Women who changed the world

Taught by Blake Marquez Florez

More information: blake.marquez@uexternado.edu.co

What if an English elective felt less like a language class and more like a season of remarkable lives? Women Who Changed The World turns the stories of nine women who defied the limits of their time into the raw material for advanced English. Students don’t study grammar in a vacuum — they meet it inside the speeches, interviews, documentaries and essays of people worth listening to, then make it their own through debate, discussion and creative work.

Every fortnight the class encounters a new figure — a physicist, an aviator, an inventor, an activist, two painters, an environmentalist, a mountaineer and a novelist — spanning four continents and more than a century of change. The content carries the course; the destination is confident, register-aware English and the critical thinking to defend an idea in it.

The Fabulous Nine are: Marie Curie, Amelia Earhart, Hedy Lamarr, Malala Yousafzai, Frida Kahlo, Débora Arango, Wangari Maathai, Junko Tabei and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.

What students walk away with

• The fluency to narrate, speculate, persuade, and argue in English — and the instinct for which register fits where.
• A finished project they’re proud of: a TED-style talk, an op-ed, a podcast episode, or a letter across history.
• The confidence to hold a position in a live debate, in English, under pressure.
• A wider world: nine lives that reframe what ambition, courage and change can look like.