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Teach Students About AAPI Heritage Month in Your ELA Classes
Christy Walters
April 1, 2025
Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) communities make significant contributions to the literature, poetry, and other art we know and love. With Newsela ELA, you and your students can explore some of them and build background knowledge about AAPI heritage, the authors’ lives, and their experiences.
Have students read Janet Wong’s poem “I am not a plucot (but I kind of am).”
As a class, explore how people of mixed-Asian descent self-identify in their AAPI communities and how Wong uses metaphors to explain their experiences in her poetry.
Ask students to discover what “Asian American” means to different AAPI communities, like those from South and Central Asia, East and Southeast Asia, and the Pacific Islands.
You can also use this poem and lesson with your youngest students with a version designed especially for the elementary grade band!
[Explore AAPI cultures with Asian folktales](id-folktales)
Cultural folktales give us insights into the beliefs and traditions passed down through generations in different parts of the world. This May, explore Asian folktales with your students to learn more about the cultures behind our AAPI communities, with selections like:
“Heungbu and Nolbu: A Korean Story”
“The Raja and the Rice: An Indian Story”
“Spring and Autumn: A Japanese Story”
“Pan Gu: The Chinese Origin Story”
[See how AAPI diversity is hitting the small screen](id-tv)
Disney+ offers the long-awaited screen adaptation of Gene Luen Yang’s graphic novel “American Born Chinese” on its streaming service. Students can dive into the story—and the significance of this screen adaptation—with the following lesson:
First, introduce students to the author, novel, and series to build background knowledge.
Then, ask students the guiding question, “How do authentic and inauthentic representations affect how others outside a cultural group view people who identify as part of the group?”
Extend the lesson and encourage students to write the outline or overview for a book or script that features a character that matches their self-identity or cultural background, and why the elements they included help with cultural representation.
[Learn about how the publishing industry is amplifying AAPI voices](id-publishing)
In 2020, only 22 out of the 220 authors with books on “The New York Times” fiction bestseller list were people of color. That’s just one of the reasons why Isabelle Thuy Pelaud and Viet Thanh Nguyen created the Diasporic Vietnamese Artists Network (DVAN) within the publishing industry to highlight Vietnamese voices. Explore this topic with students by:
Assigning an article that teaches about the challenges of bringing Vietnamese and other AAPI literature into the public sphere.
Posing a compelling question, like, “Why is it important to highlight the voices of authors of color?”
Adding an extension activity, like teaching students how to write a grant proposal to raise money for DVAN or similar organizations, and how they can persuade donors to spend money on the cause.
[Explore family relationships in AAPI cultures](id-family)
Family relationships may look different in every household—and across cultures. Students can dive into these nuances within AAPI mother-daughter relationships using texts by Chinese-American author Amy Tan.
First have students read Tan’s narrative essays “Fish Cheeks” and “Mother Tongue.”
Next, ask them to complete a T-chart, listing evidence that helped them understand the speaker’s feelings and ideas on one side, and what tools the author used to help them understand the evidence on the other.
Finally, have students read a biography about Tan to learn more about her childhood and her journey to becoming an author.
[Make text connections using AAPI paired text lessons](id-paired)
Help students make text-to-self, text-to-world, and text-to-text connections by reading and comparing fiction and nonfiction texts on AAPI topics. Students can use paired text analysis worksheets or Venn diagrams to answer comparison questions and track their observations of text pairings like:
We hope these resources make it easier to help you develop relevant, engaging lessons about AAPI heritage, cultures, and identities in your ELA classes this May. But Newsela has even more great content, interactive activities, and assessment tools that you can use in the classroom all year.
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