
The National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls released Reclaiming Power and Place in 2019 with 231 Calls for Justice.
The National Day for Truth and Reconciliation is September 30, created in 2021 in response to Call to Action 80 and shared with Orange Shirt Day.
Survivors' testimony is primary evidence; quote it accurately, attribute it, and use it only where analysis needs it.

Meaningful Allyship in Reading, Writing and Speaking

Allyship is judged by consistent action — listening, learning on your own, amplifying with credit, and accepting correction — not by self-description.
Speaking up challenges harm and directs attention to Indigenous voices; speaking over replaces those voices with your own.
Tokenism includes a person or text to be counted rather than heard; performative allyship is a gesture that stands in for action.
Name the specific nation, community or author; avoid 'Indigenous people believe' and possessives such as 'our' or 'Canada's'.
Use Inuit for the people and Inuk for one person; capitalize Indigenous, First Nations, Métis, Elder and Survivor.

Writing for Change: Letters, Op-Eds and the Calls to Action

The TRC issued 94 Calls to Action, each naming who should act and what they should do.
Match three things before writing: a specific Call, an audience with power to act, and a one-sentence purpose.
A formal letter in block format has the sender's address, date, recipient's details, salutation, body, closing and the writer's typed name.
An op-ed moves from hook to context, claim, evidence, counterargument, call to action and a closing line.
Persuasive writing combines ethos, logos and pathos with a concession and a specific ask the reader can carry out.
Advocate in your own voice; use Survivors' and Indigenous leaders' words only from published sources with attribution.

Writing Creatively: Personal Narrative and Poetry

Begin with material that is truly yours: your places, people, languages, objects and moments of change.
Showing through specific images is more persuasive than telling the reader what to feel.
Voice comes from diction, rhythm and what you notice; a turn near the end deepens a piece.
Choose a form that fits the material: narrative for change, free verse for image and feeling, letter poems for direct address.
Do not write in the first person as a member of a nation you do not belong to, or borrow sacred stories, figures or languages as decoration.
Family and community stories may carry protocols; ask before you publish them.

Building a Literary or Persuasive Essay

A thesis must be debatable, say how or why, and be provable with evidence.
A topic sentence is a claim that proves one part of the thesis — never a plot summary.
Integrate quotations with a signal phrase, by embedding, or after a colon; never drop one in alone.
Analysis moves from word, to technique, to effect on the reader, to theme, to the thesis.
MLA in-text citation: author's surname and page in parentheses, no comma, period after — for example (Surname 12).
Write about literature in the present tense, and end with a conclusion that answers 'so what?' rather than repeating.

Research, Citation, Revision and Reflection

Start research with First Nations, Métis and Inuit authors, organizations and primary documents, then judge other sources against them.
MLA in-text: (Surname page). Works Cited: alphabetical, double-spaced, hanging indent.
Cite knowledge shared orally only with permission, with the person's name, nation or community, and the date.
Knowledge you are told is not for sharing stays out of your writing entirely.
Revise the argument, then edit sentences, then proofread the surface — largest to smallest — and reflect on your process afterward.