Complete Ethnic Studies Units for Every Classroom
Comprehensive, ready-to-teach units rooted in Indigenous epistemologies and intersectional analysis designed by educators to connect students to their identity, history, and agency.
Every unit comes ready to teach, featuring 10+ lessons with detailed plans and all supporting materials included.
Built for Depth—Grounded in Liberation
Each unit centers the lived experiences of communities of Color and equips educators to dismantle curriculum violence. With interdisciplinary frameworks across social studies, science, math, language arts, and the arts, these units build critical consciousness.
Elementary School
Ethnic Studies Survey
Humanities
No Me Without Community
No Me Without Community invites 3rd–5th graders to explore who they are through family, community, and collective identity. Students learn to see their strengths as part of something bigger by connecting personal growth to the people and places that shape them.
Lyrics and Liberation
The Lyrics and Liberation unit empowers grades 5–8 students to explore music as a form of storytelling, identity, and activism. Through lyric analysis and creative expression, students connect their voices to movements for justice by crafting protest playlists or original songs that celebrate liberation.
Ethnic Studies Identity Affirming Survey
Help students explore who they are and how they fit into movements for justice. The Identity Affirming Survey Course guides grades 6–12 through heritage, activism, and counter-narratives—connecting culture, community, and social change with focused supports for MLL learners.
LGBTQ+ Studies
This unit invites high school students to explore identity and agency through the lens of Ethnic Studies. Over ten lessons, students examine queer histories, intersectionality, and community activism and connecting self-awareness to movements for collective freedom.
Language Arts
Activists of Color
The Informational Writing Unit helps ELA students strengthen nonfiction reading and writing skills through an Ethnic Studies. Over four to six weeks, students analyze activism, identity, and resistance while creating infographics that connect research, voice, and social justice.
Lyrics and Liberation
The Lyrics and Liberation unit empowers grades 5–8 students to explore music as a form of storytelling, identity, and activism. Through lyric analysis and creative expression, students connect their voices to movements for justice by crafting protest playlists or original songs that celebrate liberation.
Argument Writing Mini-Unit
Across three lessons, learners analyze claims and evidence, craft argument essays, and design action projects that connect writing to advocacy. This mini-unit, inspired by The Hate U Give, helps students see arguments as an academic skill and a tool for social change.
THUG
This unit engages students in exploring identity, justice, and activism through Angie Thomas’s powerful novel. Over six to seven weeks, students connect literature to the real world, analyzing bias, code-switching, and resistance while developing critical reading, writing, and advocacy skills.
Featured Bundles
Expand impact, not your budget.
Bundle transformative units.
Ethnic Studies Pathway
The Ethnic Studies Pathway Bundle helps students build identity, empathy, and voice through storytelling, writing, and creative expression. Spanning grades 3–12, these units guide learners from community connection to self-advocacy, laying a foundation for culturally grounded, justice-centered learning.
Action & Advocacy
The Action & Advocacy Bundle equips students to turn learning into leadership through civic engagement and critical literacy. Across middle and high school levels, these units guide learners to analyze power, craft persuasive arguments, and design advocacy projects that connect classroom learning to real-world change.
Washington State Bundle
The Washington State Bundle brings local history to life through a justice-centered lens. Students explore Latinx history and civic engagement in Washington State, connecting community stories, activism, and policy to the state’s evolving identity and movements for justice and follow up with a project that advocates for a topic of their choice.
Middle School Bundle
The Middle School Bundle helps students explore identity, justice, and community through writing, music, and history. These units guide learners to think critically, express themselves creatively, and understand how their voices can influence change.
High School Bundle
The High School Bundle equips students to think critically, act collectively, and lead with purpose. Through units on LGBTQ+ Studies, civic engagement, and identity-affirming inquiry, learners explore how culture, power, and activism shape both personal and community transformation.
Build Your Own Bundle
The Build Your Own Bundle lets YOU create a custom mix of WAESN curriculum units tailored to your classroom needs. Choose any two or more Ethnic Studies-aligned units and save. It’s perfect for building a pathway that fits your grade level, subject, and students.
Curriculum Coaching
Available only as an add-on to WAESN curriculum purchases.
The Curriculum Coaching Add-On connects you directly with a WAESN educator for personalized implementation support. Get guidance on adapting units to your classroom, aligning lessons to standards, and creating meaningful, justice-centered learning experiences for your students.
Want to customize an Ethnic Studies unit for your district or community?
Explore other professional development and coaching opportunities.
Social Studies
Human Rights and the Rule of Law
Human Rights and the Rule of Law guides 6th-9th grade students to explore how concepts of justice, equity, and power have evolved from ancient civilizations to today. Through inquiry, discussion, and simulation, students examine early legal systems like Hammurabi’s Code and connect them to modern ideas of human rights and social responsibility.
Washington State Civics
The Washington State Civics unit empowers grades 8–12 students to explore civic engagement through an Ethnic Studies lens. Centered on student voice and education policy, this 14+ lesson unit guides learners to analyze power, strategize for change, and design advocacy campaigns that connect civic learning to real community action.
Washington State Latinx History
The Washington State Latinx History unit introduces 7th-grade students to the deep roots and lasting impact of Latinx communities in the Pacific Northwest. Spanning from the 18th century to today, it explores migration, labor, activism, and identity, highlighting how Latinx people have shaped Washington’s history, culture, and civic life.