1. Critical Thinking Skills In English

2. Critical thinking is a skill, a cognitive skill that requires intention, understanding, purpose, and discipline. Moreover, it is a skill that can be taught. In this class, we will focus on critical thinking as part of the content. Responsible learners: desire

3. Current Information continued
“According to the American Institutes for Research, only 38 percent of graduating college seniors can successfully perform tasks such as comparing viewpoints in two newspaper editorials. And about 30 percent reported being assigned to read four or fewer books in their entire senior year, while nearly half were assigned no papers of 20 pages or more.”

4. Current Information
“More than 50 percent of students at four-year schools and more than 75 percent at two-year colleges lacked the skills to perform complex literary tasks The results cut across three types of literacy: analyzing news stories and other prose, understanding documents, and having math skills needed for checkbooks and restaurant tips.”
Feller, Ben. “Study: Most College Students Aren’t Up to Complex Tasks.” Tulsa World. 20 Jan For additional information see American Institutes for Research:

5. Current Information continued
The National Assessment of Adult Literacy given in 1992 found “40 percent of the national college graduates scored at the proficient level, meaning that they were able to read lengthy, complex English texts and draw complicated inferences in 2003 only 31 percent demonstrated those high-level skills.”
Dillon, Sam. “Literacy Falls for Graduates from College, Testing Finds.” The New York Times. 16 Dec Dec <

6. Why Critical Thinking?
The Problem: Much of our thinking, left to itself, is biased, distorted, partial, uninformed, or down-right prejudiced.
However, the quality of our life and that of what we produce, make, or build depends precisely on the quality of our thought.
Shoddy thinking is costly, both in money and in quality of life. Excellence in thought, however, must be systematically cultivated (Foundation for Critical Thinking).
Everyone thinks; it is our nature to do so, but

7. A Definition
“Critical thinking is the art of analyzing and evaluating thinking with a view to improving it.”
“Critical thinking is, in short, self-directed, self-disciplined, self-monitored, and self-corrective thinking. It requires rigorous standards of excellence and mindful command of their use. It entails effective communication and problem solving abilities and a commitment to overcoming our native egocentrism and sociocentrism” (Foundation for Critical Thinking).

8. The Result: A well cultivated critical thinker is one who
raises vital questions and problems, formulating them clearly and precisely
gathers and assesses relevant information, using abstract ideas to interpret it effectively
comes to well-reasoned conclusions and solutions, testing them against relevant criteria and standards
thinks open-mindedly within alternative systems of thought, recognizing and assessing, as need be, their assumptions, implications, and practical consequences
communicates effectively with others in figuring out solutions to complex problems (Foundation for Critical Thinking).

9. Levels of Critical Thinking
Knowing
Comprehending
Applying
Analyzing
Synthesizing
Evaluating

10. Knowing
The knowing level involves increasing a student’s knowledge level by adding the course material to what the student already knows.
Students may be asked to:
Define vocabulary from the textbook
Define argument terms
Recognize MLA notations and symbols.

11. Comprehending
The comprehending level requires the student to move beyond mere identification or memorization of course material.
Students may be asked to:
Paraphrase or summarize ideas
Provide examples of ideas
Explain relationships between and among ideas
Restate a problem to demonstrate an understanding of the question being asked.

12. Applying
The applying level requires the student to use and apply course content in a particular situation.
Students will be asked to:
Apply audience appeals to essay content.
Apply MLA documentation rules and conventions
Use essay structure to organize ideas
Understand instructions to complete assignments

13. Analyzing
The analyzing level requires students to examine information through a filter, to break arguments or claims down into parts and to discover the relationship between the parts. Then arguments can be evaluated.
Students will be asked to:
To analyze the effectiveness of a set of ideas based on audience appeals.
To analyze textual information as source material.
To analyze events and ideas (global awareness/civic responsibility)

14. Synthesizing
The synthesizing level requires the student to use two or more sets of information to arrive at an insight that is independent of the material given.
“Synthesis involves the ability of putting together the parts you analyzed with other information to create something original. You reach out for data or ideas derived from a variety of sources.” Bruce R. Reichenbach
Student will be asked to:
Write introductions and conclusion that are independent of essay content
Compose position papers
Provide insights about global events

15. Evaluating
The evaluating level requires the student to measure the relative merits of one or more sets of information against an outside element.
Students will be asked to:
Evaluate two different writers, on two different subjects as to their relative effectiveness in the use of audience appeals
Evaluate multiple outside sources as to their appropriateness for inclusion in a position paper.

16. Work Cited
Foundation for Critical Thinking. “Critical Thinking: Where to Begin.” The Critical Thinking Community. Foundation for Critical Thinking Jan Reichenbach, Bruce R. Introduction to Critical Thinking. Boston: McGraw Hill, 2001.