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E-mails from the front lines of science: A researcher e-mails home.
1. Assignment
Summary:
You are a researcher working in the field of biotechnology, genetics
or other fields of biology.
Your adventures along the road to discovery are so interesting that you want to
share them with your former high school biology teacher, Mrs. Crabapple. You will
be given the gift of e-mail for this assignment, and you will be writing e-mails to
your former biology teacher describing your co-workers, your moments of
discovery, and some of the controversies that crop up during your studies. You will
send a total of three fact-filled e-mails to her using Collins format and a variety of
sentence lengths.
(To help me in grading, you will note the page number of each fact in the margins and
include the title of the book!)
2. Purpose:
Your e-mails will be written in an informative style since you
want to share your ideas about biotechnology, genetics or another biology subject and
your impressions of your co- workers with your former teacher.
3. Writer’s Role:
You are a researcher in the field of biotechnology, genetics or another field of biology for
the book. (In other words, you are speaking as if you are one of the characters!)
4. Audience:
Your audience is your former biology teacher, Mrs. Crabapple.
5. Form:
Your description of events taking place should include three e-mails selected from the
four topics below. Include made-up e-mail addresses for both yourself as the researcher
and your former biology teacher and a subject line, just as a regular e-mail would. A date
should also be included which is related to the date/year the book mentions the event
happened. (Don’t forget to include YOUR REAL NAME in the email as well, so I know
who the assignment belongs too!)
a. One e-mail could describe the personalities of five of your co-workers.
b. One could describe some of the controversies in which you and others working
in your field have become involved or problems that you have encountered.
c. One could describe “aha” moments in your understanding of your discovery.
d. One e-mail could describe your research methods.
The e-mails may be daily missives within a week, or notes sent months apart. Be sure to note the
date that you (the researcher) are writing the e-mail. Although your researcher may have done his
or her work before e-mail existed, you are going to write as though he or she had this tool. All
researchers, of course, would have used complete sentences and perfect grammar, even in e-mails.
All of our researchers, oddly enough, use the Collins format:
 FCAs on first three lines on left (A short version is ok.)
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Name and date on first two lines on right
Title of paragraph (in this case this will be your subject line of the e-mail)
One inch margins
Typed, Double-spaced (you will lose 20 points if the assignment is not typed)
Turn over for the FCAs and point values!
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6. FCAs:
1. Each of the three e-mails contains five facts about the subject (co-workers, problems,
etc), of that e-mail from one of the books on the list. Put the page number on which the
fact is found in the margin. If there are no page numbers, then NO POINTS will be
awarded for the facts. (30 points)
2. You maintain the voice of your researcher in your writing. This includes the
appropriate tense, which is often present tense. This also includes your e-mail address as
the sender, recipient’s e-mail address, and date and salutations and a signature.(10 points)
3. You include a mix of long, medium, and short sentences. (10 points)
Procedure:
1. Read one of the following biographies. These books can be found at the Alvirne or
Roger’s Memorial Libraries. Or other public libraries. (Choose from the list
attached that has been provided to you.)
2. Type your e-mails (obviously). Read them aloud to yourself. Bring them to class on
September 1st for possible peer editing. Remember, if your assignment is not typed
you will lose 20 points. (Remember, to include your name somewhere on the
assignment, otherwise I won’t know whose paper it is from the character you use
from the book! Also, please include the title of the book in your emails as well!)
3.
Remember, the emails are due on September 1st for peer editing. You will make
corrections suggested by your editor if you think them appropriate, and turn in your
final copy. The due date of the final copy will be on September 2nd or a due date will
be announced the first week of school.
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BOOK LIST CHOICES: Choose ONE of the following to read:
The Double Helix by James Watson.
Rosalind Franklin, the Dark Lady of DNA by Brenda Mattox
A Feeling for the Organism: The Life and Work of Barbara McClintock by Evelyn Fox Keller
The Immortal Cell: One Scientist's Quest to Solve the Mystery of Human Aging by Michael West
The Monk in the Garden: The Lost and Found Genius of Gregor
Mendel, the Father of Genetics, by Robin Marantz Henig
The Demon Under the Microscope: From Battlefield Hospitals to Nazi Labs, One Doctor's Heroic
Search for the World's First Miracle Drug
by Thomas Hager
Hot Zone by Richard Preston
Deadly Feasts: Tracking the secrets of a Terrifying New Plague by Richard Rhodes
The Splendid Solution: Jonas Salk and the Conquest of Polio by Jeffrey Kluger
The Mold in Dr. Florey's Coat : The Story of the Penicillin Miracle by Eric Lax.
To Touch a Wild a Dolphin: A journey of discovery with the Sea's Most Intelligent Creatures by
Rachel Smolker.
In the Shadow of Man Jane Goodall (and other books by this author)
Gorillas in the Mist Dian Fossey
Life in the treetops: Adventures of a woman in field biology by Margaret Lowman
John of the Mountains: The unpublished journals of John Muir
Silent Spring: Rachel Carson
The DNA Detectives: How the Double Helix is Solving Puzzles of the Past (2006) Meyer, Anna
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks (2010) Rebecca Skloot
(HELA Cells, medical ethics)
Hope for animals and their world: how endangered species are being rescued from the brink (2009)
Jane Goodall
Innocent Killers (1971) Hugo van Lawick and Jane Goodall (wild dogs in Africa)
Jane Goodall: the woman who redefined man (2006) Dale Peterson
My friends, the wild chimpanzees (1967) Jane Goodall
Through a window my thirty years with the chimpanzees of Gombe (1990) Jane Goodall
The young John Muir an environmental biography (1999) Steven J. Holmes
Virus hunter: thirty years of battling hot viruses around the world (1997) C.J. Peters