Course Description: Roots & Rivers¶
Title: Roots & Rivers: An Interactive Guide to South Asian Cultures for High School Students Audience: High school students in grades 9-12. Second-generation South Asian American students reconnecting with their heritage, and classmates of any background who are curious. Also usable in social studies, world history, world geography and ethnic studies courses, and in South Asian student clubs. Prerequisites: None. Basic reading and map skills. Duration: Self-paced. About 22 sessions of 45-60 minutes (one per chapter), or one semester at 1-2 chapters per week. A club can run it as one chapter per monthly meeting over two years.
Course overview¶
South Asia, the eight countries of Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, the Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, is home to about one in four people on Earth. Its traditions shape the lives of millions of families in the United States, including in Minnesota. Yet most students meet it only through a few holidays, a few foods and a lot of stereotypes.
This course starts with the land and the long history that shaped the region: the Himalaya and the monsoon, the Indus cities, the great empires, colonial rule, Partition and the independence of eight nations. It then explores living culture: faiths, languages and scripts, festivals, food, music, dance, art, dress, family life, stories, cinema and cricket, and the region's contributions to science and mathematics. It tours each of the eight countries and follows South Asians around the world, to the Caribbean, East Africa, the United Kingdom and the United States.
Every chapter has an interactive simulation, a Whose Story? box that shows how different communities tell the same history, and an Ask Your Elders interview guide. By the end, students have interviewed family or community members across 21 topics and can turn those interviews into an ethical oral history project for their school or club.
Main topics covered¶
| # | Chapter |
|---|---|
| 1 | What Is South Asia? |
| 2 | Ancient Roots |
| 3 | Empires and Encounters |
| 4 | Colonialism, Independence, and Partition |
| 5 | Faiths of South Asia |
| 6 | Languages and Scripts |
| 7 | Festivals Through the Year |
| 8 | Food and the Table |
| 9 | Music |
| 10 | Dance and Theater |
| 11 | Art, Architecture, and Craft |
| 12 | Clothing and Textiles |
| 13 | Family, Names, and Life Events |
| 14 | Stories and Literature |
| 15 | Cinema, Cricket, and Pop Culture |
| 16 | Science, Math, and Ideas |
| 17 | India |
| 18 | Pakistan and Afghanistan |
| 19 | Bangladesh and Sri Lanka |
| 20 | Nepal, Bhutan, and the Maldives |
| 21 | The South Asian Diaspora |
| 22 | Bring It Home |
Appendices: A. Pronunciation and Script Guide; B. Country Fact Sheets; C. Festival Calendar 2026-27.
Topics not covered¶
- Current party politics, elections beyond basic facts, and opinions on present-day governments.
- Religious instruction or theology beyond what is needed to understand practice and culture.
- Fluency in any language (the book teaches about languages and scripts, not full grammar).
- Medical, legal or immigration advice.
- Detailed military history.
Learning outcomes¶
Remember - List the eight countries of South Asia and locate them on a schematic map. - Name the major faiths, language families and festivals of the region. - Recall key dates: 1947, 1948, 1971 and the founding of SAARC in 1985. - Define core terms such as monsoon, raga, tala, abugida, diaspora and oral history.
Understand - Explain how mountains, rivers and the monsoon shape where people live and what they eat. - Summarize how British rule ended in Partition and how Bangladesh later became independent. - Explain why lunar, lunisolar and solar festivals fall on different dates each year. - Describe how many South Asian scripts descend from Brahmi.
Apply - Use the respelling guide to pronounce key terms from several languages. - Count a tala cycle and find its first beat. - Use a festival calendar to predict roughly when a moving festival will fall. - Apply the Ask Your Elders method in a real interview.
Analyze - Compare how two faiths, two countries or two regions approach the same practice. - Distinguish a region, a nation, a language and a script. - Analyze how one historical event is remembered differently across countries and communities. - Trace how a story, dish or word traveled across borders.
Evaluate - Judge whether a media portrayal of South Asians relies on stereotypes, using evidence. - Assess the difference between cultural appreciation and appropriation in a real case. - Critique a source about South Asia for bias, date and evidence.
Create - Design and conduct an ethical oral history interview with an elder. - Plan a club meeting or school event that teaches one tradition accurately. - Create a kolam pattern, a festival calendar or a family kinship chart. - Produce a short presentation that connects a family story to the history in this book.
Assessment¶
- A 10-question multiple-choice quiz per chapter with explained answers (220 questions total).
- Check Yourself questions and 12 Bloom-level exercises per chapter.
- 21 Ask Your Elders interviews that build into a final oral history project (Chapter 22).
- Optional pre/post test for clubs and classes (see the pilot study kit).