The Little Prince's blend of philosophy, visual art, and even light scientific content around stars and planets makes it an unusually good candidate for a cross curricular unit, where multiple departments build coordinated lessons around the same shared text. Schools with the flexibility to coordinate scheduling across departments can create a richer experience than any single classroom could offer alone.

An English classroom might lead with the core literary analysis, while an art classroom builds a parallel unit on illustration technique inspired by Saint-Exupéry's own watercolors, and a French language classroom explores excerpts of the original French text alongside vocabulary building exercises. Coordinating the timing of these units, even loosely, helps students see connections across their different classes rather than experiencing each subject in isolation.

A philosophy or ethics course, where one exists in a school's curriculum, can use the novel as an entry point into discussions of authenticity and meaning that connect directly to the existentialist themes discussed elsewhere in more advanced literature courses. This works particularly well as a lighter, more accessible introduction to philosophical concepts before students encounter denser primary philosophical texts.

Even a science classroom touching briefly on astronomy can use the prince's home asteroid, B-612, as a jumping off point for discussing scale in the solar system, though this connection is more playful than substantive and works best as a brief engaging tie-in rather than a full lesson built around scientific accuracy the book was never attempting.

Coordinating Across Departments

Successful cross curricular units usually start with a single planning meeting where each department identifies what they can realistically contribute without significantly disrupting their own existing curriculum pacing. Small, well defined contributions from each subject tend to work better than attempting a fully integrated unit that requires every department to substantially rework their existing plans.

• English: lead literary analysis unit with essay and discussion components
• Art: illustration technique lesson inspired by Saint-Exupéry's watercolors
• World language: excerpts of the original French text and vocabulary building
• Philosophy or ethics: discussion of authenticity and meaning connected to the asteroid chapters
• Science: brief astronomy tie-in discussing scale using the prince's home asteroid

Assessing Across Multiple Subjects

Each department should generally maintain its own grading and assessment for its portion of the unit, rather than attempting a single shared grade across subjects, since this preserves clear accountability within each teacher's own gradebook and avoids the logistical complications of cross department grading agreements. Coordination should focus on content and timing, not necessarily on a unified assessment.

A shared culminating event, such as a school wide showcase of student illustrations, essays, and French language work all inspired by the same text, can serve as a celebratory capstone without requiring departments to merge their individual grading processes.

Managing Scheduling Realities

Full cross curricular coordination is genuinely difficult to pull off given the realities of different departments moving at different paces through their own curricula, and it is worth being realistic about how much alignment is achievable in a given school year. Even a loose, informal coordination, where departments simply know that other classes are touching the same text around the same time, offers real value without requiring elaborate joint planning.

Starting small, with just two departments coordinating in a given year, and expanding the following year if it goes well, is generally a more sustainable approach than attempting a fully integrated five department unit on the first try.

Long Term Value of Cross Curricular Work

Beyond the immediate engagement benefits, cross curricular units help students see that literary texts do not exist in isolation from other domains of knowledge, reinforcing the idea that critical thinking and analysis skills genuinely transfer across subjects. This kind of connected learning experience tends to be memorable well beyond the specific content of any single unit.

Schools that build this kind of coordination once often find it easier to repeat with other shared texts in future years, having already worked through the logistical challenges of scheduling and communication the first time around.