20112012
Center for Writing and Rhetoric
A Resource Guide:
Integrating The
Immortal Life of
Henrietta Lacks into
Writing Assignments
Written by CWR Teachers
University of Mississippi Center for Writing
and Rhetoric
2011-2012
A Resource Guide: Integrating The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks into
Writing Assignments
Table of Contents (Print Version)
Page Number
1. WRIT 100/101/102
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In-Class Activities
Short Writing Exercises
In-Class Essay Questions and Prompts
Reflection Exercises
2. EDHE 105
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Responses to Speakers and Events
Discussion/Essay Questions Relating EdHe Themes to The Immortal Life
Grading Guidelines
Sample Rubric
3. Common Resources for all Teachers
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Classroom Guest Speakers: a Roster
William Winter Institute
Internet Resources
List of Events
4. Additional Resources
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CWR 2011-2012 Resource Guide: Integrating The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks into Writing Assignments
Chapter 1: Integrating The Immortal Life
of Henrietta Lacks in WRIT 100/101/102
In-Class Activities
In-class Summary Activity (one week of class: MWF schedule)
Pip Gordon
Day 1: As a class, summarize Part I of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks in approximately 250 words
(the closer to 250 the better). This should be done collectively with the students providing the sentences
and a scribe typing them. The teacher should only give minimal suggestions during the composition
phase. The teacher’s comments can be more pointed during the revision phase.
Composition: 25-30 minutes.
Revision: 15-20 minutes.
Goal: A clean, well-organized, complete, and coherent summary of Part I that is between 245-255 words
long.
Homework: Divide the class in half. Half the students should summarize Part II, half should summarize
Part III. Students should bring (mostly) polished 250 word summaries to the next class period.
Day 2: Divide the class into groups based on which part of The Immortal Life they summarized. The goal
by the end of class is to have conglomerated all summaries of each part into two summaries that have the
consensus vote of the class as the most thorough. By the end of class, these groups should have produced
finished drafts of their assigned parts.
(***in Writing 100, with 15 students in the class, you would have 7-8 students summarizing Part II
and 7-8 students summarizing Part III. For day 2, I’d break students into groups of 3-4, have them
compare summaries and create a consensus of what a good summary should include. This would mean
each part has two groups working on it. After the groups of 3-4 have had time to build a consensus--but
not necessarily write a new summary from scratch--I’d have those smaller groups team up to compare
notes.These larger groups would then be responsible for writing and submitting ONE final 250 word
summary of their assigned part. I’d devote roughly 35 minutes to this project, but it could end of taking
all of class).
Homework for the teacher: compile all three summaries in one master document (making no changes to
student work, but rather just copying and pasting them together in the appropriate order into a word
document.
Day 3: As a class, revise the FULL summary of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. The class should
have one summary of approximately 750 words (3 pages). This count should be cut by approximately 100
words in the revision process by omitting redundancies, cleaning up excess wordiness and phrasing, and
crafting transition sentences that link the three separate parts into a more seamless whole.
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CWR 2011-2012 Resource Guide: Integrating The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks into Writing Assignments
Analysis Activity: Judging a Book by its Cover (and other things)
Pip Gordon
I’m presenting this as an in-class activity, but it could easily be turned into an analysis assignment with
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks as a class model for an analysis of book covers/movie posters.
In class: Have students bring their copies of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks to class. Discuss in
class aspects of the visual presentation of the book:
Outside:
--the blurb on the back cover
--the cover design (any pictures, the color of the book, font type for the title and author)
--the design of the whole cover (front, back, and spine)
--snippets from critical praise of the book included on the cover
Inside:
--Title page, arrangement of parts, type of paper (no joke!)
--any visual elements
--font style (if you feel up to it)
--the “praise for” page
Questions to consider:
--what does the book cover suggests about the content of the book?
--what kind of readership do you think the publishers are targeting?
--to what extent does the visual presentation seem connected to the content of the book? (for
homework, the students will not have the luxury of knowing the content, but this can still be a useful
question).
--if you had a choice, would you buy this book and read it? Why or why not? (answer here should
be based on the cover alone).
Homework: assign students a book that is readily available in a bookstore. The goal would be to select
books that student probably have NOT read! (I’d go for a mix between popular contemporary stuff like
Steig Larson or Jennifer Egan and classics that I know the campus Barnes and Noble has on its shelf,
conveniently as “Barnes and Nobles” classics so with a standard presentation with minor variations for
different works).
The students will spend 10-15 minutes in the bookstore checking out their assigned book (amazon’s
“Look Inside” feature might also come in handy). The student is not required to buy the book. After
spending time analyzing it, the student will then compose a 300-400 word analysis of the book cover to
turn in during the next class.
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Short Writing Assignments
Plagiarism/Intellectual Property
Ashley Gutierrez
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Homework: Read the “Avoiding Plagiarism” section of A Writer’s Reference; selected chapters
from Immortal Life (that deal with the Lacks family not getting any kind of
recognition/repayment for Henrietta’s cells—there are several)
Writing:
o Explain what plagiarism is, based on your reading and your own experiences with it.
How is academic plagiarism the same thing or similar to violating intellectual property
rights? Why is it important that an author or researcher not plagiarize?
o In your opinion, and using examples from Immortal Life to back up your argument,
explain whether or not what Dr. George Gey and the other researchers did was
“plagiarism.” Your assessment will need to be based both on your definition of
plagiarism and defended with examples from both Immortal Life and The Writer’s
Reference.
The Writing Process
Ashley Gutierrez
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Prep-work: Discussions and activities about the writing process, especially peer-review and
research methods
Homework: Read sections about the writing process from A Writer’s Reference; Read sections
from Immortal Life that deal with Skloot’s process, especially the forward, endnotes, and chapters
where Skloot appears as a central character
Writing:
o Explain, based on your own experience and A Writer’s Reference, what the writing
process is. What are the “steps” and why are they important? Why is each step
necessary—what does each step allow the writer to do or know about his/her work?
o What was Rebecca Skloot’s writing process? Base your response/discussion on specific
passages from the text. How did she go about research? How did she know what sources
to include? What was her “peer review” process like? What struggles did she encounter
across her many drafts?
o Consider how Skloot’s “rhetorical situation” changed her writing process (audience,
genre, stance, purpose, medium, etc.)
The Argumentative Situation
Ashley Gutierrez
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Prep Work: Discussions on how to evaluate arguments both in content and in structure,
discussion of ethos, pathos, and logos
Homework: Read section A-3 (Evaluating Arguments) in A Writer’s Reference, pick a chapter (or
several chapters) from Immortal Life and outline it (them)
Writing: In short paragraphs, determine how Skloot appeals to ethos, pathos, and logos in the
chapter(s) you chose. Where do these appeals succeed? Fail? Using section A-3 as your guide,
determine where Skloot falls prey to logical fallacies. Explain what she should have done to fix
these fallacies.
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Contextualizing The Immortal Life within a Horrifying Tradition (Research, Summary, and
Analysis)
Chip Dunkin
At the heart of The Immortal Life is the problematic intersection of African- Americans and
scientific/medical study. Skloot mentions the Tuskegee Experiments and the Mississippi
Appendectomies—two particularly gruesome “research projects” in which African-Americans were lied
to and forced to suffer in the name of white scientific progress.
Do some online research on the “Tuskegee Experiments” and “Mississippi Appendectomy” and
write a one-paragraph summary of each project. Then, think about the similarities and differences
between these two brutal and dehumanizing projects and the case of Henrietta Lacks. Finally, write two
paragraphs in which you compare and contrast the treatment of Lacks and her family with the treatment
of these other African-American victims of the past. Use specific examples from your research and The
Immortal Life to contextualize Lacks’s story within the historical context of racism and modern
medicine.
Thinking about the Boundaries of Biography (Freewriting + Class Discussion)
Chip Dunkin
Generally speaking, we hold historians, biographers, and commentators to a certain standard of
objectivity. We like to think of these writers of nonfiction as disinterested, unbiased observers who push
aside (or hide) their own feelings and emotions and produce chronicles of unvarnished truth. Skloot
makes it very clear early in The Immortal Life, however, that she is by no means a disinterested
observer/reporter, but rather an emotionally attached participant in the Lacks’ struggles. At one point, she
even calls herself a “character in [Henrietta’s] story” (7).
Freewrite for twenty minutes about your thoughts and feelings on Skloot as an author, and
attempt to answer the following questions: Is it appropriate to call Rebecca Skloot a “biographer,” or does
her intense involvement in the Lacks family’s fight for recognition and redemption make her something
else? Can we call Skloot an “objective” chronicler of events? Does it matter?
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In-Class Essay Questions and Prompts
Guy Krueger
1. How would you describe Skloot’s portrayal of the Lacks family (e.g., positive, negative,
objective, etc.)? Why? Point to examples from the text to support your perspective. What role
does her portrayal play in how we read the text?
2. Is it acceptable to break rules or even laws in the name of medical research that may cure diseases
such as cancer? Why or why not? Use the text to support your response.
3. On page 54, Skloot writes about one of her early calls to the Lacks family, “Years later I'd
understand how a young boy could know why I was calling just from the sound of my voice: the
only time white people called Day was when they wanted something having to do with HeLa
cells. But at the time I was confused – I figured I must have heard wrong.” Write a response in
which you analyze what Skloot means. Also include your thoughts on why she says she
understood years later. Use the text to support your response.
4. How have Henrietta Lacks, her immortal cells, and her family’s tribulations effected change in
research on human subjects, both directly and indirectly? Use the text to support your response.
5. What role does education play in The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks? How might the
Henrietta’s story be different if the Lacks family had been more educated and knowledgeable
about cells and medical research? Use the text to support your response.
6. On page 271, Paul Lurz, the director of performance and improvement at Crownsville Hospital
Center says, "Sometimes learning can be just as painful as not knowing." What is Lurz telling
Deborah when he says this? In your opinion, would Deborah be better off not knowing some of
her family’s past? Why or why not? Use the text to support your response.
Sheena Boran
1. In response to Van Valen’s argument that HeLa cells should no longer be classed as human,
Robert Stevenson states: “Scientists don’t like to think of HeLa cells as being little bits of
Henrietta because it’s much easier to do science when you disassociate your materials from the
people they come from” (216). However, Skloot’s goal in this book seems to be to attach human
faces to a scientific issue, and her book chronicles the competing forces attempting to humanize
and dehumanize the HeLa cells. Should we attempt to connect human stories to scientific
research, or would this interfere with objectivity?
2. You almost certainly know someone who has benefited directly from research conducted using
HeLa cells. If you learned that tissue removed from your body during a routine procedure at
some point in the past had gone on to significantly benefit science and research, would you feel
that you should somehow be retroactively compensated? Which do you think is more important –
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CWR 2011-2012 Resource Guide: Integrating The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks into Writing Assignments
your right to control your own tissue, or contributing to science and research for the greater good
of humanity?
3. Skloot weaves together four separate narratives in this book – a biography of Henrietta Lacks, the
scientific biography of the HeLa cells, the history of the Lacks family, and the story of her own
research. How does each narrative contribute to the effect of the entire book? How would the
overall effect of the book have been different if Skloot had left out the history of the Lacks
family? the story of her own research?
4. Can there be justice for the Lacks family? Should they be compensated? Is it possible to relate
the Lacks case to that of John Moore or Ted Slavin, or is this situation unique?
Keith Boran
1. Although there is some dispute over who coined the name Helen Lane as the source of the HeLa
cells, many believe it originated from an interview Dr. George Gey gave to Collier’s magazine in
1954. If this is true, why would Gey use a false name? Be sure to cite specific examples from
the text to support your answer (pp. 105-109).
2. Rebecca Skloot withstood some major setbacks in her research. Give two specific occurrences
when Skloot overcame adversity to finish her work to tell the story. What do the two occurrences
have in common? What can we learn about the writing process from Skloot’s experience?
3. What were the true intentions of Dr. Sir Lord Keenan Kester Cofield’s attempt to breach the
Lacks family’s privacy? Why was he so willing to help the family for free? Be sure to be
specific in your answer and explanation by including information from the book (pp. 225-231).
Mallory Blasingame
1. In “A Few Words About This Book,” Skloot writes of her efforts to “capture the language with
which each person spoke and wrote,” claiming that this decision was spurred by one of
Henrietta’s relatives, who told her, “If you pretty up how people spoke and change the things they
said, that’s dishonest. It’s taking away their lives, their experiences, and their selves.” Describe
and analyze Skloot’s use of the “original language” of her subjects. What effect do these
decisions have on your reading of the text? Do you find that the end result feels “honest”? Why
or why not? Support your claims with specific textual evidence.
2. The Lacks children differ in their responses to the revelation that their mother’s cells have been
used for others’ scientific and financial benefit. Describe at least two of the siblings’ reactions.
With whom do you most agree or empathize? How does Skloot’s characterization of the sibling
contribute to this impression? Using specific textual evidence, explain the reasoning behind your
claim.
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CWR 2011-2012 Resource Guide: Integrating The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks into Writing Assignments
3. Should Henrietta or her family (and, by extension, others like her) have been compensated for the
use of her cells? Why or why not? Use specific textual evidence to provide context and support
for your argument.
4. After having read the book, do you agree with Skloot’s claim that, unlike others who have written
about Lacks, she is not exploiting her or her family? Why or why not? Use specific textual
evidence to support your argument.
5. Choose one of the following passages and provide a three to four page response that
1. contextualizes the passage within the rest of the book (What is happening here? When in the
text does this occur?); 2. analyzes the passage’s use of rhetorical strategies (How does the way
the information is presented contribute to the reader’s understanding of/reaction to it?); 3. argues
for a particular interpretation of the passage (Why is this passage significant? How does it
contribute to Skloot’s overall message? Your answers to the previous questions will help shape
this argument). You should use specific evidence in the form of direct quotations, paraphrases,
and summary to support your evidence. You may draw support from other areas of the book, as
well. You will have 50 minutes (or 75 minutes) to plan, compose, and edit your response.
a.
“Christoph taught Deborah and Zakariyya how to use the microscope, saying, ‘Look through like
this...take your glasses off...now turn this knob to focus.’ Finally the cells popped into view for Deborah.
And through that microscope, for that moment, all she could see was an ocean of her mother’s cells, stained
an ethereal fluorescent green.
They’re beautiful,’ she whispered, then went back to staring at the slide in silence. Eventually, without
looking away from the cells, she said, ‘God, I never thought I’d see my mother under a microscope--I never
dreamed this day would come.’
‘Yeah, Hopkins pretty much screwed up, I think,’ Christoph said.
Deborah bolted upright and looked at him, stunned to hear a scientist--one at Hopkins, no less--saying such
a thing. Then she looked back into the microscope and said, ‘John Hopkin is a school for learning, and
that’s important. But this is my mother. Nobody seem to get that.’
‘It’s true,’ Christoph said. ‘Whenever we read books about science, it’s always HeLa this and HeLa that.
Some people know those are the initials of a person, but they don’t know who that person is. That’s
important history.’
Deborah looked like she wanted to hug him. ‘This is amazing,’ she said, shaking her head and looking at
him like he was a mirage.
Suddenly Zakariyya started yelling something about George Gey. Deborah thumped her cane on his toe
and he stopped in midsentence.
‘Zakariyya has a lot of anger with all this that’s been going on,’ she told Christoph. ‘I been trying to keep
him calm. Sometime he explode, but he’s trying.’
‘I don’t blame him for being angry,’ Christoph said” (266).
b.
“Lurz opened to Elsie’s page, then quickly closed his eyes and pressed the book to his chest before
we could see anything. ‘I’ve never seen a picture in one of these reports,’ he whispered.
He lowered the book so we could all see, and suddenly time seemed to stop. The three of us stood, our
heads nearly touching over the page, as Deborah cried, ‘Oh my baby! She look just like my daughter! …
She look just like Davon! … She look just like my father! … She got that smooth olive Lacks skin.’
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CWR 2011-2012 Resource Guide: Integrating The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks into Writing Assignments
Lurz and I just stared, speechless.
In the photo, Elsie stands in front of a wall painted with numbers for measuring height. Her hair, which
Henrietta once spent hours combing and braiding, is frizzy, with thick mats that stop just below the fivefoot mark behind her. Her once-beautiful eyes bulge from her head, slightly bruised and almost swollen
shut. She stares somewhere just below the camera, crying, her face misshapen and barely recognizable ,
her nostrils inflamed and ringed with mucus; her lips--swollen to nearly twice their normal size--are
surrounded by a deep, dark ring of chapped skin; her tongue is thick and protrudes from her mouth. She
appears to be screaming. Her head is twisted unnaturally to the left, chin raised and held in place by a large
pair of white hands.
‘She doesn’t want her head like that,’ Deborah whispered. ‘Why are they holding her head like that?’
No one spoke. We all just stood there, staring at those big white hands wrapped around Elsie’s neck. They
were well manicured and feminine, pinky slightly raised--hands you’d see in a commercial for nail polish,
not wrapped around the throat of a crying child.
Deborah laid her old picture of Elsie as a young girl next to the new photo.
‘Oh, she was beautiful,’ Lurz whispered” (272-273).
c.
“I stared through my hotel window at a tall, Gothic-looking brick tower across the street with a
huge clock at the top. It was a weatherbeaten silver, with big letters spelling B-R-O-M-O-S-E-L-T-Z-E-R
in a circle around its face. I watched the hands move slowly past the letters, paged Sonny every few
minutes, and waited for the phone to ring.
Eventually I grabbed the fat Baltimore phone book, opened to the Ls, and ran my finger down a
long line of names: Annette Lacks … Charles Lacks … I figured I’d call every Lacks in the book asking if
they knew Henrietta. But I didn’t have a cell phone and didn’t want to tie up the line, so I paged Sonny
again, then lay back on the bed, phone and White Pages still in my lap. I started rereading a yellowed copy
of a 1976 Rolling Stone article about the Lackses by a writer named Michael Rogers--the first reporter ever
to contact Henrietta’s family. I’d read it many times, but wanted every word fresh in my mind.
Halfway through the article, Rogers wrote, ‘I am sitting on the seventh floor of the downtown
Baltimore Holiday Inn. Through the thermoplane picture window is a huge public clock in which the
numerals have been replaced by the characters B-R-O-M-O-S-E-L-T-Z-E-R; in my lap is a telephone, and
the Baltimore White Pages.’
I bolted upright, suddenly feeling like I’d been sucked into a Twilight Zone episode. More than
two decades earlier--when I was just three years old--Rogers had gone through those same White Pages.
‘Halfway through the “Lacks” listings it becomes clear that just about everybody had known Henrietta,’ he
wrote. So I opened the phone book again and started dialing, hoping I’d find one of those people who
knew her. But they didn’t answer their phones, they hung up on me, or they said they’d never heard of
Henrietta” (66-67).
c.
“‘Henrietta used to come talk to her mother, took real good care of her grave. Now Henrietta
somewhere in here with her,’ Cliff said, waving his arms toward the clearing between Eliza’s stone and the
next tree a good fifteen feet away. ‘Never did get a marker, so I couldn’t tell you exactly where she at, but
the immediate family be buried next to each other. So she probably round in here somewhere.’
He pointed to three body-sized indentations in the clearing and said, ‘Any one of those could be
Henrietta.’
We stood in silence as Cliff kicked at the dirt with his toe.
‘I don’t know what happened on that deal with them cells from Henrietta,’ he said eventually.
‘Don’t nobody say anything about it round here. I just knowed she had something rare, cause she been
dead a pretty good while, but her cells still living, and that’s amazing.’ He kicked at the ground. ‘I heard
they did a lot of research and some of her cells have develop a lot of curing other diseases. It’s a miracle,
that’s all I can say.’
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Then suddenly he yelled at the ground, as if he was talking directly to Henrietta. ‘They named
them HeLa! And they still living!’ He kicked at the dirt again.
A few minutes later, seemingly out of nowhere, he pointed to the dirt and said, ‘You know, white
folks and black folks all buried over top of each other in here. I guess old white granddaddy and his
brothers was buried in here too. Really no tellin who in this ground now.’ Only one thing he knew for
sure, he said, was that there was something beautiful about the idea of slave-owning white Lackses being
buried under their black kin.
‘They spending eternity in the same place,’ he told me, laughing. ‘They must’ve worked out their
problems by now!’” (121-122).
“‘HeLa?’ I asked Gary. ‘You’re saying HeLa is her spiritual body?’
Gary smiled and nodded.
In that moment, reading those passages, I understood completely how some of the Lackses could believe,
without doubt, that Henrietta had been chosen by the Lord to become an immortal being. If you believe the
Bible is literal truth, the immortality of Henrietta’s cells makes perfect sense. Of course they were growing
and surviving decades after her death, of course they floated through the air, and of course they’d led to
cures for diseases and been launched into space. Angels are like that. The Bible tells us so.
For Deborah and her family--and surely many others in the world--the answer was so much more
concrete than the answer offered by science: that the immortality of Henrietta’s cells had something to do
with her telomeres and how HPV interacted with her DNA. The idea that God chose Henrietta as an angel
who would be reborn as immortal cells made a lot more sense to them than the explanation Deborah had
read years earlier in Victor McKusick’s genetics book, with its clinical talk of HeLa’s ‘atypical histology’
and ‘unusually malignant behavior.’ It used phrases like ‘the tumor’s singularity’ and called the cells ‘a
reservoir of morphologic, biochemical, and other information.’
Jesus told his followers, ‘I give them eternal life, and they shall never die.’ Plain, simple, to the
point.
‘You better be careful,’ Gary told me. ‘Pretty soon you’re gonna find yourself converted.’
‘I doubt it,’ I told him, and we both laughed.
He slid the Bible from my hands and flipped to another passage, then handed it back, pointing at
one sentence: ‘Why do you who are here find it impossible to believe that God raises the dead?’
‘You catch my drift?’ he said, smiling a mischievous grin.
I nodded, and Gary closed the Bible in my hands” (296).
d.
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CWR 2011-2012 Resource Guide: Integrating The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks into Writing Assignments
Reflection Exercises
Karen Forgette
Language Choices
Reading: “A Few Words About This Book,” on pp. xiii-xiv, and one chapter in which dialect is
prominent.
Writing: Paragraph 1: Describe the chapter you chose and comment on Skloot’s decision regarding
dialect. Do you agree or disagree with her choice to maintain the dialect? Use examples from the chapter
you have chosen to support your reasoning. You might describe how the use of native dialect affects the
portrayal of the speakers in the chapter and the reader of the chapter. You might consider how the dialect
helps to illuminate the time period and setting or how the dialect affects the way the reader perceives the
person who is speaking. Does the dialect make it harder or easier for the reader to understand? Use
specific details from the chapters to support your conclusion.
Paragraph 2: Describe one of your editorial choices for language in the project you are currently
working on. You might discuss your decision to quote directly from a source, some jargon or some
elevated vocabulary you chose to include, some phrases or sentence structure you repeated, or any other
decisions you made regarding the language of your project. Explain why you made the decisions you did
and what you hoped the reader would gain from your choice. Use specific examples to support your
claim.
Organization
Reading: Chapters 18, 19, and 20 (Note particularly how the chapters shift from the HeLa cell story to
the family story of the Lacks and then back to the HeLa cell story.)
Writing: Paragraph 1: Describe your thoughts about the shifting storylines. Why do you think Skloot
chose to intersperse the chapters in this way? How did you react to the shifting storylines as a reader?
Did the shift confuse you or keep you intrigued? How did the shifting affect the pacing of the book?
Was Skloot’s technique effective? Use specific details from the chapters to support your conclusion.
Paragraph 2: Describe one of your editorial choices for organizing your current project. You
might discuss why you chose a specific pattern of organization (for example, chronological, point by
point, argument and rebuttal, etc.), why you chose to put a specific paragraph in a specific place, how you
balanced anecdote with other types of evidence, or any other decision you made regarding the
organization of your project. Explain why you made the decisions you did and what you hoped the reader
would gain from your choice. Use specific examples to support your ideas.
Audience Awareness
Reading: The first full paragraph on page 3 which starts, “Under the microscope, a cell looks a lot like a
fried egg,” and five other passages from the book in which Skloot displays her ability to translate science
for a general audience.
Writing: Paragraph 1: Quote the passages you found, and explain the techniques she uses to bring the
science to life.
Paragraph 2: Describe how you tried to craft your current project for a specific audience.
Describe your intended audience. Then choose three or four passages from your project and explain how
you composed those passages to meet the expectations of your audience. Use specific examples from
your project to explain your strategy.
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CWR 2011-2012 Resource Guide: Integrating The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks into Writing Assignments
Topic Selection
Reading: Booklist interview with Skloot (booklistonline.com/ProductInfo.aspx?pid=3886330), paying
particular attention to her discussion of her father’s illness.
Writing: Paragraph 1: Explain how her father’s illness may have affected Skloot’s decision to investigate
Henrietta’s story. Are there examples in the book that suggest Skloot’s interest in the story has a basis in
Skloot’s own life?
Paragraph 2: Talk about your own choice of topic for the current project you are working on.
Why did you choose the topic? Did you have a personal relationship to the topic? Where was your
interest sparked?
Point of View
Reading: Chapters 35 and 36 (“Soul Cleansing” and “Heavenly Bodies”), paying particular attention to
Skloot’s observations of and reactions to the spiritual ritual Deborah undertakes with Gary.
Writing: Paragraph 1: Describe how the presence of the author in those chapters affects the story for you
as a reader. Does Skloot’s presence add to your understanding or detract from it? How? Why? Explain
your reaction citing specific examples from the chapters.
Paragraph 2: Describe the point of view in your current project. Did you include a first person
anecdote or presence anywhere in your project? Why, or why not? What point of view is predominant in
your project? Why did you choose that point of view? How does the point of view you chose for the
project affect the reader?
Discourse Surrounding The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lack
Reading: Visit Skloot’s website at http://rebeccaskloot.com/. View the trailer for the book in which she
describes dinner party conversations about HeLa cells. Then browse through her twitter feed and note the
ways she tries to keep interest in the topic growing.
Writing: Paragraph 1: Describe your reaction to the trailer and the Twitter postings. What techniques
does Skloot use to generate and maintain interest? How effective are those techniques?
Paragraph 2: Describe the conversations surrounding your current project. Whom have you
talked with about the project? What did you gain from those conversations? How have you tried to
generate interest in your topic both in the project and in the conversations surrounding the project? How
does talking with other people about your project affect your writing?
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CWR 2011-2012 Resource Guide: Integrating The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks into Writing Assignments
2. Integrating The Immortal Life of
Henrietta Lacks in EDHE 105
For each of these assignments, write a thoughtful response of at least 250 words which fully addresses
all parts of the prompt. Avoid very short or exceedingly long paragraphs, clichés, and generalizations.
Please revise and edit your work before submitting your final draft.
Responses to Speakers/Events
1.
Before and After Response: For this essay, you will attend a campus event. Before attending the
event, write a paragraph about your expectations for the event. What do you think it will be like?
Who do you think will be there? What topics do you think will be covered? How do you think
you will react to the event? After attending the event, write the second part of the paper
describing the event and reflecting on how your expectations were or were not met. Give specific
details from the event to support your observations.
2. Finding the Significance: Attend a campus lecture. During the lecture, write down three to five
quotes which seem particularly meaningful to you. After the lecture, study those quotes and
choose the one that seems the most significant. Write a paper describing how the quote
functioned in the context of the lecture. Then describe why you found the quote so meaningful.
You might describe a connection to your own experience. You might consider why the quote is
significant to your community or the world at large. You might describe an alternative or
negative interpretation of the quote.
3. Companion Interview: Attend a campus event with a classmate or friend. After the event,
interview your companion about his or her interpretation of and reaction to the event. Some
questions you might consider asking include: How would you summarize or describe the event?
What was the most meaningful or interesting part of the event? What was the least meaningful or
interesting part? Would you attend a similar event in the future or recommend it to your friends?
Why, or why not? Were you surprised by the audience’s reaction to the event? Then, write a
paper in which you first summarize the interview, using quotes and/or paraphrasing, and then
describe how your reaction relates to your companion’s reaction. What was similar in your
reactions? What was dissimilar? How would you account for the differences/similarities in your
interpretations?
4.
Relating an Event Specifically to the Common Reading Text: Attend a campus event or lecture
related to The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. As you attend the event or listen to the lecture,
think about the major themes of the book. Which theme seems most related to this event or
lecture? After the event, find a passage from the book relating to that theme. Then, write a paper
in which you describe the passage, explain where it appears in the book, and identify its
relationship to the theme. Then, in the second part of the paper, explain how the event or lecture
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CWR 2011-2012 Resource Guide: Integrating The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks into Writing Assignments
relates to that passage and theme. Incorporate specific details from the lecture or event to support
the connection you draw.
Discussion/Essay Questions Relating the Themes of EdHe to The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
Theme of Learning:
1.
In one sense, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks is about Rebecca Skloot’s education. The
book opens with Skloot sitting in a community college biology class. Trace Skloot’s journey
throughout the book, examining at least five instances in which she seems to progress (or regress)
in her learning about HeLa cells. How is she challenged intellectually? How does she react
emotionally? Compare Skloot’s learning process with one of your own learning experiences.
When did you struggle to learn something new? What intellectual strategies did you employ?
Describe an experience from your own life in which you refused to give up on learning a difficult
concept. Why?
2. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks also chronicles Deborah Lacks’ education about her
mother. Trace Deborah Lacks’ journey throughout the book, examining at least five instances in
which she seems to progress (or regress) in her education about HeLa cells. How is she
challenged intellectually? How does she react emotionally? Compare Deborah Lacks’ learning
process with one of your own learning experiences. When did you struggle to learn something
new? What intellectual strategies did you employ? Describe an experience from your own life in
which you refused to give up on learning a difficult concept. Why?
Theme of Careers:
1. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks touches on the impact of so many workers, from the lab
assistant to the Nobel Prize-winning physician to the local store owner who teaches math to the
neighborhood children. Select three of the individuals from the book whose careers/jobs
intrigued you. Describe their role in the book and their attitudes toward their own careers. Then
describe your own career ambitions and how they are similar to or different from the careers of
these individuals.
Theme of Crossing Cultural Boundaries:
1. Skloot’s research for the book required her to cross cultural boundaries, such as race, class,
religion, and gender. The Lacks family’s own search for information about Henrietta was
affected by similar cultural boundaries. Describe three instances in the book where cultural
boundaries kept individuals from discovering new information. Then describe an experience
from your first year at Ole Miss that required you to cross an uncomfortable boundary. What
similarities in all of these experiences do you see? What differences?
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CWR 2011-2012 Resource Guide: Integrating The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks into Writing Assignments
Grading Guidelines
An A paper responds to all questions/prompts, demonstrates a clear purpose and recognition of audience,
contains specific details and examples, demonstrates critical thought and recognition of a larger context,
demonstrates depth, and is free of distracting errors.
A B paper responds to all or nearly all questions/prompts, demonstrates a clear purpose and recognition of
audience, contains some specific details and examples, demonstrates some critical thought and
recognition of a larger context, demonstrates some depth, and is relatively free of distracting errors.
A C paper responds, for the most part, to the questions/prompts; has a unifying idea but may stray off
topic; demonstrates some recognition of audience; uses details and examples, but lacks specificity;
attempts to use critical thought and/or recognize a larger context but may be superficial; and contains
some distracting errors.
A D paper fails to respond to the questions/prompts; lacks focus, details, and examples; relies too heavily
on summary; and contains numerous, distracting errors.
An F paper fails to meet the minimum requirements of the assignment.
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CWR 2011-2012 Resource Guide: Integrating The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks into Writing Assignments
Sample Rubric for EdHe Henrietta Lacks Assignments
____Competent/Credible/Complete
If the writing is scored partially effective or higher in categories 1-3, the writing is competent and you will
earn a grade of “C.” (70-79)
1. Purpose
Does the writing contain a unifying and controlling purpose, a central idea, which is maintained throughout the
paper according to the requirements of the assignment? Does the writing address all aspects/questions contained in
the assignment prompt?
Ineffective
Partially Effective
Effective
Exceptional
2. Conventions and Mechanics
Does the writing follow the conventions of standard English grammar, punctuation, and usage?
Ineffective
Partially Effective
Effective
Exceptional
3. Research
Does the writing introduce and integrate source material (as appropriate to the assignment) through quotation,
paraphrase, and summary to enhance credibility? Does the writing follow standard (MLA, APA, etc.)
documentation guidelines?
Ineffective
Partially Effective
Effective
Exceptional
____Skillful/Persuasive
If the writing scores an average of “effective” on the CCC category above, and, in addition, scores partially
effective in categories 4-6 below, then the writing is skillful and you will earn a grade of “B.” (80-89)
4. Evidence/Development
Does the writing develop appropriate, logical, and relevant supporting detail and/or evidence, including specific,
concrete detail/evidence to support the central idea?
Ineffective
Partially effective
Effective
Exceptional
5. Exploration
Does the writing introduce and explore a broader significance and/or larger context for the topic/issue?
Ineffective
Partially effective
Effective
Exceptional
6. Audience
Does the writing exhibit language and tone appropriate to the intended audience?
Ineffective
Partially effective
Effective
Exceptional
____Distinctive
If the writing meets all of the Competency and Skillful/Persuasive effectiveness standards and, in addition,
demonstrates a mastery of one or more features of superior writing (complexity, originality, seamless coherence,
extraordinary control, sophistication in thought, recognizable voice, compelling purpose, imagination, insight,
thoroughness, and/or depth) the writing is distinctive and you will earn a grade of “A.” (90-100)
_____Ineffective
If the writing demonstrates minimal attention to the assignment prompt and format but does not meet competency
standards, you will earn a grade of “D.” (60-69) If the writing fails to demonstrate attention to the assignment
prompt and format and fails to meet competency standards, you will earn a grade of “F.”
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CWR 2011-2012 Resource Guide: Integrating The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks into Writing Assignments
3. Common Resources for All Teachers
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4. Additional Resources
The CWR Teaching Center, located in Room 107 of Somerville Hall, supports your teaching efforts and is
a resource we hope you will use often. Staffed by the CWR Instructional Designer and the CWR Core
Instructors, it serves a space for you to air your classroom challenges, explore your teaching ideas, and
celebrate your classroom successes. In addition to coordinating workshops, the Teaching Center will also
support you with technology issues in using e-portfolios and teaching multimodal assignments. You can
also schedule the instructional designer to come to your class as you try new assignments. The CWR
Teaching Center is located just inside the front entrance of Somerville Hall. The Instructional Designer
may be contacted by calling 662-915-8819 or by emailing cwr@olemiss.edu.
The CWR library has copies of Multimodal Compositions: Resources for Teachers,” an edited collection
(Gail E. Hawisher and Cynthia Selfe, Editors) available for loan. See Glenn Schove, administrative
coordinator, if you want to borrow it. Another helpful article in the same book is by Cynthia Selfe,
Stephanie Owen Fleischer, and Susan Wright’s “Words, Audio, and Video: Composing and the Processes
of Production.” New Dimensions in Computers and Composition series. Cresskill, NJ, Hampton Press,
2007. Print.
The instructional faculty of the JD Williams library has designed an online resource guide for WRIT 101
classes. The site, WRIT 101 Library Resource Guide, can be accessed at through the library’s home page .
There are many resources listed on this page that benefit and support the teaching of WRIT 101 classes.
We encourage you to check it out.
A note to teachers: This page, Additional Resources, is a place for us to share resources that have helped
us in our teaching. If you would like to share a resource, please send a digital copy of your file or the link
to web addresses to Alice Myatt, Associate Director, at amyatt1@olemiss.edu.
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CWR 2011-2012 Resource Guide: Integrating The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks into Writing Assignments