Experiments in Self-Narration: Women's Scientific Autobiographies for the ELT Classroom

Abstract

Scientific autobiographies are not merely chronicles of experiments and professional mastery; they are also a type of life writing where scientists tell their private stories. In the three female-authored scientific autobiographies to be discussed in this article – Juli Berwald’s Spineless, Hope Jahren’s Lab Girl and Helen Macdonald’s H is for Hawk – the writers employ intertextual references, metaphors and narrative patterns known from specific fictional genres to integrate their private experiences into their public life stories. Based on a close analysis of the function of these literary devices, this article outlines some distinct ways in which these scientific autobiographies can be used in the ELT classroom. While a first project connects the research of a natural science topic with the promotion of personal development and the aims of language learning, a second one shows that women’s scientific autobiographies also represent a valuable resource in an interdisciplinary science and foreign-language classroom.