Explore a curated collection of resources designed specifically for educators teaching about East Asia and Asian America. Below, you’ll find links to primary sources, structured curriculums, comprehensive resource collections, and other classroom materials to enrich your lessons. You can filter your search by grade level, region, state standard, and resource type, or just search for a specific topic or keyword. Additionally, don’t miss the excellent content available through NCTA’s Partner Sites, tailored to support K-12 educators in bringing East Asia into the classroom.
This lesson plan uses Vietnamese poetry to help students understand the attitudes of Vietnamese citizens toward the Vietnam War and American involvement. Designed for high school juniors but suitable for grades 9-12, this activity builds on students’ prior knowledge of Vietnam’s history and geography, offering a unique perspective on the emotional and cultural impact of the war.
This short video from PBS Learning Media delves into the life of Ho Chí Minh, Prime Minister and President of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, focusing on his path to becoming a communist and founding the Viet Minh, a national independence coalition. Designed for grades 9-12, this resource provides an engaging overview of Ho Chí Minh’s impact on Vietnamese history, offering essential context for understanding the Vietnam War.
“At-Home Adventures through Asia: Introduction to Vietnam” offers a rich, interactive exploration of Vietnamese culture tailored for K-6 students. Originally designed for parents and children, the activities in this program include a presentation on Vietnam and engaging artistic activities that can easily be adapted for classroom use, helping to build cultural empathy and global awareness.
The Children’s Discovery Museum of San Jose offers an immersive set of online resources for children to interactively learn about Vietnamese culture. The exhibits feature a variety of topics, such as traditional foods, clothing, ancestor altars, musical instruments, and festivals, with a special focus on the Tet Festival. These engaging resources can be adapted for use in grades K-6, providing meaningful and educational pathways to explore aspects of life and culture in Vietnam.
This resource guide provides an overview of the Vietnamese language, including its linguistic features and writing systems. It covers the history of Vietnamese script, offers sample texts and videos, and includes practical materials for learning Vietnamese phrases and words. The guide also provides links to further information and educational resources for deeper exploration of Vietnamese language and culture.
This curated collection from Asia for Educators gathers a wide range of teaching materials on Confucianism. One highlight is the Confucianism lesson plan, which provides strategies for getting students to think more broadly about applying Confucian ideas—fostering both historical understanding and critical thinking. Another useful resource is the DBQs featuring selections from The Analects, which offer accessible primary sources alongside thoughtful discussion prompts that help students engage deeply with Confucian values.
Asia For Educators, at Columbia University’s Weatherhead East Asia Institute, has compiled a collection of resources for K-5 teachers. This collection is centered around Japan and offers resources for a wide variety of subjects: geography, language, culture, history, science, math, literature, arts & crafts, and drama & dance.
This curriculum is one of several Teaching about East Asia (TEA) Online Curriculum Projects from the University of Colorado Boulder that offers secondary teachers interesting resources. This curriculum offers seven lessons that examine a critical period in Japanese and world history: the period of Japan’s modernization and international expansion from the 1880s through the 1920s, a time span overlapping the late Meiji, Taishō, and early Shōwa periods. The lessons draw upon a range of historical source materials—including art, literature, memoir, interviews, board games, and government documents—to teach Japanese history using pedagogical approaches that address national content standards and Common Core skills.
PBS LearningMedia’s Around the Globe: Japan is a large collection of resources including webpages, documents, audio files, images, videos, media galleries, and lesson plans centered around Japan, its society and its culture. Resources are available for grades 3-12.
The inclusion of queer history in curriculums is integral to teaching about world civilizations. With this featured article, high school students can be introduced to prevalent representations of bisexuality in Han Dynasty China. In the Western Han Dynasty (206 BCE to 220 CE) it was common for emperors to have both wives and male companions. Both men and women at the time used intimate relationships to gain favor with the upper court, and this openness to nonheterosexual intimacy led to legendary love stories that are still prevalent as symbols of queer love.
Within the context of queer activism, perhaps one of the most inspiring movements is that of the Chinese LGBTQ community. In pre-modern times, China had a long history of societally accepted homosexuality, a stark contrast to pre-modern Europe that largely viewed any homosexuality as an abomination. However, in the present period, the Chinese Party-State has suppressed and censored the LGBTQ community, prompting activists to fight back. This article discusses the ups and downs queer activism in China has experienced in the last few decades, the role of nongovernmental organizations as opportunities for change, and the political sensitivity surrounding human rights activism.
The “One-China Policy Primer” is a thorough resource that outlines the positions of the People’s Republic of China, the Republic of China (Taiwan), and the United States on the subject of the One-China concept and Taiwan’s political status.
