Hope Jahren's award-winning memoir Lab Girl is equal parts biography and biology. Through a close, fascinating look at the lives of plants, Jahren weaves beautiful and poignant metaphors about her own life as a scientist with bipolar disorder.
We'll read the book with reading guides to help closely examine how Jahren's ideas come together on the page.
We'll also be writing four, multi draft papers to practice academic writing skills.
Gain Key Academic Writing Foundations
Students will learn foundational academic writing skills including brainstorming, organization, revision, formatting, and proofreading.
Guided Class Flexibility
This is a guided class, which means there are no live meetings, but there is student-teacher interaction and weekly due dates for assignments. This format works well for students who don’t enjoy live, on-camera sessions or who have unpredictable weekly schedules.
Students can interact with the instructor and each other via our class Discord channel.
Practice Writing as a Process
Most importantly, students will compose four multi-draft papers with individual video feedback on rough drafts and the opportunity to revise a final draft.
Dates: January 17-April 16, 2022
Ages: 13-18
Supplies:
- A copy of Lab Girl by Hope Jahren (ISBN: 978-1-101-87372-4) (used copies are fine; borrowed/library copies are acceptable but it’s preferable for learners to have their own copy so they can take notes in it)
- Microphone and camera for in-class participation
- PDF Reader
- Zoom (free account)
- Discord (free account — can be installed on phones or computers)
- Learners will submit work through Google Drive (a Google (Gmail) account can be acquired for free)