Week 1
Who is He Zhang?
6/28/2015
My name is He Zhang and I am currently a ICS major. However, I am not really interested in computer at first because it is a completely new area to me so I always want to switch it to Math because calculating is my cup of tea. After two years studying in UCI, I am kind of having fun in learning computer science and feel proud to be an anteater.
From my name, you can figure out that I am an international student. I come from Shanghai, the city with a reputation of the "Paris of the Orient". Well, Shanghai is one of the most populous metropolis in the world that every year a great amount of tourists pay a visit to Shanghai. Speaking of Shanghai, the first impression to you guys may be the architecture, like the Bund, Jingmao Tower, Shikumen. They all witnessed the changes and history of Shanghai. When I was a child, I always liked to see these fascinating buildings in my hometown. My grandpa was one of the architects to participate in the construction. Sounds cool right?
Speaking of my writings experience, I would like to describe it as a battle, which I am still struggling with. As an international student, I have not received much training on English writing before. Therefore, I took the Academic English courses during my first year, which were prerequisite of writing courses. In order to have a better understanding of writing skills, I have to fix my grammar as well as organize the language. So when I first entered the writing 39A, I had no idea what a rhetorical analysis essay is. To be honest, I was afraid of writing and felt anxious at that time. Whereas, after reading required articles and books, I realized that it could have different ways to approach my audiences as a writer. With the exprience of taking 39A and 39B, I hope I can learn more about writing and do well in researches.
The theme of this 39c course is loving animals that I must have to mention my little hamster named Miko. The picture above is Miko and she is a pretty shy girl. At first, I did not want to raise a pet because I was so afraid of animals' hair and feather. When I saw some friends around me always posting the life of their cute hamsters, I was movable that I wanted to have my own hamster so I bought her from the animal market. Right now, she is 6 months old and becomes fatter and fatter. I feed her with vegetables, snacks, and her favourite food --- seeds. She is so lovely that I cannot help playing with her every day. I hope to enlarge me knowledge of animals and build a closer connection with animals after taking the course.
Week 2 Relationship Between Animals
We always know that humans are the most intelligent animals in the world that we can use tools to do a lot of things and we have minds to feel emotions. In my potential consciousness, I cannot deny that humans are senior animals that we create civilizations and culture. However, is it true that humans are the only animals who have feelings, communications and relationship/ Scientist has been studied whether animals have minds or not for a long period of time. When I read six article from Times this week, I realize that animals can be as smart as humans and their behaviors somewhat like humans as well.
Jeffery Kluger once said that "humans have a suffer the way humans do, like they do not think in
love and they even have no consciousness. René
like humans is that "animals do not speak as we
have no thoughts." Yet, the researches about whether they have mind or not because study
so, I still feel suprised that most of animals do
article "Animals aren't supposed to feel grief. But
presents some examples to support his claim
soul of animals. Chimp mothers refuse to leave becomes cold and decompse. Elephants will stay
and touching. Moreover, domestic cats and dogs
their playmate died. Looking at all those behaviors
fraught relationship with animals". They do not at think in a meaningful way; they do not understand
Descartes told the reason why animals cannot live
do is not that they lack the organs but that they
animals' brain cannot show the exact conclusion their minds cannot be proven in simple way. Even
have feelings and can act like humans. In the
if it isn't, what is it?" written by Jeffery Kluger, he that there are existing something deep inside the
their dead babies and hold them until the bodies
beside the body of a fallen herdmate, mourning
will refuse to eat food and feel depression when
of animals, how can we say that they are not have
minds? Although I never seen such sad plots in my life, I still feel their feelings of sadness. Animals are just like humans that can understand joys and sorrows around them. Science's complaints are legimate that animals may not have minds like they cannot control themselves or speak as humans, but the reports also miss something too that animals can actually know their emotions and they do have senses.
Speaking of animals, I must admit it is amazing to know that there is a true friendship exist among animals. In the article "Those who know the meaning of friendship" written by Carl Zimmer, it writes that evolutionary biologists and anthropologists think "friendship as been considerd one of the core trait of only one species of ape: us. Humans can build friendship with people in a short time and then lasts for years because humans' capacity can help them learn the
meaning of love, understand loyalty, and keep in touch with others to avoid long-time separation.Altough it seems like exclusive situation of humans, animals can also have true relationship instead of childish fridenship just like you scratch me back and I scratch you back. The result of animal-friendship research done by Professor Joan Silk and Profeesor Jean Altman really gives me a shock that "the strongest bonds were between unrelated females and those lasted years", which is my first to know that because I always think the strongest relationship is between related males. The example of two female whales named Nicklo and Black Tip Double Dip shows how strong the true friendship between unrelated females that they were on the hunt with each other. This pair of dolphins drove the group of mullets from different sides and whack the fish. It is so rare for researches to see two unrelated female dophins are chacking fish together and they find these two dolphins swim toghther to get food for several times. Maybe there is a true friendship build between them. Animals can have true relationships as well as humans, and I think they have minds too.
Week 3 Chosing Topic For HCP
This week I have done some researches to determine what I should pick for my Historical Conversations Project.
and eventually I decide one topic that I have cared about it for a long time. Here, I am excited to pulish my topic
is "Animal Testing on Cosmetics and Household Products". I must admit that I do not think about this topic at
first . At the first two weeks, I have no ideas about which topic should I write in my HCP, and I even do not read
the prompt of it. However, after reading some articles and watching some video about animals on youtube, I am kind of understanding what I may focus on. To be honest, I really like to have a deep research about the relationship between animals and humans not only because I raise a hamaster on my own, but also because I like to watch animal documentary series since I was a child, but when I read the sixt articles on TIMES, I think that there must be many people who are instrested in this area and I may not catch up with them to have a good reaserch; thus, I overview the topics professor provides and choose "Animal Testing on Cosmetics and Household Products" as my final decision. After deciding my topic, I search some keywords, like "animal testing", "animal testing on cosmetics", "animal testing on household products" to further my research. During the research I have found that some useful information about animal testing, including benefits and harmful. We know that animal testing is good for humans and protect them from harm; however, animals are still live creatures that they should be treated as people. Scientists try to use mircochips to replace the animals to test chemicals. I also know that U.S. bans the animal testing in order to protect animals. I will use these information in my essay to show the good way of keeping animal testing as well as the opposite way of doing animal testing.
Morever, I also do some other things this week. I finish the quiz which contains Irvine Leslie's article and Jon Mooallem's presentation on TED. It needs me to prepare well and have a good understanding of these two materials or you will find that you feel confused about what quiz asks to answer and it will cost you a long time to finish it. I make few comments on my classmates' porfolios and Irvine discussion. I find that there are a quite few classmates do a great job on the homework that I think I should learn from them. Reading others' homework and some comments for me, I can realize what advantages and disadvantages of my work so that I can make a improvment next time. That is the purpose of peer review to help the original author become a more wonderful writer. Last but not least, I add some links on Delicious and tweet some words with tag animaladvo on twitter. It is good for me to add the links that are helpful to my research. These related links will provide some imformation that I need for my HCP essay and avoid me to forget what I have found before.
Week 4
HCP Reflection (1st draft)
Yeah...... I finally finish my first draft of HCP and I feel a little bit unconfident about my first draft since I have not written a long essay for a period of time; however, it is not as difficult as I think to write a historical project because this is not only a new essay form that I do not know it before but also it is really a tough time for me to write a new essay before, so I am panic at first when I realize that I need to write it. Reading the prompt, paragraph instructions, rubic actually take me a while so that I will not miss any details or misunderstanding something. When I go over through my HCP, I think that my combinations of citations and my own words are not good; it seems like a kind of two seperate part. However, lucky me, the resouces I find are pretty strongful to support my project theme - animal testing, including the disadvantages and advantages of animal testing. With both sides of animal testing, it is much comprehensive of a researching theme. As the same old problem as usual, my first thing to do in my revision is to correct my grammar cause it is always a big problem for me to fix. After finishing my grammar, I will change some parts of my citations to make sure that I use the correct form of quotations as well as introduce them in my essay smoothly. I think these two things are main work for me in my next draft. To be honest, the most challenging part of HCP is to start because it is a completely new writing form for me and it is hard to find the way to start. I am confused to write this kind of essay at first, but when I talk to my friends who have taken the 39C courses before, they tell me how to figure out this problem and teach me some way to start writing. After that, I feel more confident to write it. Besides, reading some historical project samples is also a good way to help me overcome my difficulty. I cannot deny that the articles I read every week given by professor and discussion I write are really a helpful practice to start my HCP. During the process, I know how to search the articles that I need, how to be capable to relate my essay with my researches, etc. Last but not least, skim reading is also useful me that it saves me much time as well as gives me a brief understanding of the articles. All these practices pave a nice way for me to get a start of my essay.
Week 5 Mid－Summer Reflection
The week 5 is coming to end, which means I have finished half way of writing 39c course. When I look back to the previous works that I started at the begining of the course, I must say that it is really a good process for me to prepare my HCP. The blogs we write every week help me remind what I have done before because it is more likely to be impossible to remember past few weeks. For five weeks studying and learning, I know how to use key words to search what I need on the Internet as well as from liabrary. Before taking this course, I barely know nothing about library website, much less about library sources. The sources I found thus far let me realize the cruelty of animal world; people use animals to have animal testing to make sure the products are safe before they access to market. The scentific articles give me a more wider understanding about animals, like chimpanzee, elephants, dophins etc. These are all beneficial to identify the topic of my HCP and show me how to find useful information to finish the essay. Talking about my HCP, I cannot forget to say peer review because the peer feedbacks from my group memebers are surely thoughtful and reasonable. They point out my advantages and
disadvantages of my essay. Because I misunderstand
essay, I only write several pages of it. My classmates
It is pretty meaningful to me when I change my HCP.
The resources I ultilized in my essay are based on my
it saves me much time and helps me write the essay
useful for my HCP, I still need to find more resouces to
work collabrately with other group memebers to finish
cruelty to animals, each one finds some useful ideas
myself, sometimes, group working can receive much
the meaning of HCP draft that I think it does not need to finish the whole
talk about the length of my essay and show me what requirement I miss.
However, they also give their agreement of using subtitles and resources
former reserches about animal testing. Because of these former findings,
frequently. Although there is no denying that these sources are actually
support my ideas and show evidence to readers. This week, I need to
social media campaign. When we set up a goal that we will discuss the
and videos to achieve our point. It teaches me not to do the work by
more affective ideas and widen my horizen of animal testing.
Moreover, there are multiple habits of mind that I learn
is curiosity. As we know, having curiosity during the
to learn more about the world. When I first look up the
in the first place that this problem is very well-known
and medicines need to have a animal test before it ap
raise my curiosity about the issue so that I do a lot of
Since all the assignements I have done so far, I never
about reports of animal testing, I insist my research o
testing can truely reflect the relationship between peo
it.
to improve my writing ability during the first five week study. One of them
writing is very important because it is a kind of desire that people want
list of animal issues the professor provides, animal testing attracts me
and strange to me. Well-known is because it seems to be a common knowledge that most cosmetics
plies to humans. Strange is because it never be deeply exposed about how it works. These two parts
researches about it. It is an esstential part on the path of successfully writing. Another one is persistance.
change my insterst on animal testing. No matter the long studies about animal testing or the short articles
n animal testing not only because it is a attractive and insteresting topic to me, but also because animal
ple and animals and show the cruelty of animal world. It is a popular issue that people need to argue over
Revision Strategy
This week, I have finished the peer review. When I give other's my opinions about their article, I also recieve another two peers' suggestions and professor's commments. Because I misunderstand the meaning of HCP draft that I think it will like previous writing courses, which have three drafts for each essay, so I just writing four pages of the HCP draft. It is too short of the essay that the minimum requirement is six pages; thus, the professor and other two peers all point out this disadvantage. In addition, they also give me some other useful advices which are beneficial to me when I do the revision. The article we read last week teaches me a lesson that giving advice is much more helpful than receiving advice because the way you think how to tell people to have a better revision of the essay is the same way you think about your own essay. Among all the comments, it is really helpful for me when one classmate mentions that I need some transition sentences to make a connection between two paragraphes. When I write the essay, I always unable to make a smooth transition between two pragraphes, and I am still working on it. Moreover, one comments asserts that it is better for me to introduce the source. I know it is important to introduce or make a citation when you use some others' resources, but when I see some scentific sample articles, I do not see the author introduce all the sources he or she uses, so I am a little bit disagree with this suggestion. Getting the feedback from professor gives me some confidence that I have a good start about my essay because it is my first time to write historial view so I am very nervous about my draft. However, a good start does not mean I am perfect that I need to improve a lot of aspects of my essay. In the professor's comments, I believe I learn a lot about how to change my essay and how to continue my essay. Although I only write four pages, I consider that I will try my best to have a wonderful essay given by some many advices. During the process of revision, my first thing is to finish my essay with the requirements , then I revise it based on peer advices and instructor's comments. Finally, I will check my grammar to make sure that grammar error is not the main disadvantage of my whole essay. Because of my topic of HCP is animal testing on cosmetics or housing products, so the keywords and phrases of my research is primarily around "animal right", "animal testing", etc. I hope I will show a satisfied HCP final draft to the professor.
Week 6 Half Way Of Social Media Campaign
At the end of this week, other two group members and me has finished three days of social media campaign and I must say that our group leader is very responsible. She creates the module of the campaign and assign different job for everyone for each day. The first day of my work is do the twitter part, the second day of my job is finish the instagram and I need to do some changes on our wix website on the third day. I can experience various parts of the campaign to have a comphrensive learning of ending animal cruelty. When one of us have any problems about login or task, we email to each other and figure out the problem together. It is really helpful and effective to do a group work. Besides, my other two groups are very passionate of the social media campaign that they always finish their parts early and move to the next day, which stimulate me to catch up their tempor and try to do the work as good as them.
In addition, HCP final draft should be submitted before Sunday. After the peer review of last week, like what I said before, I get some useful suggestions from my peers and comments from instructors so I follow each advice I get to do my revision of HCP."As what Marc Bekoff describes, an emeritus professor at the University of Colorado, Boulder and a co-founder of Ethical Treatment of Animals, the bond between animals and humans can be considered as a messy and confusing affair." This is what I write in my first version of HCP that I quote what other says as my topic sentence which is not correct because it should be my own view about what I will talk about next in first sentence, so I change it into "The relationship between animals and humans is kind of mutually beneficial as well as harmful. As what Marc Bekoff describes, an emeritus professor at the University of Colorado, Boulder and a co-founder of Ethical Treatment of Animals, the bond between animals and humans can be considered as a messy and confusing affair." From my perspective, it is better than what I have written before. The same comparison between "However, testing on animals should be keep or avoid is a really controversial problem that people need to figure out clearly, at least getting a general conclusion. From my perspective, despite the fact that animal testing has brought a lot of benefits to our lives so far, it should be avoided and people need to find another way to replace it." and "However, testing on animals should be keep or avoid is a really controversial problem that people need to figure out clearly, at least getting a general conclusion." that make my thesis a little bit stronger than before. From these two examples, I cannot deny that how to get my thesis and topic sentence clear and strong. I realize how important these two parts are in a essay that they will give readers a breif knowledge about what this paragraph will say next.
Week 7 Finish Campaign!
In the week 7, the work in writing 39c is all about social media campaign and the presentation. To be honest, I feel a little bit hard for me at the beginning not only because it is really new style project but also because I am not really understand what should do. However, at the end of the week, I realize although it is a challenge for me, it teaches me how to make a plan about campaign as well as learn more about the issues of animal cruelty. At the first couple days of the work, my groupmates have already post their part of job in the social media campaign so I am kind of worry that I cannot catch up with the others, so I email to them to figure out how and what should I do. They are very supportive and warm-hearted to reply me as soon as possible to help me go through the whole project, and eventually I am in the same step as they are. We separate our work and focus on different part of the job and each day we switch our job so that we can also get used to other one's work. Each of us need to create a new account or website so I choose to create a twitter account, keep posting some useful resources and videos on the twitter, but Amanda and Carah also post some related articles. We can say that each one has done some attributes to twitter, Instagram and website. Moreover, because Amanda and Carah have already finished the first part of the SMC, so I decide to finish the reflection part. It is really good to use prezi to present what we want to express in the social media campaign.
As a member of group 1, I really appreciate my two groupmates who help me a lot during the project and we have a good habit that we keep in touch with each other by email. There is no denying that my group is not in the part of late groups, and we always do our job early. Because it is the first time we write a social media campaign, so there are definitely something need to be improved. From my perspective, I think we can write something about ending animal cruelty on the website and we can increase the quality of our post. Despite the fact that we have changed the style of every day post, we still need to need to write something more attractive to gain more liked or retweeted. Personally, I consider that I should understand the prompt at start and do the work right away. In addition, I also can find some more inforgraphics or scientific articles to rich our website or presentation.
Week 8 Learn From Writing
This moment, I have already finished eight weeks weeks left. The total process of learning and writing it is time to write something to reflect what I have the reflection I wrote before in the week five, right understanding about the habits of mind and primary I realize that reflection can not only help people
also take a careful consideration on something.
When I look back at the begining of the course, I can
what the course is going to be, not to mention having
a social media campagin. To be honest, I always
just the same as classes I have taken before. Yet,
have my own website to write a blog or reflection
must admit that I really enjoy writing right not, not like
of the writing courses and it is only two so far is really helpful and interesting so learned in over past two months. Unlike
now, I have a more comprehensive learning objectives for writing. Moreover,
remember what they learned before but
say that I have no expectation about
confidence to write a project or prepare
regard the 39c as a boring writing class,
after I taking the course and starting to
every week, it causes my interest and I what I used to be, feeling painful to write.
With the continuation of learning, this course is not just a new style for me but teaches me how to write a research paper step by step as well as tells me what kind of resouces is reliable and useful. The social media campaign for a group work lets me get openness. In my group, we use twitter, instagram, and
prezi to show our work about ending the animal cruelty. I need to find differnet ways from the website, like inforgraphic, videos, scientific articles, even some animal rights orgnizations, to match the anticipation of the viewers and attract more people to care about animal testing. Furthemore, during a week of the social media campaign project, I collect various information about different agencies' opinion about animal cruelty and post them on twitter to allow people to leave their comments freely in order to help our project have a open and extensive mind. In addition, I also acquire responsibility in the process of project. As what I said couple weeks ago, my group memebers always complete the 7-day plan ahead of schedule, so I become the one who hold back the whole project. Although I finish my part on time, I still force them to slow down the project invisibly. Thus, I comphrend that the project I am working is a group work that everyone should keep path of others and there is no reason for me to not finish the work quickly. Group working teaches me what is the responsiblity is. Talking about the habits of mind I gain in the course, I should mention what learning objectives I obtain during the study. I have abilities to compose in multiple enviroment that I used to write some short paragraphes and outlines on the paper and now I use computer to type what I want to write. I even use home base website to record my progress every week to prevent me from forgetting and prezi to prepare my presentation. Moreover, from my perspective, I learn critical thinking that I am capable of analyzing a text with a main idea and use it in my research paper. After so many reading the professor gives to me, I know how to have a breif and effective understanding about the whole paper and write something significant or thoughtful ideas beside the paragraphes so I think I have ability of critcal thinking.
Last but not least, I am very glad to learn a great amount of writing skills during a 8-week studying and I hope that I can get a good grade and keep my passion for writing in the remaing time of my university education.
Week 9 What AP And HCP teach me
Time files, and shortly come into the ninth week of the summer writing 39c course. To me, AP and HCP are a different kind of essay that I have written before. At the beginning of the process of both essays, it is a quite tough task to choose what topic I should focus on and how to develop the essay. For HCP, it is a historicl review that shows my sense of what scientists talk about this topic while AP is a problem-solution essay that requires me to write a existing significant problem and how to solve it. Basically, HCP is kind of first step to get ready for AP and it is better to combine the two essays in a coherent way. When I decide my initial idea, animal cruelty comes to my mind first because there are lots of news reporting people treat animals like crap. It is very hurtful for me. However, it feels more controversial about animal testing and animal testing is another way that make animal go through pain so I decide to write animal testing for HCP and AP. In order to find some creditable sources, I search the internet by the keyword "animal testing" end with an important range "scientfic articles"; thus, it helps me find many animal protection organizations, scentific articles about animal testing. Beside, when I write the AP, it needs solutions so I use the keyword "solutions animal testing". Both are really useful. During the process of writing, I choose aritcles that can make my essay more specific
as well as can increase my realiability of essay. Peta, navs and pinterest are some useful website I use for my essays. I always search the writer to see whether he or she is a scientists or professors before I cite the sentences from their articles. Moreover, talking about my structure of my essay, I prefer to write sub-titles in my HCP because it gives readers a brief understanding about what I will write next and it also reminds me to focus on the titles instead of not catching questions. For my AP, I choose to write one paragraph for each point of the prompt for the reason that it can clarify my ideas and fulfill the requirements as well. In the what's problem draft, I change my way to talk about ineffectiveness of animal testing and make a clear assertion that I think it is better to put animal testing to an end. I combine the reflections from professor and peer reviews, I add some more specific details to show how vital the problem is and I use the correct citation format to quote from other resources. I also change the way of expression and use multiple elements in my AP to have a more comprehensive problem and solution essay. I write the problem from perspective of government, jouranlists, and scientist because it will show readers how vital the problem is and different views of it. Writing HCP and AP stimulates my curiosity, openness and flexibility. I find it is very interesting to research something about topics I care, and feel curious to know more about the world, not just animal testing. In addition, I learn how to use social media, videos, inforgraphic to express my ideas, not just simply words. Using helpful resouces in essay can also good for creating a general understanding of animal testing.