Anthem Critical Thinking and Writing Skills

138 pages

English

Découvre YouScribe en t'inscrivant gratuitement

Je m'inscris

Anthem Critical Thinking and Writing Skills , livre ebook

Anthem Press - Victoria Pontzer Ehrhardt

Découvre YouScribe en t'inscrivant gratuitement

Je m'inscris

Obtenez un accès à la bibliothèque pour le consulter en ligne
En savoir plus

138 pages

English

Obtenez un accès à la bibliothèque pour le consulter en ligne
En savoir plus

A propos
Informations
Extrait

Description

Focuses on critical thinking and persuasive writing skills; an excellent companion text for high school and college English writing classes.

‘Anthem Critical Thinking and Writing Skills: An Introductory Guide’ helps readers in the process of critical thinking and persuasive speaking and writing. The concepts of critical thinking and evaluation are presented in a clear, easy-to-understand format. Students learn how to form a proposition, identify issues, gather evidence, and process an argument.

Logic games, puzzles, and real life examples ask students to evaluate how we evaluate, analyze, and decide. Then a more formal look at induction and deduction challenges students to practice higher-level thinking skills, such as the use of analogies for evaluation, and working through syllogisms to process ideas. Instruction is included on processing a formal persuasive paper. Readers can have some literary logic fun by analyzing old standards like ‘Love is a Fallacy’ and the persuasive love poem ‘The Passionate Shepherd’.

Short chapters and clear practice exercises make the book easy to use as a basic or supplemental text.

Chapter 1. Introduction to Critical Thinking; Chapter 2. What Is Argument?; Chapter 3. Research and Gathering Evidence; Chapter 4. Inductive Reasoning; Chapter 5. Deductive Reasoning; Chapter 6. Errors in Reasoning: The Classical Fallacies; Chapter 7. Reasoning through the Ages; Chapter 8. Putting It All Together: A Research Project; Appendix 1. Answers for Practice Exercises and Chapter Reviews; Appendix 2. Logic Test; Appendix 3. Answers to Logic Test; Appendix 4. Persuasive Research Paper Rubric; Index

Informations

Publié par	Anthem Press
Date de parution	15 novembre 2011
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9780857288264
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0050€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

ANTHEM CRITICAL THINKING AND WRITING SKILLS

An Introductory Guide

VICTORIA PONTZER EHRHARDT, PHD

Anthem Press An imprint of Wimbledon Publishing Company www.anthempress.com

This edition ﬁrst published in UK and USA 2011 by ANTHEM PRESS 75-76 Blackfriars Road, London SE1 8HA, UK or PO Box 9779, London SW19 7ZG, UK and 244 Madison Ave. #116, New York, NY 10016, USA

The author asserts the moral right to be identiﬁed as the author of this work.

All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

British Library CataloguinginPublication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Library of Congress CataloginginPublication Data Ehrhardt, Victoria Pontzer. Anthem critical thinking and writing skills : an introductory guide / Victoria Pontzer Ehrhardt. p. cm. – (Anthem learning) Includes index. ISBN 978-1-84331-870-5 (pbk.) 1. English language–Composition and exercises–Study and teaching (Secondary) 2. English language–Rhetoric–Study and teaching (Higher) 3. Critical thinking–Study and teaching (Secondary) 4. Critical thinking–Study and teaching (Higher) I. Title. LB1631.E475 2011 808’.042071–dc23 2011039754

ISBN-13: 978 1 84331 870 5 (Pbk) ISBN-10: 1 84331 870 9 (Pbk)

This title is also available as an eBook.

CONTENTS

Introduction to Critical Thinking1 Critical Thinking: The Human Mind at Work 1 Warm-up Activities 3 Metacognition 6

What Is Argument? 9 Deﬁning Argument and Debate 9 Can Any Point Be Argued? 9 How Does an Argument Develop? 10 Developing an Argument 11 The Proposition 12 Practice Exercises on Propositions 16 Major and Minor Propositions 17 Chapter Review 19

Research and Gathering Evidence 21 Gathering Evidence 21 Evaluating Evidence 23 Using Peer-Reviewed Sources 25 Recognizing Bad Evidence 25 The Next Step: Organizing Evidence 28 Practice Exercises in Gathering Evidence 29 Chapter Review 30

Inductive Reasoning 31 Generalization 31 The Analogy 33

ANTHEM CRITICAL THINKING AND WRITING SKILLS

Practice in Analogies 34 Analogy, Metaphor and Simile Chapter Review 35

Deductive Reasoning 37 Thinking by Classifying: Venn Diagrams 37 Reasoning by Classiﬁcation: The Syllogism 40 Using Venn Diagrams to Understand the Syllogism 41 Working with the Syllogism without Diagrams 46 “Jabberwocky” and the Ultimate Syllogism Practice 52 Syllogisms and Political Arguments 55 Reasoning by Either/Or 56 Reasoning by If/Then 58 Chapter Review 58

Errors in Reasoning: The Classical FallaciesClassical Fallacies of Processing Information 62 Classical Fallacies about People and Personalities

Reasoning through the Ages 73 The Context of Argument: Logos, Ethos and Pathos 73 The Context of Argument: Two Modern Approaches 74 The Context of Argument: A Literary Approach 75 “Love is a Fallacy” by Max Shulman 76 Persuasion in Poetry 86

Putting It All Together: A Research Project 93 Selecting a Topic and Forming a Proposition 93 Gathering, Evaluating and Organizing Evidence 97 Writing, Citing and Editing 102 Checklist for the Persuasive Research Paper 104 Chapter Review 105 All in a Day’s Work 105

Appendix 1 Appendix 2 Appendix 3

Appendix 4 Index 129

Answers for Practice Exercises and Chapter Reviews Logic Test 119 Answers to Logic Test 123 Persuasive Research Paper Rubric 127

107

INTRODUCTION TO CRITICAL THINKING

Critical Thinking: The Human Mind at Work

Critical thinking skills reveal our minds at work. Daily life, education and career activities involve looking at information, evaluating the information and making choices.

Every day, we decide. We evaluate. We work with our family, our team and our co-workers to find the best idea, to make the right decision, to select the best course of action. Often, we observe, evaluate and decide subconsciously. How does that happen?

The answer is that the human mind is wired to reason. The goal of this book is to bring awareness to these aspects of reasoning: observation, evaluation and decision making. Critical thinking happens best when we plan to put our natural thinking abilities to their clearest use.

The human mind is programmed to think logically. One can observe this in the youngest infant. Infants realize quickly, although subconsciously, “When I cry, they pick me up.” The baby has used “Cause and Effect” thinking at only a few weeks old. The new parents likewise use the same thinking skills, adding in the components of observation and examining possibilities. Is the baby hungry? Does its diaper need to be changed? For thousands of years, mothers have instinctively nurtured their infants’ growing minds along with their bodies. Before actual conversation is possible, the parent and infant are using thinking skills to problem-solve as parents encourage infants to thrive.

Soon, that infant will be crawling, then walking and starting to talk. How often have we seen parents panic as they teach their toddler his or her first words? After “Mama” and “Papa,” the toddler may learn a word for a family pet. “Kitty” the parents say, and the little one says, “kitty.” But no sooner is that

ANTHEM CRITICAL THINKING AND WRITING SKILLS

word learned, than a dog comes into view. The worried parents may wonder, “How will I teach him that it’s a doggie?”

Within a few months, the toddler has the difference between a “kitty” and a “doggie” all worked out. In fact, the child’s mind can work out a very complicated application of this very problem, working through the process of observation and categorization. A 3-year-old can realize that a large collie and a low-to-the-ground dachshund are both dogs and that Aunt Jane’s pet is a cat. An infant’s mind recognizes groups, patterns and commonalities, and then makes predictions based on those concepts. That’s logic.

What happens in the reasoning process? It works like this:

The human mind has an innate capacity to remember and then to process. We recognize groups, patterns and commonalities, and we make predictions based on those concepts.

A no is as good as a yes. Yes, that item belongs to the group. No, that one doesn’t. The mind sees the details of what belongs and what doesn’t. We see details, we remember, we categorize and then we make the mental move to a new, named idea.

That is the basic reasoning process.

Throughout the ages, great thinkers have talked, written and investigated the way we reason. Perhaps the most notable of these great thinkers is Aristotle, who observed and recorded his observations about the human mind at work. The logic and reasoning skills taught in this book are based on Aristotelian logic. In the twentieth century, two Western thinkers, the psychologist Carl R. Rogers and philosopher Stephen Toulmin, created their own models of reasoning and debate. Each created a framework that was thought to be especially appropriate for topics of modern social, political and personal decision making. More about Rogerian argument and the Toulmin model can be found in Chapter 7.

Other twentieth- and twenty-first century scholars have expanded our understanding of how language shapes our thoughts. We now know that language and ideas are closely related. Using language rather than number logic to process ideas is a purposeful part of the reasoning process. Words identify ideas.

For the human mind, there is something special about any “idea.” It is not enough to have the idea; we want to share, to convince. That is what this book is about. By taking a step-by-step approach to the reasoning process, anyone can take the innate thinking skills that come naturally to them and hone those skills to become a strong evaluator of their own opinions and those of others.

INTRODUCTION TO CRITICAL THINKING

The practiced thinker can recognize weak arguments, and values strong, well-reasoned ideas. Using thinking skills in a purposeful manner gives people at work or at school the persuasive powers to convince others to see their point of view.

might be a casual decision – we might want to encourage our group of friends It to see a particular film or go to a particular restaurant for dinner. In a more serious vein, we may want to convince friends and family to support a certain candidate in the next election. For social plans or for serious decisions, a study of language and logic can help us sharpen our decision-making abilities and our persuasive skills.

Warm-up Activities

Throughout the chapters of this text, readers will be exercising an important part of the body: the brain. We will follow the plan of other exercise regimens and start by warming up with three thinking challenges. These practice exercise and reinforce three mental habits:

1. Flexibility:Encouraging our mind to bend around ideas allows us to look about for inspiration. Rather than providing ideas from the outside, Practice 1.a encourages us to look around inside our own storehouse of vocabulary and ideas.

2. Organization:Organization starts with identifying certain characteristics like size and function. The next, seemingly automatic step is grouping together items with similar characteristics. Since it is easier to organize three-dimensional objects and much harder to organize ideas, we start our practice with everyday items like clothing and eating utensils.

3. Processing:Reasoning, deciding, selecting, evaluating – these are all mental processes. A mental process is a movement of ideas, where given information is moved to a new place, a solution. We will work with some processing games, often called brainteasers, to encourage our mind to move the given set of information through to an answer.

All of these challenges can be done on your own or in a group.

ANTHEM CRITICAL THINKING AND WRITING SKILLS

Practice 1.a. Flexibility with language: The “Magic 8” challenge

Mr Lee attended a program led by a motivational speaker who encouraged the audience to follow the “Eight Magic Ates” to have a good life. When he returned home, Mr Lee could only remember four of the speaker’s “Ates.” Here are the words Mr Lee remembers:

Anticipate

Cooperate

Create

Integrate

Your challenge is to “brainstorm” and come up with as many words ending in “ate” as you can. If you are working in a group, share the lists and create one large list with each word included once. After you have created a large list, select the “Magic 8” that you think are the best ones to follow in everyday life.

Upon completion of this practice, your mind has accomplished several things: rst, you had to delve into your own storehouse of vocabulary to nd additional words that end in ate. Next, you had to review the meanings of each word, and evaluate the concept for which each word stands.Then, you had to downsize a list that you had just expanded. That is the ﬂexibility exercise: make it larger, then make it smaller. Moving from step to step in this activity encourages mental ﬂexibility.

Practice 1.b. Organization challenge

On an unlined piece of paper, draw a picture of a tall chest of drawers. Imagine filling the chest with your own clothes. You have socks and undergarments, T-shirts, jeans or slacks and a few heavier pieces of clothing for inclement weather. On your simple drawing of this chest of drawers, label the drawers to show where you would put your clothes.

What did you decide? Are your socks in one of the top drawers? Underclothes near the top? Shirts in the middle? Heavier clothing at the bottom? If you are working in a group setting, compare your answers with others. You will find that most of your “labels” match the other folks who try this. Furniture makers have known this for centuries. There is a quiet understanding that people like to sort and organize their belongings. That is why an antique bureau will hold clothing in much the same way as a modern chest from Ikea. We can recognize our human tendency to organize objects by size and use. Move on to the next organization challenge.