A Feeling for the Organism: The Life and Work of Barbara McClintock | Overview & Chapter Abstracts for Teachers

Chapter Abstracts

Chapter abstracts are short descriptions of events that occur in each chapter. They highlight major plot events and detail the important relationships and characteristics of characters and objects. The Chapter Abstracts can be used to review what the students have read, or to prepare the students for what they will read. Hand the abstracts out in class as a study guide, or use them as a "key" for a class discussion. They are relatively brief, but can serve to be an excellent refresher of the text for either a student or teacher.

Chapter 1, A Historical Overview Abstract

* Genetics was a young science when Barbara McClintock became involved in it. Barbara enrolled at Cornell in 1919. She earned her PhD in botany from Cornell's College of Agriculture.
* Cornell's geneticists studied mostly maize, which matures slowly. Fruit flies, or Drosophila, were also being...
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