The Art of Explanation

Hi all,

On Friday, we looked at unpacking, a strategy to maximize the depth of explanation in a short response.  This works best when you see the command term explain on your IB exams.  The goal is to give a lot of depth at the molecular and cellular level about what's going on.  To use this strategy on a short answer:

1. Identify key concepts the question is asking about.
2. Unpack those concepts by brainstorming everything we learned in connection with them.
3. Draw a model of what's happening at the cellular or molecular level.
4. Repack your explanation into a few concise, deep sentences explaining the phenomenon.

For example, in the prompt "Explain the necessity of enzymes in digestion"

I would "unpack" the terms enzyme (biological catalyst, lowers activation energy, speeds up reactions, breaks down bigger molecules into smaller molecules, acts on a substrate, examples are amylase, pepsin, lipase) and digestion (break down of big molecules like polysaccharides, polypeptides, and fatty acids into smaller molecules, absorption into blood stream, smaller molecules diffuse into cells, where they can be respired).  I can use this information to now answer the question in greater depth.

For homework:

"Repack" the examples we looked at in class, writing your deep explanations.  This will go in as a take home quiz grade, so do a good, thorough job.  If you are missing the sheet, the questions are:

1. Explain, with an example, the necessity of enzymes in digestion.
2. Explain the effect of pH on enzyme activity.
3. Explain why the rate of glucose uptake by facilitated diffusion (on the DBQ) levels off after an external concentration of 450.
4. Explain the importance of the tertiary structure of proteins to membrane ion channels.

Below is the graph for #3 for those who may need it.  Thanks to Kai Ni for pointing this out!

On Monday, we're moving onto our next topic: cell respiration (whoo!)

Best,

Mr. Hill