Intelligence River
Grow With the Flow RiverTown News Order the Book Contact Us
RiverTown News
The Marino Mission: One Girl. One Mission. One Thousand Words.

The Marino Mission: One Girl. One Mission. One Thousand Words.

<<Posted by Dave on 2007/02/11>>
General Interest

The Marino Mission: One Girl. One Mission. One Thousand Words.
Karen B. Chapman
Wiley Publishing, Inc.

Alexa McCurry, an everyday kid who happens to know a lot more about DNA than you or I ever will, combines romance, astute lab work, and gutsy if sometimes ill-considered actions to solve a mystery during a summer internship at a marine biology lab in Central America.

In the course of the summer, Alexa uses a lot of big words. An even thousand of them are defined for the reader, as a painless way to prepare for the SATs.

Karen Chapman, the author, holds a Ph.D. in molecular biology and genetics, and puts her knowledge of the field to good use in the descriptions of the lab work. (She also graduated from Cornell; our heroine is a student at Ithaca High School, which I’ve often passed driving from downtown Ithaca up to Sid and Minna’s – fond memories.)

I wonder how adolescents of SAT-prep age will react to the book? Some indignant intelligentsia will withhold their endorsement, asserting that the patently pervasive punditry precludes or perhaps preempts profundity. (Did I mention that there’s a handy Vocabulary List in the back, as well as chapter-by-chapter vocabulary quizzes?) In truth, the device is necessarily heavy handed; at the end of Chapter 12, I read a few lines of Pride and Prejudice to cleanse my palate. But I agree with the blurb: seeing the words embedded in a story beats going brain dead studying word lists. I’d add that it is almost certainly more effective.

I’ll put it out in the waiting room tomorrow, and if I overhear spontaneous reviews, I’ll let you know.

Next: I smell CSAPs
Previous: MMORPGS – Some Further Thoughts

Comments

  1. 2/19/2007 9:20 am

    My post here brought this to mind. It’s from page 171 of GWTF, part of a section, “Overarching Tools, Settings, and Strategies,” about especially powerful influences on kids’ growing intelligences:

    Dictionaries — You already know I’m a bit of a nut about words. One of the parts of the dumbing of our culture that worries me most is the gradual restriction of our shared vocabulary. Showing off by using big words is silly, but “the right word” can say precisely what we mean. “He is so, like, cool!” may not help us pick him out of a crowd! Words are power, but only if both speaker and listener or author and reader know them. An example: My editor wanted me to cut the word “multifarious” in the paragraph just above — feeling that many readers wouldn’t know the word. It’s the perfect word there, I think. But if you didn’t know it, and didn’t stop to look it up, it was just static in my sentence, and messed up our communication. If you did know it, our conversation was that much more precise. And if you stopped to look it up, you built your own intelligence by one small brick. That dictionary habit, multiplied by 18 years, does more than earn high scores on the SATs — it gives your child tools for expression. And the way you get the dictionary habit is by seeing it modeled when you’re young.

    — Dave
  2. 1/12/2008 3:20 pm

    I suspect I’ve known the word “multifarious” since childhood. It wouldn’t have slowed me down, but I hadn’t looked it up (til now). As I can’t say I have a ‘dictionary habit,’ there must be another route to vocabulary. It’s called ‘voracious reading,’ which eventually allows us to absorb meaning in context (though not quite as precisely, I’m sure).

    Alternatively, if you took Mrs. Covert’s 9th grade English, you’d recall memorizing long lists of vocabulary words, which had to be mirrored verbatim on tests. Some of those definitions appear instantly in my mind when the word is encountered, lo, these many years later!

    — Sally
  3. 1/29/2008 12:36 pm

    I do wonder whether a dictionary habit is a good idea for everyone. I bet most of us learn most words through context, and it usually works fine.

    The urge to pun on “Covert Plans” threatens to overpower me, so instead I’ll recommend an addictive vocabulary site: FreeRice.

    — Dave

Add a comment

Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.

Terms of use | Privacy policy