Final Blog: Transformative Learning

Throughout the course of Writing 60, one of the most transformative learning experiences I have had is peer review. I have done this in high school but nobody was truly care about it. People give each other useless feedback and thumbs-ups on every section without even reading it. To be honest, I was not paying attention to any peer review in high school either just like everybody else. However, In this class, I figured out how helpful can peer review be and how many things I can learn through this process. For the first time, I carefully read through my classmates’ writing and think deeply about how to advise them. I found out that I can learn so much from them, like their writing style, word choices, examples, paragraph structures, and evidence use. I can revise my own writing by revising their writing. This is such a win-win situation! Additionally, I also receive feedback from my classmates. Just like me, all of them provided me with valid suggestions and they have been incredibly helpful. By reading my classmates’ writing and the suggestions they gave me, I had a better understanding of the art of writing and how to write effectively. However, I still have a long way to go to become a “good writer”. Through this experience, I completely changed my mind on peer review. I realized how meaningful it is and sometimes it is even better and more efficient than reading books. In the future, I will do all the peer review with all my efforts.

Another transformative learning experience I have had in this course is about my research topic, coyote. I learned so much about coyotes in this course through my research. They are such a charming species and play a vital role in keeping our ecosystem stable. One fact I learned about them that would completely change my behavior in the future is that feeding coyotes is not helping them, but increasing the risk of human-coyote conflicts. Coyote feeding will decrease the fear they have toward humans which would cause more home invasion, human attacks, and pet attacks. Before taking the course, I always want to feed a coyote. In my home in Orange County, coyotes are everywhere and we can see them morning and night. They are all very skinny and seem like suffering from starvation. Therefore, I always thinking about approaching a coyote and giving it some food. The research I have done in this class entirely eliminated this thought. They are wildlife and they are meant to seek food on their own. That is their lifestyle and we should respect that. Feeding them would only cause more problems. 

One problem I faced in this course was writing efficiency. I have never considered myself a slow writer until taking this course. In high school, I can usually finish any essay with my best effort within one hour. However, I spent 2 hours on each assignment for this class on average. After some reflection, I think it is because the writing in this course is much more academic and advanced. I need time to construct the paragraph, think about what elements I need to include, evidence I want to use, examples that would help my argument, and get all my thoughts together. The writing structure in this course is much more complex than in high school. I spent a lot of time each week on this course therefore I think I need to increase my writing efficiency. To solve this problem, the best solution would be to practice academic writing in my free time, do some research on my own, and read more research articles. The key to getting better at writing is practice. The more I practice, the better and faster I will be writing. Writing skills will take a long time to improve and I am working toward it. 

The second problem I faced in this course was the reading issue. As an English learner, I usually take much more time to read through an article than native speakers. The knowledge I absorbed from each reading would also be shrink compared to others. This is the problem I’m facing all the time and I always want to improve. Additionally, I don’t think I am a book lover. I usually avoid reading by all means and searching for summaries when I have to read. However, in this class, I can’t get any summary for the research articles. I have to read them through word by word to have a clear understanding of what the researcher is arguing. This process took me a huge amount of time. This is the reason why I need to improve my reading skills so urgently because more readings are waiting for me in the future. To solve this problem, just like writing, I need to practice. The more books I read, the better reader I will be. In the upcoming summer, I will start practicing by reading some novels. Novels are much more interesting than research articles and much easier to absorb. It takes time to improve reading skills, but I will get there step by step.