Texts to Diversify Your Secondary Curriculum

Now, more than ever, it is crucial that we as secondary English teachers work consciously to diversify the cannon. “Imagine a world in which all children can see themselves in the pages of a book.” This is the mission of the organization We Need Diverse Books. We Need Diverse Books has been working towards this goal for a long time, and they provide amazing resources to help teachers do just that.

As our country continues to diversify and embrace diversity, we must reach beyond the traditional white male British canon and integrate authors that represent other religious, ethnic, gender, and world perspectives that are represented by the demographics of students at our schools. This means growing pains for many of us English teachers because we typically have minimal exposure to literature outside of the traditional canon. I’ve never taken a course on Asian or Hispanic literature in any of my degree programs, and these types of diverse classes need to become cornerstone requirements for all English teachers moving into the future.

Our students need to see themselves represented in the literature we assign. They need to see that their perspectives matter. They need and deserve to be seen.

So, I have compiled a list of diverse text options to use that will engage students in reading, writing, and discussion. There are so many more options where these come from, but these should help to get you started.

Non-fiction Articles, Anthologies, & Books

• “Western Elite from a Chinese Perspective” by Puzhong Yao

• “My Mongolian Spot” by Jennifer Hope Choi

• “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

• “The Transformation of Silence into Language and Action” by Audre Lorde

• “Just Walk on By: A Black Man Ponders His Own Power to Alter Public Space” by Brent Staples

• “What does it mean to be Latino in America today?” by Tanzina Vega

• “My Mexican-American Identity Crisis” by Ruben Navarrette

• “Accepting my Bi-Cultural Reality: On Being a First-Generation Mexican American” by Maria Lopez de la Cruz

• “The Day I Learned I Was American” by Juliet Lapidos

• Born This Way: Real Stories of Growing Up Gay by Paul V. Vitagliano

• The Autobiography of Malcolm X by Malcolm X, Alex Haley

• American Like Me: Reflections on Life Between Cultures by America Ferrera

• Whistling Vivaldi: How Stereotypes Affect Us and What We Can Do by Claude M. Steele

• Black Skin, White Masks by Frantz Fanon, Richard Philcox

• Dear America: Notes of an Undocumented Citizen by Jose Antonio Vargas

• Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches by Audre Lorde

• I Am Malala: The Story of the Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot by the Taliban by Malala Yousafzai, Christina Lamb

• Every Falling Star: The True Story of How I Survived and Escaped North Korea by Sungju Lee

Short Stories & Short Story Anthologies

• “Brownies” by Z.Z. Packer

• “The American Embassy” by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie [found in The Thing Around Your Neck]

• “Fiesta” by Junot Diaz

• “Borders” by Thomas King [found in One Good Story, That One]

• “The Dress from Bangladesh” by Mary Helen Stefaniak

• “Mrs. Dutta Writes a Letter” by Chitra Divakaruni

• “In the Kindergarten” by Ha Jin

• “A Contract Overseas” by Mia Alvar

• “War Years” by Viet Thanh Nguyen [in The Refugees]

• “In the Land of Men” by Antonya Nelson

• “A Ride Out of Phar” by Dina Nayeri

• “Ishwari’s Children” by Shabnam Nadiya

• “The Semplica-Girl Diaries” by George Saunders

• “Pact” by Mark Oshiro

• Am I Blue?: Coming Out from the Silence by Marion Dane Bauer

Poems & Poetry anthologies

• “Still I Rise” by Maya Angelou

• “Ode to a Large Tuna in the Market” by Pablo Neruda

• Four Poems from Israel by Yudit Shahar

  • “Fingertips”

  • “On the Day You Came”

  • “Turkish Movie”

  • “Apples Wounded in Cinnamon”

• Three Afrikaans Poems by Ilse van Staden

  • “return”

  • “door”

  • “traveling by house toward death”

• “A Century Later” by Imtiaz Dharker

• “Text” by Carol Ann Duffy

• “Webcam the World” by Heather McHugh

• “There Was No Plot” by Coral Bracho

• 19 Varieties of Gazelle: Poems of the Middle East by Naomi Shihab Nye

• A Suitcase of Seaweed and Other Poems by Janet Wong

• Beastgirl and Other Origin Myths by Elizabeth Acevedo

• Cool Salsa by Lori Marie Carlson

• Dizzy in Your Eyes: Poems About Love by Pat Mora

• “We Real Cool” by Gwendolyn Brooks

• “Kindness” by Naomi Shihab Nye

• “Remember” by Joy Harjo

• “The Weary Blues” by Langston Hughes

• “A Brown Girl Dead” by Countee Cullen

• “23 Reasons Why Mexicanos Can Still Be Found in a Walmart” by Alessandra Narváez Varela

• “Advice for Using Blood in a Poem” by Albert Abonado

• “Blood and Bones” by Mahtem Shiferraw

• “Prologue to a Womanhood” by Hera Naguib

• “The Moons of Neptune” by Như Xuân Nguyễn

• “How I Pray in the Plague” by Kwame Dawes

• “Reciprocity is a Two-Way Street” by Momtaza Mehri

• “On the Last Day, the Bullet” is Asked by Sadia Hassan

• “Undoing” by Khadijah Queen

• “poem where no one is deported” by José Olivarez

Novels

• Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Sáenz

• And the Mountains Echoed by Khaled Hosseini

• Saints and Misfits by S.K. Ali

• When Dimple Met Rishi by Sandhya Menon

• The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas

• The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie

• Shooting Kabul by N.H. Senzai

• Escape from Aleppo by N.H. Senzai

• Refugee by Alan Gratz

• Bless Me, Ultima by Rudolfo Anaya

• The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri

• Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston

• Anger Is a Gift by Mark Oshiro

• Caramelo by Sandra Cisneros

• Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng

• Pachinko by Min Jin Lee

• Beloved by Toni Morrison

• The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan

• The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy

• The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid

• The Complete Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi

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I hope that these lists give you some ideas to diversify the literature in your classes. There are many more options where these come from, but these texts will be sure to represent and celebrate the diversity of your students.

Be sure to check out the bundle of 100 Reading Response Cards for ANY NOVEL by clicking here. These 100 question cards for any novel will help your students engage in meaningful and insightful discussions about the books they are reading. The cards address setting, characters, plot, theme, symbolism, point of view, style, and more! Students will need to use reading strategies such as inference, summarizing, comparing and contrasting etc. to dig deeper into the text.

What other diverse texts would you add to this list? Join the conversation by leaving a comment below!

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About the Author

Meredith is the founder and creator of TeachWriting.org and Bespoke ELA. She has taught high school English for 14+ years in Dallas, Chicago, and New York City and holds a M.A. in Literature from Northwestern University.  She has always had a connection to the written word-- through songwriting, screenplay writing, and essay writing-- and she enjoys the process of teaching students how to express their ideas.  Meredith enjoys life with her sweet daughter and Yorkie.