As a Muslim, Pakistani-American student growing up on the East Coast, I experienced school with multiple identities that were often ignored, misunderstood, or altogether invisible. I had not yet developed the language to articulate the impact of that. Religious literacy later provided me with a framework for that experience. It validated that my identities were not departures from a presumed standard, but lived experiences shaped by culture, religion, and history…and worthy of being understood.

Importance of Integration

Students encounter religion constantly through current events, movies, social media, books, holidays, and their peers, yet they are rarely taught how to think critically about it in the English/Language Arts (ELA) classroom. In ELA, religious references are often overlooked or treated as insignificant details, despite their importance to understanding characters, motivations, and historical context. Many educators have been encouraged to avoid religion altogether. The result is not neutrality, but confusion. Students are left to interpret religious references on their own, often relying on stereotypes, if they acknowledge the references at all. Without religious literacy, students struggle to distinguish between belief, faith, practice, culture, ethnicity, and race. These distinctions are essential for reading and critical thinking. The question, “What happens when religion is present in texts but absent from instruction?” is what guides my work.

My commitment to answering this question was solidified through my Fulbright experience, my work with the Interfaith Center of New York, and later at Harvard Divinity School, where I encountered the concept of “contested reality.” A contested reality refers to situations that are lived and understood differently across different communities. This language transformed my teaching by helping me recognize religion not as a topic to avoid, but as an additional lens that shapes perspectives.

The gap I see in ELA curricula is a lack of intentional instruction for analyzing how religion influences characters, authors, and by extension, us. My goal is to integrate religious literacy into ELA in academically rigorous, non-devotional ways. I anchor this work in ELA practices: evidence-based thinking, perspective-taking, character analysis, and reasoning. In practice, this means prompting students to consider where an author is from, what traditions or beliefs might shape how a story is told, whose voices are present, and whose are missing. Religion becomes one of many lenses rather than an isolated topic.

I also embed religious literacy into nonfiction research. For example, when students research the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, they examine not only the goal itself, but also how their own identities, values, or beliefs influenced their choice. When researching endangered or extinct species, students may explore religious beliefs or practices that contribute to the protection or harm of those animals. These approaches reinforce that religion is not an add-on, but a dimension of human experience that intersects with literature, history, and science.

Impact and Understanding

In the classroom, the impact has been clear. Students ask more thoughtful questions and engage in deeper discussions. Most importantly, they learn that understanding does not require agreement. When approached thoughtfully, religious literacy strengthens the objectives of ELA: evidence-based reasoning, close reading, critical thinking, and responsible engagement with the world.

This work is not without pushback. Some conflate teaching about religion with promoting belief. Others are uncomfortable with the gray areas, particularly in school systems that prioritize standardization. Still others view religion as political and therefore inappropriate for the classroom. Navigating these challenges requires a strong grounding in learning standards, along with transparency and clear language. While avoidance may feel like the safest choice sometimes, it is not neutral. It leaves students underprepared to engage meaningfully with texts…and with one another.

Ultimately, my goal is to build the classroom I needed as a child: one that offers students language to ask better questions, tools to understand differences, and permission to explore identity without fear. When we treat religion as a subject worthy of study rather than a problem to manage, we prepare students to navigate complexity with understanding, safety, and care.

AI Disclosure: Portions of this post were supported by generative writing tools. All ideas and the final product reflect my own professional experience and opinions. 

About the Author

Kiran Masud is a Pakistani American educator based in New Jersey. A self-proclaimed hodophile, proud aunt to four nephews and a niece, and self-published author, she believes that travel, challenging the status quo, embracing discomfort, and creating space for worldly narratives are essential to personal and collective growth. She earned her Master’s in Education from Rutgers University and now leads the “Masudians,” the affectionate name she gives her fifth-grade students.

Her passion for global citizenship has taken her beyond the classroom, earning her a Fulbright Scholarship to Uruguay, an NEA fellowship to Costa Rica, acceptance into the Lived Religions workshop through the Interfaith Center of New York City, and admission to the Contested Realities workshop at Harvard Divinity School. She was also selected as a “Peace Teacher” by the United States Institute of Peace. Most recently, she was named Teacher of the Year for her school and County Teacher of the Year. Through these experiences, Kiran is committed to growing as an educator and empowering students to navigate complex social issues with curiosity, empathy, and purpose.