This article explores how Australian English teachers can thoughtfully and critically address the cross-curriculum priority 'Asia and Australia's engagement with Asia' in secondary classrooms. It builds on our prior research, which highlighted factors that shape teacher attitudes towards addressing this cross-curriculum priority, the perceived evidence of political and economic motivations behind the inclusion of the priority, and the ways English teachers define and conceptualise Asia. We offer case studies of two New South Wales English teachers as they strive to reconcile curriculum requirements with classroom practices and to address the cross-curriculum priority in a way that promotes deep learning and critical engagement for students. This article draws on culturally sustaining pedagogy, highlights the importance of text selection and offers recommendations for high-quality and award-winning films, plays, memoirs, poems and novels that can be readily integrated into the secondary English curriculum.