Assignment 1:

Primer to Biotechnology / Bioethics Unit

In 2 - 4 sentences, answer the following
questions: What does it mean to be ethical?
What applications of ethics might there be in
science or medicine?
Student A

Student As Response:
Ethics is the branch that involves
systematizing defending nd recommending
concepts of right and wrong. Science use
ethics to figure out thing or solve things such
as when they do researches because it
helps them figure out what's right and what's
wrong s they can fix what ever it is to make
it better or cure it.
Analysis of Student As Work:
Student A seems to grasp what ethics is
based on her response (though the
beginning phrase, ethics is the branch that
involves systematizing initially concerned
me that perhaps she had just copy-pasted
the definition from the internet). After
reading through her explanation, I tend to
think she grasps the notion of paraphrasing,
but struggles to paraphrase words she is not
familiar with, hence the almost verbatim use
of the definition of ethics. However, on the
portion of the prompt that does not ask for
the meaning of the word, she is able to
express that she understands that ethics
has implications in research, and implies
that she understands that ethics has uses in
medicine (I obtain this through her use of
the phrase make it better and cure it).
She lacks the ability to make specific,
concrete ties to applications of ethics,
instead focusing on broad/sweeping
implications. I am also concerned with
Student As use of colloquial-type as
opposed to formal writing, and would be
interested to see if she does the same in her
ELA courses.

Assignment 2:
Capstone Project for Biotechnology /
Bioethics Unit:
Develop a claim regarding Henrietta
Lacks and defend it using evidence. Use
the Justificatory Essay style and MLA
formatting. See rubric for grading details.
Student As Response to Assignment
2:
XXXXXX
Ms.Bader
2nd period
April 3, 2016

Henrietta Lacks
Henrietta Lacks story is one of
race,education,and science. Henrietta
was a black African American woman
who was uneducated and sign a contract
with John Hopkins given them rights to
her cells/body but was taken advantage
of her cells( HeLa cells) and used them
for experiments.
Henrietta story is one of race because
in the 1950s black people wasnt treated
equally like an average human.They
didn't have the same rights as others
blacks had less education,more
rules,and less rights as whites.Blacks
was treated as if they were below others
like slaves.If she wasn't black then she
wouldve been treated equally.
Another reason is education, because
she stop going to school in middleschool so she really wasn't that
educated; and couldn't read on a higher
level or comprehend as good as others,

but if she was educated she probably

wouldn't have sign the contract just
agreeing. She would've been informed
content (meaning she understand) and
not just content (meaning she really
didn't understand). Due to her lack of
knowledge they used words she wasnt
able to understand or comprehend.
The last reason is science because
Henrietta Lacks cells became the first
immortal human cell line ever grown in
culture.Her cells are one of the most
important tool in medicine her cells help
science with research like finding
cures.Since 2001 five Noble prizes (one
of the hardest award to win in science)
have been awarded for research
involving HeLa cells.
Analysis of Student As Response to
Assignment 2:
On the first glance at this assignment, I
notice a general pattern that her work
becomes more diluted and less formally
written toward the end of the paper.
Perhaps the most interesting difference
in student As work from assignment 1 to
assignment to is the following: as the
rigor of the assignment increases (this
is a more formal assignment that
included a comprehensive rubric), so too
does the quality of her work. It is always
reassuring to see concrete evidence that
raising expectations allows students to
meet you where you want them to, so
to speak. I am still concerned with
Student As grammar abilities. Her claim
is nicely tripartite and she does a good
job of splitting her claim and defending
each part of it through her essay, though
she lacks a formal conclusion paragraph.
The other conclusion I can draw from this

response is the efficacy of culturally

responsive teaching--I cant imagine
Student A writing for such an extended
length about a purely scientific topic. I
am worried that the science is not really
in her response--she does not touch on
how HeLa cells work or go into much
scientific detail about what the cells are
used for (only noting that the work they
were used in has been Nobel Prizeworthy). This is a continued trend from
her response to Assignment 1 where she
was again unable to pinpoint concrete
ties to scientific applications.

Student B

Student Bs Response to Assignment 1:

To be eithical means to be legally available
on a doctors prescription and usually not
advertised to the general public. Ethics can
be uses in science because of the things ee
talk about everyday in class the diseases
that people catch everyday and die from the
diseases that animals carry that are deadly
ethics can be used in all of these things.

Student Bs Response to Assignment

2:
XXXXXX
Ms. Bader
Justificatory Essay
Honors Biology

Henrietta Lacks an African American

Analysis of Student Bs Response to
woman was diagnosed with cervical
Assignment 1:
cancer. She died but something almost
Student B did not plagiarize, which is a good miraculous happened her cells continued
thing. However, I am worried that the
to live, and her cells were used to help
student is doing the opposite of what
cure pr medicate illnesses. Before all of
Student A did, and zooming too far in on
that the rights to her cells were taken
medicine as opposed to ethics in a general
sense. Perhaps I should have assigned two from her.
separate posts: one about ethics and one
about ethics in medicine. The student
Henrietta Lacks cells were stolen
seems to be attempting to regurgitate
from her. If her cells were not for
information he read online, but in a different,
profitable gain then why did she or her
confused order. I wonder what might
family not receive a dime of the millions
change if I asked students to watch a video
or read a prompt about non-scientific ethics, that was made from her immortal cells.
Some may say but she signed a form,
or gave an example of someone acting
ethically v. unethically, then asking them to
but her family signed no form but without
derive meaning based on case-study. I am
permission tests were ran on them to see
wary of this students comprehension of
if they had the immortal gene line like
ethics let alone their applications in
Mrs. Lacks.
medicine. The only thing I know for sure is

that this student has some sort of

comprehension of what doctors do and what
a disease is.

To steal is to take without permission

and without outright saying if your cells
are of some benefit we would like to do
research with them and if possible make
profit from them they did indeed steal
them. To this day her headstone is not
even marked. Mrs. Lacks along with her
family were used like test rats and when
receiving what they needed turned their
backs on them. Her family has no health
insurance and some are on assistance.
The crime is not that her cells were
taken it's how Johns Hopkins went about
doing this without even really
acknowledging her or reimbursing her
family for the research done on her cells
and on them.
Analysis of Student Bs Response to
Assignment 2:
Again, as with Student A, I see a positive
correlation between the quality of work,
increased rigor, and increased culturalresponsiveness. I notice again that
Student Bs writing quality and
cohesiveness of argument decreases
through the progression of the piece,
indicating that perhaps Student B had
not been exposed to a rigorous essay
assignment prior to this one. Reflecting
on this, perhaps in the future, I might
give students multiple opportunities to
review their own work and the work of
other students so that they can build their
claim-evidence-reasoning as well as
writing skill sets. Furthermore, engaging
in an editing process allows students to
be self-critical in an objective way:
namely, if one sees another person
making the same mistake, he or she will

be less likely to make that same mistake

in his or her own work.