Enhance students’ knowledge and skills in literacy and communication while building their understanding of Japan through literature-based cross-curricular instruction! The Program for Teaching East Asia at the University of Colorado announces new online curriculum free to educators.

The Texts and Contexts: Teaching Japan through Children’s Literature online curriculum is a collection of teacher-developed, standards-based, cross-curricular K-6 lessons. Each of the six lessons features an authentic children’s literature book on an aspect of Japanese culture. Each lesson includes all required handouts and visuals (including PowerPoints and/or video). The six lessons are:

Poetry Talk – After reading The Girl Who Loved Caterpillars (1992), students write and communicate in Heian-period tanka poetry.

Hachikō: A Loyal Dog – With Hachiko: The True Story of a Loyal Dog (2004) or Hachiko Waits (2004) serving as source material for the lesson, students explore commuting in Japan and concepts of loyalty and community through creative art and writing projects.

Grass Sandals: A Mini-Unit on Haiku and Brush Painting – Via Grass Sandals: The Travels of Basho (1997), students experience the art of the ink brush through Japanese poetry, characters, and illustrations.

Comparing Japanese Folktales with American Tall Tales – In this genre-study lesson, students compare and re-write the stories of Momotarō and Paul Bunyan.

Two Homes: Living in Two Cultures – Making text-to-self connections with the main character of The Wakame Gatherers (2007), students develop cultural awareness and comparison skills.

Telephone Tanabata – Analyzing Chinese, Korean, and Japanese versions of a festival story, students learn about cultural borrowing and the kamishibai form of Japanese storytelling.

All lessons are aligned with the Common Core Standards for Reading and Writing and the National Standards in Civics, Geography, History, and/or Visual Arts. The lessons are available at:
Texts and Contexts

TEA is a project of the University of Colorado Center for Asian Studies. This curriculum project is funded through grants from the Freeman Foundation and the Japan Foundation Center for Global Partnership.