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← Unit 5: Writing for Reconciliation

NBE3U · Unit 5 test review

Writing for Reconciliation: Test Review

Everything for the Unit 5 test on one page: the key facts from all 6 lessons, the mistakes that cost the most marks, and a practice test that points you back to the lessons you need.

Key facts

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.

Where marks get lost

  • Writing 'the TRC report says' and then quoting a news headline or a social media summary instead of the Calls to Action themselves. (Truth and Reconciliation: The Reports and the Calls)
  • Confusing the two reports — the TRC's 94 Calls to Action (2015) and the National Inquiry's 231 Calls for Justice (2019) are different documents from different processes. (Truth and Reconciliation: The Reports and the Calls)
  • Describing reconciliation as something that already happened, usually because of the 2008 apology, when the reports frame it as ongoing work. (Truth and Reconciliation: The Reports and the Calls)
  • Opening an essay with a painful piece of Survivor testimony purely for effect, without attribution and without analysis explaining why it is there. (Truth and Reconciliation: The Reports and the Calls)
  • Treating September 30 only as a day to wear orange, with no connection to Call 80, Survivors, or learning. (Truth and Reconciliation: The Reports and the Calls)
  • Writing 'Indigenous people believe...' as if many distinct nations shared one set of beliefs. (Meaningful Allyship in Reading, Writing and Speaking)
  • Using 'our Indigenous peoples' or 'Canada's First Nations', which frames nations as belonging to the country. (Meaningful Allyship in Reading, Writing and Speaking)
  • Asking the one Indigenous student in the room to explain their culture or respond on behalf of all Indigenous peoples. (Meaningful Allyship in Reading, Writing and Speaking)
  • Writing about Indigenous cultures entirely in the past tense, as though they no longer exist. (Meaningful Allyship in Reading, Writing and Speaking)
  • Treating a land acknowledgement or an orange shirt as the entire contribution, with no learning or action behind it. (Meaningful Allyship in Reading, Writing and Speaking)
  • Writing about 'reconciliation' in general instead of a specific Call to Action cited by number. (Writing for Change: Letters, Op-Eds and the Calls to Action)
  • Sending a request to someone who has no power to act on it. (Writing for Change: Letters, Op-Eds and the Calls to Action)
  • Ending with a vague hope ('everyone should do their part') instead of a specific, feasible ask. (Writing for Change: Letters, Op-Eds and the Calls to Action)
  • Paraphrasing a Call from a news summary or social media post instead of the original document, and getting its wording wrong. (Writing for Change: Letters, Op-Eds and the Calls to Action)
  • Speaking for First Nations, Métis or Inuit people ('Indigenous people want…') instead of citing what they have said in published sources. (Writing for Change: Letters, Op-Eds and the Calls to Action)
  • Telling the reader what to feel ('it was beautiful', 'I was sad') instead of showing it with a specific image. (Writing Creatively: Personal Narrative and Poetry)
  • Writing in a borrowed 'literary' voice that does not sound like you, or erasing the words your family really uses. (Writing Creatively: Personal Narrative and Poetry)
  • Writing in the first person as a member of a nation you do not belong to, or adapting sacred stories and figures. (Writing Creatively: Personal Narrative and Poetry)
  • Publishing a family or community story without asking the people it belongs to. (Writing Creatively: Personal Narrative and Poetry)
  • Ending with a summary or moral instead of a turn that deepens what came before. (Writing Creatively: Personal Narrative and Poetry)
  • Writing a thesis that is a fact or a plot summary, so there is nothing to argue and the essay becomes a retelling. (Building a Literary or Persuasive Essay)
  • Dropping a quotation in as its own sentence, then following it with 'This shows...' without saying what it shows or how. (Building a Literary or Persuasive Essay)
  • Naming a device ('this is a simile') and stopping, instead of explaining the effect on the reader and the connection to theme. (Building a Literary or Persuasive Essay)
  • Using long block quotations that fill the paragraph, leaving less of your own analysis than of the author's words. (Building a Literary or Persuasive Essay)
  • Ending with a conclusion that repeats the introduction word for word or introduces new, unanalyzed evidence. (Building a Literary or Persuasive Essay)
  • Building an essay on general websites and outside commentary, then adding one Indigenous source at the end for appearances. (Research, Citation, Revision and Reflection)
  • Citing knowledge shared orally as 'an Elder said', with no name, nation or community, date, or permission. (Research, Citation, Revision and Reflection)
  • Including a story or teaching the person asked not to be written down, on the grounds that it was cited properly. (Research, Citation, Revision and Reflection)
  • Leaving out citations for paraphrased ideas, or putting the period before the parenthetical citation instead of after it. (Research, Citation, Revision and Reflection)
  • Proofreading for commas before fixing a thesis that the body paragraphs do not actually prove. (Research, Citation, Revision and Reflection)

Practice test

24 questions from across the unit. Each one shows the lesson it comes from.

  1. Truth and Reconciliation: The Reports and the Calls
    1
    How many Calls to Action did the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada issue?
  2. Truth and Reconciliation: The Reports and the Calls
    2
    What do the Legacy Calls to Action (1 to 42) focus on?
  3. Truth and Reconciliation: The Reports and the Calls
    3
    Which is the most responsible way to use a published Survivor's statement in an essay?
  4. Truth and Reconciliation: The Reports and the Calls
    4
    What is the title of the 2019 final report of the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls?
  5. Meaningful Allyship in Reading, Writing and Speaking
    5
    Which action is an example of speaking over rather than speaking up?
  6. Meaningful Allyship in Reading, Writing and Speaking
    6
    What is the word for one Inuit person?
  7. Meaningful Allyship in Reading, Writing and Speaking
    7
    What term describes a visible gesture of support that substitutes for real action?
  8. Meaningful Allyship in Reading, Writing and Speaking
    8
    A sentence in your essay begins, 'Indigenous people believe that...'. What is the best revision strategy?
  9. Writing for Change: Letters, Op-Eds and the Calls to Action
    9
    The sports and reconciliation section runs from Call 87 to Call 91, inclusive. How many Calls is that? (Give a whole number.)
  10. Writing for Change: Letters, Op-Eds and the Calls to Action
    10
    A student wants to see more learning about treaties in local schools. Who is the best audience for the letter?
  11. Writing for Change: Letters, Op-Eds and the Calls to Action
    11
    What persuasive technique acknowledges a true point on the other side before answering it?
  12. Writing for Change: Letters, Op-Eds and the Calls to Action
    12
    Which sentence advocates responsibly in the writer's own voice?
  13. Writing Creatively: Personal Narrative and Poetry
    13
    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
  14. Writing Creatively: Personal Narrative and Poetry
    14
    What is the term for a writer's word choice?
  15. Writing Creatively: Personal Narrative and Poetry
    15
    A non-Indigenous student wants to write a poem about what they learned in this course. Which approach respects the voice boundary?
  16. Writing Creatively: Personal Narrative and Poetry
    16
    Why do strong personal pieces often begin with a small, concrete detail?
  17. Building a Literary or Persuasive Essay
    17
    Which is a debatable thesis?
  18. Building a Literary or Persuasive Essay
    18
    Match each term to its purpose.
    Signal phrase
    Ellipsis
    Square brackets
    Topic sentence
    Counter-argument
  19. Building a Literary or Persuasive Essay
    19
    A paragraph says: 'The author uses a simile.' What should come next to make it analysis?
  20. Building a Literary or Persuasive Essay
    20
    In a persuasive essay, why include a counter-argument?
  21. Research, Citation, Revision and Reflection
    21
    Which source should you start with for an essay on Métis perspectives on identity?
  22. Research, Citation, Revision and Reflection
    22
    An Elder shared a teaching with your class. Which is the appropriate way to use it in an essay?
  23. Research, Citation, Revision and Reflection
    23
    Match each revision problem to the stage that fixes it.
    A topic sentence does not support the thesis
    A sentence is wordy and unclear
    'metis' is missing its capital and accent
    You want to record what helped you draft faster
  24. Research, Citation, Revision and Reflection
    24
    Which is the most useful reflection on a finished essay?

Endless drill

Fresh numbers every time, for the calculation questions in this unit.

Endless drillnew numbers every time

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