Resistance from Aristotle to Star Wars

CONTENTS OF CURRICULUM UNIT 26.04.01

  1. Unit Guide
  1. Introduction
  2. Teaching Situation & Rationale
  3. Unit Content
  4. Power, Authority, And Legitimacy
  5. Tyranny As Political And Personal Disorder
  6. Law, Conscience, And The Limits Of Obedience
  7.  emergency, Power, And Restraint
  8. Empire, Language, And Silence
  9. Systems, Land, And Collective Resistance
  10. Humiliation And The Moral Complexity Of Resistance
  11. Abolition, Revolution And Moral Voice
  12. The Student Text: Wings Of Fire: The Dragonet Prophecy
  13. Letter Writing As A Form Of Resistance
  14. Teaching Strategies
  15. Classroom Activities/application And Final Product
  16. Suggested Five-week Sequence
  17. Appendix: Implementing Grade 5 English Language Arts Standards
  18. Bibliography 
  19. Endnotes

Voices of Resistance: Letters from the Dragon World

Julian Lopez Carmona

Published September 2026

Tools for this Unit:

Endnotes

[1] The Red Nation, The Red Deal: Indigenous Action to Save Our Earth (Brooklyn, NY: Common Notions, 2021), 32.

[2] Michelle Anthony, “Cognitive Development in 11-13 Year Olds,” www.Scholastic.Com, 2021, https://www.scholastic.com/parents/family-life/creativity-and-critical-thinking/development-milestones/cognitive-development-11-13-year-olds.html; accessed 8 July 2026.

[3] Lawrence Kohlberg, “Education, Moral Development and Faith,” Journal of Moral Education, vol. 4, no. 1, Oct. 1974, pp. 5–16, 10.1080/0305724740040102; accessed 11 July 2026.

[4] OpenStax, “Neo-Freudians: Adler, Erikson, Jung, and Horney,” in Psychology 2e, accessed July 17, 2026, https://openstax.org/books/psychology-2e/pages/11-3-neo-freudians-adler-erikson-jung-and-horney.

[5] Tui T. Sutherland, The Dragonet Prophecy: Wings of Fire, book 1 (New York: Scholastic Press, 2012).

[6] Jonathan Wolff, An Introduction to Political Philosophy, 3rd ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016).

[7] Plato, Philosophy of Plato: The Republic: Complete Edition with Focus Notes, Concept Maps and Illustrations, trans. Benjamin Jowett, illus. Umberto Caffaro (independently published, 2025)

[8] Colorado Department of Education, “Marrama Elementary School (5578),” SchoolView, school year 2025-2026, accessed July 29, 2026, https://cde.state.co.us/schoolview/explore/enrollment/0880/5578.

[9] Lesley Raven, “Designing Inclusive Assessment Through Universal Design for Learning,” Journal of Learning Development in Higher Education, no. 40, 25 June 2026, 10.47408/jldhe.vi40.2073. Accessed 12 July 2026.

[10] Denver Public Schools Culture, Equity, and Leadership Team, “Defining Equity,” Equity Experience slide deck, September 22, 2023; Denver Public Schools Culture, Equity, and Leadership Team, The Equity Experience Personal Reflection Journal: Disrupting Bias: Interrogating Our Second Thought, Module 5, September 22, 2023.

[11] Shawn A. Ginwright, The Four Pivots: Reimagining Justice, Reimagining Ourselves (Berkeley: North Atlantic Books, 2022).

[12] Denver Public Schools Culture, Equity, and Leadership Team, The Equity Experience Personal Reflection Journal: Disrupting Bias: Interrogating Our Second Thought, Module 5. The RACK tool is presented in the module as a process for reflecting, acknowledging harm, changing action, and keeping or rewriting a truth story.

[13] Zaretta Hammond, “The Power of Protocols for Equity,” Educational Leadership 77, no. 7 (April 2020): 45-50.

[14] Hammond, “Power of Protocols for Equity,” 49-50.

[15] YW Boston, “What Is Intersectionality, and What Does It Have to Do with Me?” YW Boston Blog, March 29, 2017.

[16] Steve Graham, Charles A. MacArthur, and Michael Hebert, eds., Best Practices in Writing Instruction, 3rd ed. (New York: Guilford Press, 2018).

[17] Alexandre Kojève, The Notion of Authority, ed. François Terré, trans. Hager Weslati (London: Verso, 2014), 8.

[18] Wolff, An Introduction to Political Philosophy.

[19] Plato, Philosophy of Plato: The Republic, book 8 and book 9.

[20] Sophocles. Antigone, in Greek Tragedies, vol. 1, eds. David Grene and Richmond Lattimore (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1960). Especially the scenes involving Antigone’s defense before Creon and Haemon’s warning that a city does not belong to one man.

[21] Livy. “Life of Cincinnatus,” in History of Rome, Volume II: Books 3–4, trans. B. O. Foster, Loeb Classical Library 133 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1922), chs. 26-29.

[22] Tacitus, Agricola, in Agricola, Germania, Dialogue on Oratory, trans. M. Hutton and W. Peterson, Loeb Classical Library 35 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1914),103-109.

[23] The Red Nation, The Red Deal, especially the introduction and the sections “What Creates Crisis Cannot Solve It,” “Change from Below,” and “Land Back,” 32-35.

[24] John Milton, Samson Agonistes, in Complete Poetry and Essential Prose, eds. William Kerrigan, John Rumrich, and Stephen M. Fallon (Modern Library, 2007); William Shakespeare, The Rape of Lucrece, in The Norton Shakespeare, Vol. 1: Early Plays and Poems, eds. Stephen Greenblatt et al. (Norton, 2008), especially the introductory framing of Tarquin as both tyrant and violator of the social order. Because of mature content, these texts are used as teacher-facing sources.

[25] David Walker, Appeal to the Coloured Citizens of the World. ed. Peter P. Hinks (Penn State Univ. Press, 2000); C.L.R. James, Toussaint Louverture: The Story of the Only Successful Slave Revolt in History, ed. Christian Høgsbjerg, foreword by Laurent Dubois (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2013), 6, 10, 12, 24, 60. 

[26] James, Toussaint Louverture: 132-133.

[27] 288; qtd. in Høgsbjerg’s intro, p. 15 Slides from the seminar leader.

[28] Amanda Jackson Green, John Lewis: Making Good Trouble (Huntington Beach, CA: Teacher Created Materials, 2021).

[29] Rebecca Agosta, “The Rhetorical Triangle,” The Writing Resources Corner, University of North Carolina at Charlotte, August 28, 2017, accessed July 30, 2026, available at https://pages.charlotte.edu/unccwrc/blog/2017/08/28/the-rhetorical-triangle/.

[30] M. Copeland, Socratic Circles: Fostering Critical and Creative Thinking in Middle and High School, 1st ed., (Routledge, 2005), 7-20; available at https://doi-org.yale.idm.oclc.org/10.4324/9781032682396.

[31] Laurent Dubois and Rocky Cotard, The Revolution That Gave Birth to Haiti (Durham, NC: Forum for Scholars and Publics at Duke University, 2020), accessed July 30, 2026.

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