Synthesizing With the Fish...

To help you further your study of Molecular Genetics aka: DNA Replication, aka: Protein Synthesis (my, my there are a lot of names for this life process!), Mrs. Fish welcome you to visit the following websites below.

Some are small videos with animations on the double helix unraveling and the role of enzymes during DNA Replication. Others links have wonderful interactive features that test your abilities in recognizing DNA base pairs to complementary base pairs for m-RNA sequencing during transcription and also give you a visual as to how t-RNA transports the Amino Acids to the Ribosome, and builds up long chains of polypeptides.


Science net links - interactives protein

This one is excellent at testing yourself on the various enzymes involved in DNA replication.

From the Chinese University of Hong Kong
Click on the Protein Synthesis Link

Enzyme review and bonding between nitrogen bases is shown

Have Fun with this Transcription game on Molecular Genetics

Also have some fun with this Transcription and Translation Game – very interactive and positive reinforcement when you get a sequence right!

Really Good Fiction

Here is a list of books that I book talked for a bunch of classes. A student asked me to write a list. These titles are all really good - in my opinin.

Adams, Douglas –The Hitchhikers’ Guide to the Galaxy (and sequels)
Anderson, Laurie Halse – Speak
Anonymous – Go Ask Alice
Atwood, Margaret – Alias Grace
Blume, Judy - Forever
Brashares, Ann – The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants (and sequels)
Bray, Libba - A Great and Terrible Beauty (and sequel)
Burgess, Anthony – A Clockwork Orange
Carr, Caleb – The Alienist
Chobsky, Stephen – The Perks of Being a Wallflower
Coupland, Douglas – Miss Wyoming
Girlfriend in a Coma
Crutcher, Chris – The Crazy Horse Electric Game
The Sledding Hill
de los Santos, Marissa – Love Walked In
Duncan, Lois – Down a Dark Hall
Killing Mr. Griffin
Eugenides, Jeffery – The Virgin Suicides
Frey, James - A Million Little Pieces
Garden, Nancy – Endgame
Hopkins, Ellen - Burned
King, Stephen – The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon
The Stand
Misery
Klosterman, Chuck – Fargo Rock City
Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs
Koertge, Ron – Stoner and Spaz
Krovatkin, Christopher – Heavy Metal and You
Mac, Carrie – The Beckoners
McBride, James – The Color of Water
McCourt, Frank – Angela’s Ashes
McCormack, Patricia – Cut
Meyer, L.A. – Bloody Jack (and sequels)
Moore, Alan – V for Vendetta
Watchmen
Morris, Mary McGarry – Vanished
Parkhurst, Caroline – The Dogs of Babel
Rice, Anne – Interview With the Vampire (and sequels)
Salinger, J.D. – Nine Stories
Sebold, Alice – The Lovely Bones
Sones, Sonia – Stop Pretending
Things My Mother Doesn’t Know
Sparks, Nicholas – The Notebook
Thomas, Rob – Rats Saw God
Westerfield, Scott – Uglies (and sequels)
Whitcomb, Laura – A Certain Slant of Light
Vonnegut, Kurt – Slaughterhouse Five
Fahrenheit 451
Zusak, Markus – I am the Messenger
The Book Thief

Biography Resource Center

For author research you just can't beat Biography Resource Center! This site offers full length biographical entries from reference books. (Remember these are considered "books" when you are citing your sources for a research paper.) There is also a tab for magazine articles which can provide access to reviews and feature pieces that are also fully edited and thus considered "print resources". And even if your writer is fairly new, or writes less literary fiction, or children's books they are still very likely to be represented here.

A database is not considered an internet source. Even though we access the databases through the internet, they are actually print collections. They are articles, entries, essays, podcasts, transcripts and images that have been through the same editorial process that the printed page goes through.

The databases that we predominantly use at BHS are those available through the Noble website. Once you go to the site you will see a little box on the right that says "reference databases". If you click on that it will take you to the "Answers To Go" page. This is the list of databases that are provided by the Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners.

Once you choose your database and click on it you will be taken to the MBLC page that looks a little something like this:


Now you need to enter your library card number in the little box that is near the middle of the page and click "go". If you don't have a library card, please leave your resignation at the main office on the way out. If you don't have you library card with you you can use BHS's number which is hanging on the wall of the library over the student computers.

Once you type in your number you will be taken to the database you have chosen and begin the wonderful task of database research!

Searching for Book/Author Information on the Web

The most valuable piece of information I can give you about searching for information on a book is to put the name of the book in quotes. This tells your search engine that you are only interested in the words in that order. This is very useful if you are looking for information on "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time" and not so useful if you are looking for information on "Night".

Many of the hits that you are going to get on any book are commercial hits - where you can purchase the book. One way to remedy this is to use Google's "advanced search" tab located to the right of the search window. It will take you to a page where you can limit your search to the .edu domain which will only cull from educational sites, primarily universities and other learning institutions.

Also, searching for the author's name with the book's title will often lead to the author's personal page. While this is certainly going to be biased in favor of the author's work, there are often links to reviews and interviews that you may find useful.

And now - a few words about Wikipedia.Wikipedia is such a pain in my neck. I love it for its communal nature, but since it gets so many hits, it is nearly always in the top 10 results for any search. It is not that it is full of lies as some would claim, but that it is not always entirely true. It can be a good source for quick background information but little else. Any facts you find here should be double checked in another resource.

For an example - take a look at the interesting entry on Lucy Larcom. See if you can find the cleverly placed misinformation! Also, the site about.com often takes their information directly from Wikipedia making it generally just as unciteable.

Literary Criticism Resources

Literary Criticism
Originally uploaded by barbfecteau.

BHS Library has an excellent collection of casebooks as well as many volumes of Contemporary Literary Criticism. But the web offers access to literary criticism, particularly of newer writers, that we just can't offer in print. But web-criticism is a dicey business, particularly if you are new to the game. There are a lot of great online book review sources you just need to learn which ones are reliable.

For "the classics" Rutgers Literary Resources on the Net is an excellent resource. "This set of pages is a collection of links to sites on the Internet dealing especially with English and American literature, excluding most single electronic texts, and is limited to collections of information useful to academics. I've excluded most poetry journals, for instance," according to site creator Jack Lynch, PhD.

If you are looking for reviews of more current or popular, but still literary writers, ReviewsOfBooks is wonderful. It is a clearinghouse for full length newspaper and magazine reviews.

Amazon will often reprint reviews from reputable sources like Library Journal or Publishers Weekly which can be convenient for less literary books. Just remember that, while they might help you decidwhetherer or not to buy a particular book, the customer reviews are not citeable because they are not edited the way that the magazine and newspaper reviews are.

Allreaders seemed like a good idea at the time, but it is useless for research. Everyone is referred to as a "resident scholar". Which becomes increasingly more ironic the more of these reviews you read.

Holocaust Book List

Here is a list of books on the Holocaust for Mrs. Winokur's Facing History class. They are ordered by where they are in the Beverly Public Library because that's just the kind of helpful lister that I am!


YA fiction
Boas, Jonathan: Five Diaries of Teenagers Who Died in the Holocaust
Cormier, Robert: Tunes For Bears To Dance To
Green Bette: Summer of My German Soldier
Isaacs, Anne: Torn Thread
Laird, Christa: Shadow of the Wall
Matas, Carol: After the War
Matas, Carol: Greater Than Angels
Matas, Carol: In My Enemy’s House
Pausewang, Gudrun: The Final Journey
Pressler, Mirjam: Malka
Spiegelman, Art: Maus
Voight, Cynthia: David and Jonathan
YA non-fiction
D804.3.A35 – Adler, David: We Remember the Holocaust
D804.3.P49 – Petit, Jayne: A Place To Hide
D804.3.R64 – Rogasky, Barbara: Smoke and Ashes
D804.66.O73 – Opdyke, Irene: In My Hands
D810.J4.T42 – Tec, Nechama: Dry Tears
DS135.G5.H48654 – Hillman, Laura: I Will Plant You a Lilac Tree
DS135.L53.R34713 – Rabinovici, Achoschana: Thanks To My Mother
DS135.P62H74 – Korenblit and Janger: Until We Meet Again
DS135.R93L8976 – Toll, Nelly S.: Behind the Secret Window
DS135.S55J33 – Bitton-Jackson, Livia: My Bridges of Hope

Children’s fiction

Jung, Reinhardt: Dreaming in Black and White
Radin, Ruth: Escape to the Forest
Reiss, Johanna: The Upstairs Room
Serraillier, Ian: The Silver Sword
Yolen, Jane: The Devil’s Arithmetic

Children’s non-fiction

D802.N4I66 – Ippisch, Hanneke: Sky
D804.3.G72 – Greenfeld, Howard: The Hidden Children
DS135.G5L336 – Perl, Lila: Four Perfect Pebbles
DS135.N6R44 – Reiss, Johanna: The Journey BackDS135.P63L63 – Lobel, Anita: No Pretty Pictures