1. Introduction
Each slide on this powerpoint contains a different challenge. There are a variety of tasks for students to choose from. These tasks are not part of the personal study tasks set in class. They are entirely optional and will, therefore, not be marked or graded. Teachers are, of course, interested in the challenges that students have undertaken.
Acknowledgements
The activities are taken with kind permission from Mike Gershon who in turn makes the acknowledgements below:
‘This kit come from a variety of places including my head, the head’s of colleagues and the websites listed to the right...’

2. Box Cow Sunshine Beyond Fence
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Random Words
Box
Cow
Sunshine
Beyond
Fence
Create a list of five random words,
e.g. Box; Cow; Sunshine; Beyond; Fence
Task:
Show how any or all of the words connect to one another.
Explain how they may influence one another.
Suggest how they might link to the learning.
Create a story encompassing all the words.
Mind-map the connotations of each word and then analyse the links between them.
Adapted from an idea by Edward De Bono – a super author for all things thinking.

3. Poetry Read some poems for pleasure!
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Poetry
Days
What are days for? Days are where we live. They come, they wake us Time and time over. They are to be happy in: Where can we live but days? Ah, solving that question Brings the priest and the doctor In their long coats Running over the fields. Philip Larkin
Read some poems for pleasure!
Or read other poems by a poet you have studied for GCSE.
Visit the websites below

4. Articles Article 3 Article 2 Article 1
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Articles
Article 3
Article 2
Article 1
Find a newspaper, journal or magazine article that interests you.
Tasks:
What is the main argument?
Is their an element of bias in the text?
Do you agree with the article? Why?
How might you summarize the content of the article for a peer?
How might we follow up on the article’s content?

5. Philosophical Problems
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Philosophical Problems
Write a written response to one of the following questions. Explain and support your views:
What is the ‘good life’?
What can we know?
What is a person?
Is the mind a blank slate?
Does the past determine our actions?
Is everything caused by something else?
Did God design the world?
Any introductory text will provide more suitable questions.

6. Contents Page
Image Translate
1) Translating involves careful thought, precision and synthesis. It requires you to convey the same meaning through a different form.
Manipulating content in this way can appear easy at first, however to be effective, and to recreate the depth of meaning in the translated work is a challenging task.
Choose a poem, painting or sculpture. Translate it into a piece of written prose.
2) Now analyse where you have not been specific.
Explain why you have not been specific and rewrite your work so it is more specific. Compare the meaning of the two pieces of work, drawing out the changes increased specificity brings.
Extend by examining the nature of communication and consider what the problems of ambiguity and vagueness might be.

7. Animate Inanimates
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‘Stone was a sad old thing. All day he sat brooding, his grey body giving off a dull, depressing aura. Never would you see his face, turned, as it was, toward the ground in lamentation.’
Animate an inanimate object, paying attention to its qualities in the process.
Develop a purpose or reason behind the existence of the object based on its qualities (this is teleological and links to the purposes and meanings portrayed by myths)

8. Change Over Time Stage One Stage Two Stage Three
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Stage One
Stage Two
Stage Three
Choose a poem from your anthology ‘Power and Conflict’. How might an interpretation of that poem change over time? Explain your reasoning.
For example:
How might interpretations of ‘Kamikaze’ change over time?
How might our understanding of ‘Charge of the Light Brigade’ change over time?
Explain the validity of their own ideas and then analyse what criteria you have used to make such judgements.

9. Fact or Opinion Fact… Or Opinion?
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Separating fact and opinion is an important skill in everyday life – when in contact with the media, talking with others, at work etc.
Find a newspaper article, report or other texts in order to discern which aspects are factual and which are opinion.
Extend by:
- Considering the comparative validity of fact and opinion.
What ‘facts’ can be definitely known.
Analyse what authorities the facts and opinions rely on.
Fact…
Or Opinion?

10. Looking for Bias
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Bias is everywhere, the nature of human experience is that it is partial. Analyse texts or information that interests you looking for bias e.g. a report on the football team you support
Extend by:
Asking for a set of criteria for spotting bias.
Questioning whether bias is ever legitimate.
Compare different accounts of the same event or idea and synthesise them into a balanced piece of work.

11. Assumptions Counter-Claim Claim
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In critical thinking an assumption is a missing step in the reasoning. A reason which is not stated but on which an argument depends for its conclusion. For example:
Chris works here.
The safe is broken and the money gone.
Chris is not in today.
Therefore Chris must have stolen the money.
The assumption here is that Chris does not have some other reason for being absent.
Find arguments or newspaper articles and identify assumptions made by authors.
Claim
Assumption 1
Assumption 2
Counter-Claim