Teaching High School Students About Trailblazing Women

When high school students are overwhelmed or distracted, it’s not uncommon for materials to go in one ear and out the other. Relatable history lessons have the power to cut through the noise in a real and meaningful way.

I’ve found from my own teaching background that students love immersive experiences and live action. There are few better ways to draw in students than by teaching them about trailblazing women like Gertrude Ederle, Maria Tallchief, and Junko Tabei, as well as World War II spies like Virginia Hall and Noor Inayat Khan.

Ederle redefined endurance swimming and conquered the English Channel; Tallchief, who was part of the Osage tribe, overcame discrimination against Native Americans and became one of the greatest ballerinas in American history; Tabei was the first woman to summit Mount Everest; and Hall and Khan risked their lives to outwit enemy forces during World War II. These women broke barriers and paved the way for future generations. Their stories are inspiring and empowering, serving as moving examples of resilience, creativity, and the courage to rewrite rules. 

Below, I’ve listed a number of ways for high school teachers to integrate the life stories of these five women into enriching lesson plans.

Immersive Creative Writing

One of the most powerful ways for students to connect with history is through creative writing—specifically, immersion writing. When students step into the shoes of the aforementioned women, they gain new insights and begin to see 20th-century historical figures as real, influential people. Students are able to tap into more empathetic and critical thinking. They aren’t simply memorizing events—they’re imagining what it was like when Ederle closed in on securing her record-breaking English Channel swim or how nervous Hall and Khan must have been when they used disguises to gather intelligence deep in enemy territory. 

Creative writing doesn’t just offer immersive opportunities. It also has all sorts of cross-curricular connections. Here are some examples:

Science: Students can write from the perspective of Ederle, reflecting on how her two-piece swimsuit reduced drag and protected her skin while also evading prohibitive early-1900s societal standards around women’s athletic attire. Or, they can imagine themselves as Tabei, describing the effects of altitude sickness and oxygen deprivation while scaling Mount Everest.

Economics: Students can explore the significant financial issues these women incurred while pursuing their lofty goals and tasks.

• Writing as Ederle, students might describe the cost of her training and her travel to England and how she organized her support team.
• Writing as Tabei, students might reflect on fundraising for her Everest expedition.
• Writing as Hall or Khan, students might detail the covert expenses that come with forged documents, bribes, and disguises.

Cultural influence: Students can choose to write as Tallchief, who consciously embedded her Osage heritage into her ballet performances. Or as Tabei, reflecting on how she pursued her mountaineering dreams even while women were discouraged from climbing.

For broader writing prompts, teachers can select one of the five aforementioned women and ask these questions:

• “What qualities helped this person overcome barriers, and how do those qualities continue to inspire others?”
• “What risks did this person take? How did those risks change history?”

Easy-to-Incorporate Activities

Whether you have one class period or a full week, below are some lessons that can be adapted to fit a wide variety of teachers’ schedules.

Story-mapping idea 1: Students create a choose-your-own-adventure timeline with a rewrite-the-rulebook moment. At a key turning point, students identify major restrictions, biases, or societal norms that made their chosen woman’s journey harder (like Hall being rejected from the U.S. Foreign Service because of her prosthetic leg or Tallchief being pressured to change her Native American name).

Then, write an alternate path: What if the cited restriction, bias, or societal norm hadn’t existed at the time? Would Hall, Tallchief, etc., have reached their goals faster? Would they have encountered different opportunities or obstacles? This helps students consider how rules, expectations, and barriers shape history.

Story-mapping idea 2: Students create a visual map of their chosen figure’s life, charting obstacles, milestones, and achievements. For Ederle, students might plot out her multiple English Channel attempts, illustrating when and where she initially came up short and then how much more quickly she completed her legendary swim in August 1926. 

Courage diaries: Students write a journal entry about their own English Channel or Everest. What’s a significant challenge they’re currently facing? In what ways are they persevering amid this challenge? A student might reflect on overcoming their fear of failure and invoke one of these women as inspiration. This also presents a helpful opportunity for students to contextualize the fears and anxieties they’re experiencing.

Before-and-after effect: This is a bigger-picture look at how five trailblazing women made enormous impacts. Students can present this project as a ripple-effect map or a side-by-side then-versus-now visual. 

For the “before” portion: What did the world look like before each woman’s achievement? For instance, before Tabei’s time, women typically weren’t seen as serious climbers. And before Tallchief achieved widespread acclaim, Indigenous dancers weren’t recognized in elite ballet. 

For the “after” portion: What changed because of these women? In what ways did they inspire a new generation? Shift expectations? Open doors for others?

Impact discussion: As a full class discussion, students reflect on the societal challenges these women faced—such as gender discrimination, cultural expectations, and financial struggles—and advance the discussion to today. For instance, teachers could open a conversation connecting Tabei’s and Ederle’s emergence in male-dominated spaces to modern-day issues and debates about gender equality in sports.