GROW STEM (Geneseo Reaching Out to Women and Under-Represented Minorities in STEM)
networking meeting.
Today (Oct. 20), 5:15 PM, Bailey 102
Meetings to discuss essays and drafts are mandatory
Will start affecting late penalties with Enigma essay
Questions?
Enigma Essay Topics
Compare Bletchley Park to Geneseo
Differences in, e.g., mission, security atmosphere
But also similarities in high concentration of academic people, many of whom passed some
sort of test to get here, age distribution of people, approximate size of organization
Topics
Find something in the background to the story that interests you enough to learn more about
it and write re how its portrayal in novel compares to “reality” (history, social
relations, technology, etc.)
Brainstorm in pairs/triples
Write 2 - 3 sentences identifying a topic and what seems interesting about it here:
The women of Bletchley Park, how underappreciated they are and the roles they
get. Ex, Although Hester won the crossword contest, she gets a lower position,
under the men she beat in the contest. (A better cryptanalyst then some of the
men in Bletchley Park and still treated as inferior/an item?)
The history of Bletchley Park and how things were operated at Bletchley during
the war.
Good general area, but narrow it down as you learn more
After the British broke enigma, they had to carefully choose which codes they
wanted to act upon. If the British didn’t allow for the sacrifice of
their own troops/civilians, the Nazis would figure out that enigma was broken
and change it.
Really interesting problem, but identify some position or answer to a question
that will form a thesis as you learn more
The blackout and wartime rationing in Bletchley and England in general. Some of
the details, how realistic the representation in the book is. Did they actually
eat whale?
Why can’t there be a 4 rotator bombe? Can technology today create one? Is
it as hard as portrayed in the novel? Is it mathematically possible?
What was the true role of spies at Bletchley? Was it similar to how it is
portrayed in the book or is it different?
Next step is to find research sources (need to be authoritative, but not strictly
scholarly — e.g., primary sources could be very relevant for some essays)
Provisional bibliographies due to me by 11:59 PM tomorrow
Next
Citations and plagiarism
Read “Cite
Your Sources” pages at http://www.groundsforargument.org/drupal/evidence/sources/LRSintheWild
Page linked above through 2 exercises on identifying passages that need citation