FREE LESSON: Getting to know Lupita Nyong'o (6th grade)

“I thought that in order to make it into the pages of the books you had to be light. So, in fact, one of the first times I drew my family, I drew them with light skin.”

Actress Lupita Nyong’o shared this quote in an interview explaining her inspiration for Sulwe.

I found this moment so moving that it sparked an idea for a 6th-grade lesson. The aim was to:

• introduce students to Nyong’o as an author (they had read Sulwe the previous week),

• explore why diversity in literature matters, and

• gently revisit the simple past tense for storytelling.

  
  

Alongside a short clip from the interview, the lesson also invites students to reflect on an image of light-coloured crayons labelled “flesh,” its common translation into Portuguese (still widely used by children today), and how a lack of representation shapes young people’s sense of possibility.

This lesson was part of a wider interdisciplinary project I joined, A Tale Never Loses in the Telling, developed with colleagues from Portuguese, Music, Spanish, and French. Together, we explored Native Brazilian legends, Shakespearean retellings, popular songs, and African folktales as essential for our students’ cultural repertoire.

If you’d like to hear more about the project, you can watch the talk I presented with Erika Coachman at the 6th Annual Future of English Language Teaching Conference, hosted by Trinity College London.

Ready to Share the Activities with Your Students?

Click here to access the complete lesson material— it’s free to use and fully customisable to suit your teaching context. Whether you opt for the PDF or the Google Slides version, the latter allows students to type their responses directly into the document.

A few quick notes:

• This resource is intended solely for educational purposes.

• Please ensure proper credit is given and that the sources of the selected texts are clearly cited.

If you use this material, I’d love to hear your feedback! Sharing ideas and experiences is what keeps our teaching community thriving.

I hope it offers a bit of inspiration for similar work in your own context. (: