Embedded Files
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There are no new ideas.
Only new ways of making them felt, of making them real.
Audre Lorde
How do bodies of thought affect individuals, communities, and institutions? Why do certain beliefs, values, or feelings become dominant in a particular culture? Are our identities, worldviews, and behavior all shaped by ideas — and are we even conscious of how those ideas shape us? Ideology might sound abstract, but it has real-world impact: millions of people fight, suffer, and die in the name of ideologies. But just as ideologies have shaped and reshaped the world, they also change and are changed by people, events, and contexts. An ideology is a hinge between thought and action; it serves a framework for understanding (and sometimes destroying) our world.
Unit 1: Paradigm Shift
Grades 11 and 12 | 5 Weeks | GW-IDE-U1
Unit 1: Paradigm Shift
Grades 11 and 12 | 5 Weeks | GW-IDE-U1
A paradigm shift is a fundamental change in one’s way of thinking. It is a revolution, often, that overthrows underlying assumptions or ideologies about the world. This unit explores revolutions — in the environment, policy, democratic structures, and an individual’s identity — and shows how, while they can be dangerous or difficult, they are also necessary for progress.
Books
WORLD
Purple Hibiscus by Chimamanda Adichie
STEAM
Silent Spring by Rachel Carson
Unit 2: Riot Grrrls
Grades 11 and 12 | 7 Weeks | GW-IDE-U2
Unit 2: Riot Grrrls
Grades 11 and 12 | 7 Weeks | GW-IDE-U2
At the center of this unit is women's bodies: how we think about them and how we use them. Both of the unit’s texts show how women’s bodies have been controlled — in fiction and in history — for scientific “progress,” or for ideas about the greater good, without any thought of consequences to the women themselves. Both texts also call attention to (and protest against) the notion that women’s bodies can be used without women’s consent.
Books
WORLD
The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
STEAM
The Radium Girls by Kate Moore
Unit 3: Contradictory Truths
Grades 11 and 12 | 3 Weeks | GW-IDE-U3
Unit 3: Contradictory Truths
Grades 11 and 12 | 3 Weeks | GW-IDE-U3
When we look up into the night sky, we’re peering through a window to the universe. For better or for worse, that universe contains a world in which people harm — and kill — each other for nothing more than their contradictory beliefs. Even the rules that govern the universe are contradictory. In this unit, students will explore contradictory truths on both a human scale and a cosmic one.
Books
WORLD
Night Sky with Exit Wounds by Ocean Vuong
STEAM
The Elegant Universe by Brian Greene
Unit 4: To Be Or Not To Be
Grades 11 and 12 | 7 Weeks | GW-CHA-U4
Unit 4: To Be Or Not To Be
Grades 11 and 12 | 7 Weeks | GW-CHA-U4
Interpretation, cataloging, and perspective shifting are all ways of understanding the world, while chemistry analyzes the very elements that make the world what it is. In this unit, students investigate some physical and mental conditions of being — and the extreme situations that force individuals to seek meaning and purpose.
Books
WORLD
Hamlet by William Shakespeare
STEAM
The Periodic Table by Primo Levi
Unit 5: And Still I Rise
Grades 11 and 12 | 5 Weeks | GW-IDE-U5
Unit 5: And Still I Rise
Grades 11 and 12 | 5 Weeks | GW-IDE-U5
Are people more than the sum of their genes? What factors influence our perceptions of beauty? Can humans rise above exclusivity, selfishness, and the consequences of governmental programs and policies that don’t necessarily work as intended? In this unit, students explore such questions and consider subjects as wide-ranging as gene therapy and economic opportunity.
Books
WORLD
The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
STEAM
The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins
Unit 6: Alternative Avenues
Grades 11 and 12 | 5 Weeks | GW-IDE-U6
Unit 6: Alternative Avenues
Grades 11 and 12 | 5 Weeks | GW-IDE-U6
Nuclear weapons have been used only twice in history, both times by the United States against Japan. Those incidents changed the course of World War II and showed the world the horrors of nuclear war — but, despite those horrors, nations still haven’t come to an agreement about eliminating nuclear weapons altogether. The threat of nuclear war continues to dictate worldwide political dynamics.
Books
WORLD
The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick
STEAM
It Is Possible by Ward Hayes Wilson
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