Diversity Lesson Plan: I am me!

By Russell Vergara

Book Title: American-Born Chinese

Author: Gene Luen Yang

Publication Date: 12/23/2008

Grade Level: 9th/10th Grades

Subject: English

Culture: Chinese

Topic(s): Culture Identity, Stereotype

Social Justice Standards:

❖ Identity Standard #4: Students will express pride, confidence, and healthy self-esteem
without denying the value and dignity of other people.
❖ Identity Standard #5: Students will recognize traits of the dominant culture, their home
culture, and other cultures and understand how they negotiate their own identity in
multiple spaces.
❖ Diversity Standard #9: Students will respond to diversity by building empathy, respect,
understanding, and connection.

Nevada Academic Content Standards:

❖ Reading for Literature - Grade 9-10, #3: Analyze how complex characters (e.g., those
with multiple or conflicting motivations) develop over the course of a text, interact with
other characters, and advance the plot or develop the theme.
❖ Speaking & Listening - Grade 9-10, #1: initiate and participate effectively in a range of
collaborative discussions (one-on-one, in groups, and teacher-led) with diverse partners
on grades 9–10 topics, texts, and issues, building on others’ ideas and expressing their
own clearly and persuasively.
Objective: Students will be able to analyze the characters of the American-born Chinese with

textual evidence in class, and relate themselves to the story's characters through their own culture

and experience with 85% accuracy.

Materials: Book of American-born Chinese by Gene Luen Yang, S.T.E.A.L. worksheets, pen,

pencils.

Procedure:

⤿Introduce the book to the students. Shortly after introducing the book, ask students

what is something that they are proud of about their culture. Then follow up with the question,

“What is something that you don’t like about your culture and why?”. Explain how cultures are

unique and they should not change themselves in order to fit in and be who they are.

⤿Read the story with the students by assigning each character to a student for them to

read for the class while others listen. Students will volunteer to be assigned a character of their

choice whom they shall read the character’s lines aloud for the class each chapter.

⤿Discuss the book through an activity of Think/Pair/Share. Students will pair up in twos

and discuss the chapter questions with one another before sharing a class discussion with the

same set of questions.

1. What did the Monkey King start to notice after he went home from the banquet?

Why do you think this is relevant?

2. How did the class and the teacher react when Jin was introduced? How would you

describe the way they were acting?

3. When the Monkey King revealed his new form, how is it different from his old

one? Why do you think he did this?

4. What can you say about the ending of the story and how it all connects together?
 5. How can you relate to these characters and what they faced throughout the story?

⤿The activity shall be the S.T.E.A.L. Character Analysis. Students will be given two

characters that they will have to analyze from the book. Students will look for the following:

A. Speech - what does the character say? How do they say it? What were their tone

and their word choice?

B. Thoughts - what does the character think? What do we learn from their thoughts

and ideas?

C. Effect - what is this character’s effect on others? How do they interact with other

characters?

D. Actions - what does this character do? How do they behave? What can we learn

from their actions?

E. Looks - what does this character look like? What can we learn from how they

present themselves?

These should all be supported by textual evidence. After doing two S.T.E.A.L analyses,

they would need to do a Venn diagram of the two characters to compare and contrast the

characters with one another.

Assessment:

⤿Think/Pair/Share: Students will be assessed on how active and insightful they are with

their answers throughout the discussion. They will also be heavily graded on how they are able

to connect the issue of Stereotype and Cultural Identity to the story and to society today. Students

should be able to show empathy and appreciation for their own culture.
 ⤿S.T.E.A.L. Analysis: Students will be assessed based on textual evidence and accuracy

they have provided on the specific category of the analysis. They will be checked on whether

their textual evidence and character analysis are relevant and has significance about the issue of

Stereotype and Cultural Identity.

Dimensions of Multicultural Education:

⤿This lesson plan was created with some of the five dimensions of Multicultural

Education in mind. Knowledge Construction was addressed by making sure that students are able

to understand the themes of Stereotype and Cultural Identity in the book “American Born

Chinese” by reading through the text together as a class, having discussions with partners, and

analyzing the characters with supporting evidence from the book. The book “American Born

Chinese” focuses on the minority group of Chinese people in America and addresses the

dimension of content integration. With some of the themes of the book dealing with stereotypes

and one’s own cultural identity, it addresses the dimension of an empowering school culture

because through this book the teacher and the students are able to share about their cultures and

build awareness for each one. All these factors are able to show cultural relevancy in the lesson

and will be able to enhance a student’s cultural awareness and embrace each culture’s diversity.