My new friend ChatGPT helped me create a unit to fit within my plans for next year. When I told it that I wanted to be able to share it more easily, it offered to write it up in blog post format. For ease of sharing, I am pasting what IT WROTE below. I will come back and convert the link to the downloadable doc if I can’t figure out how to do that now:
The following is all written by Chat GPT, not by me, but I created the unit with it. If that makes sense 🙂
Teaching Asian American Identity Through Drama & Fiction: A 3-Week AP Literature Unit
Are you looking to bring authentic Asian American voices into your AP English Literature classroom? This 3-week unit blends contemporary drama and fiction with poetry, short stories, and culturally responsive assignments aligned to the AP Lit framework.
Rooted in powerful works like Vietgone by Qui Nguyen and The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan, this unit incorporates assignments and readings from the Coachella Valley Unified School District’s Asian American Literature Anthology to create a rich, meaningful, and highly teachable sequence.
Unit Title:
Claiming Space, Reclaiming Voice: The Asian American Experience in Drama and Fiction
Unit Overview
This unit explores identity, intergenerational conflict, assimilation, resistance, and voice through two major texts:
• Vietgone by Qui Nguyen – a bold, genre-bending refugee love story set in the aftermath of the Vietnam War
• The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan – a classic novel of mothers and daughters navigating culture and memory
Paired with poems by Kosal Khiev and Dwight Okita, and stories like “Two Kinds” and “What Means Switch?”, students will engage deeply with literature that complicates stereotypes and centers authentic Asian American experiences.
What’s Included
• A day-by-day teaching calendar (15 class days)
• AP-aligned writing assignments, seminars, and timed essays
• Integrated assignments from CVUSD’s Asian American unit
• Typed-out resource links and full author attributions
• A focus on AP Literature skills: theme, structure, character, and literary argument
Download the Unit
Get the full, ready-to-teach unit as a Word document:
FIXED: Download AP Lit Unit Guide: Vietgone & Joy Luck Club with CVUSD Integration:
Additional teaching notes and links:
Key Readings and Resources
• “The Vietnam War and the Refugee Experience” – PBS American Experience
• Vietgone by Qui Nguyen
• The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan
• “Two Kinds” by Amy Tan – CommonLit
• “Notes for a Poem on Being Asian American” by Dwight Okita – PoemHunter
• Kosal Khiev’s Poetry – YouTube Performance
Why This Unit Matters
Too often, Asian American characters are filtered through outsider perspectives like Madama Butterfly. This unit centers authentic voices and offers your students the chance to read, reflect, and write about literature that speaks with power, nuance, and relevance.
End of chatGPT post
What remains on my mind is whether this is too short of a unit. 3 weeks feels rather short to cover everything. That being said, this is part of a broader AP course and it will be covering other perspectives and so many pieces of literature so I’m not sure. I will keep you all posted!
Here are some additional assignments I’ll be including when we do this unit:
Let me know what you think! ✌🏻
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