My original plan for integrating my externship experience into my classroom was to link it up with a novel.  When I began looking at the logistics of this, however, I discovered that I simply wouldn’t have enough time in that unit to add anything else.

I took a new approach: finding the places in my curriculum that needed enriching and then brainstorming how I could apply my new knowledge to give my students a new challenge.

A major part of my 11th grade course is helping students understand how language shapes our thinking.  Genetic research, I realized is fraught with controversy, much of which plays out in popular media.  We hear about “frankenfood” and the “experiement” of GMO foods.  The media tells us that scientists researching cloning are “playing God” and “defying nature.”  The reality which I have experienced during my externship is very different, and a lot less shocking than the media would have us believe.

I have decided, therefore, on a series of lessons that we will complete while my students read 1984 and Brave New World (which pose ethical questions about manipulation through language).    I have selected texts reporting on genetic research for my students to analyze and will give them an assignment to find their own texts and speculate what the influence of the text might be.  The timing of these lessons also coincides with the annual international festival at my school, giving us the chance to research and present on genetic research around the world.  Throughout, I can also provide a counterpoint with my own observations during my Kenan experience.

In other news, this week I successfully completed a peptide pulldown for a protein of interest.  The purpose of the pulldown is to isolate the protein with a series of peptides to see if they bond.  The protein I worked with this week is thought to not have any interaction with the peptides, but what I discovered might prove that wrong…