Chapter One

     How important and frequent is knowledge-making during my day-to-day life? Currently in my Writing 101 class, the first chapter has covered posing questions, reading rhetorically, surface learning, deep learning, and telling the difference between knowledge-getting compared to knowledge-making. For context, knowledge-getting is receiving or learning information via schooling or other resources. Knowledge-making, on the other hand, is when someone poses their own question to analyze. Personally, I feel that on a day-to-day basis I mostly experience knowledge-getting. Therefore, I’ve decided to try out knowledge-making by posing my own question and diving deep into my experiences to determine how prevalent both are in my life. 

    Thinking back to some great stories of my life, some of the memories I hold dear to me have involved knowledge-making in some way. For example, one important memory that just came to mind was when I encountered a hummingbird in my front garden. A few years ago, I had decided to venture outside to look for caterpillars on the milkweed I had planted when I heard a little chirp noise beside me. Looking up, I made direct eye contact with a tiny green hummingbird that was just hovering beside me out of curiosity. After he flew around me for a bit then left, I ran inside and looked to google to help me answer all the questions I had in my head. What kind of hummingbird was that? How can I attract hummingbirds to my yard? What is the relationship between hummingbirds and people? 

 

    People ask questions to better understand the world around them. Since I started doing research on hummingbirds, I’ve had a handful of other hummingbird sighting in my front yard. Whether or not it has anything to do with the hummingbird friendly flowers I’ve planted for the hummingbird feeders I’ve put up, I’m not sure. Yet, hummingbird information is not present in any curriculums taught in schools. Knowledge-making is a great way for people to venture away from curriculums and dive deep into personal inquiries, which occur almost constantly. College knowledge-making is a bit different though, as students begin to ask deep questions that help make the Earth a better place. Yet, whether the question has an impact on the world or not, it’s still a form of knowledge-making. Thinking deeply about it has led me to realize that I use knowledge-making more than I think I do. It’s even in the title of my blog... how do I vanquish my writer’s block? That question will be answered at some point in the near future.