9781428231443

THINKING FOR YOURSELF: DEVELOPING CRITICAL THINKING SKILLS THROUGH READING AND WRITING offers a unique integration of composition, reading, and critical thinking. As you complete the book's writing assignments, you'll see how your writing reflects your thinking and how self-directed improvement in thinking also improves writing. The book offers step-by-step instruction, humor, cartoons, Internet research exercises, and up-to-date social and political examples as a foundation for lifelong improvement in thinking and writing.

Preface
Introduction
Introduction to Critical Thinking
Learning How You Think
Discovery Exercise
Experiencing How We Actually Think: An Exercise for the Whole Class to Complete Together
Learning from Sharing How We Think
What Is Critical Thinking? Relationship to Creative Thinking
Diagram: Different Functions of Left and Right Brain
Why Learn Critical Thinking? The Habits of a Critical Thinker
Box: Habits of a Critical Thinker
Basics of Critical Thinking
Observation Skills: What''s Out There? Discovery Exercises
Comparing Our Perceptions
What Is Observing? Observing a Cube
Observation and Insight
Using Observation Skills to Develop New Knowledge
Reading
Look at Your Fish, by Samuel H. Scudder
Core Discovery Writing Application
Observing the Familiar: Vegetables and Fruit
Evaluating Your Work by Using the Scoring Boxes
Alternate Core Discovery Writing Application
Observing the Unfamiliar: A Tool
The Observation Process: Sensing, Perceiving, Thinking
Barriers to Observation
How Discomfort Leads Us to Think
Diagram: A Choice for Thinking
The Rewards of Skilled Observation
Building Arguments
Observation Skills
Reading
The Innocent Eye
Chapter Summary
Chapter Quiz
Composition Writing Application
Survival as a Result of Observing: A Descriptive Narrative Essay
Readings: God Grew Tired of Us
Walking
Spanish Harlem at Night
Word Precision: How Do I Describe It? Discovery Exercise
On Finding the Right Word
Discovery Exercise
Taking an Interest in Dictionaries
How Well Do You Use Your Dictionary? Clear Thinking Depends on Clear Word Definitions
What Makes a Definition? Diagram: Definition Boundaries
Exercise
Word Boundaries
Kinds of Definitions
The Connotations of Words
The Importance of Defining Key Ideas
Word Concepts
Defining Reality
Defining Truth
What Is Critical Reading? Building Arguments
Word Choices
Chapter Summary
Chapter Quiz
Composition Writing Application
A Short Essay of Definition
Box: Clustering
Readings
Rankism by Robert W. Fuller, Nerds by David Anderegg, Saved by Malcom X
Advanced Optional Writing Assignment
Facts: What''s Real? Discovery Exercises
Beginning with the Word Fact
Learning to Recognize Facts
Verifying Facts
Facts and Reality
Facts Are Not Absolutes
Distinguishing Facts from Fiction
Feelings Can Be Facts
Facts and Social Pressure
Diagram: Standard and Comparison Lines in the Asch Experiment
Facts and Our Limited Senses
Reading
The Blind Men and the Elephant
Statements of Fact
Core Discovery Writing Application
Using a List of Facts to Describe a Photograph
Standards We Use to Determine Facts
Chapter Summary
Chapter Quiz
Composition Writing Application
Writing a Short Fact-Finding Report
Readings: Our Daily Meds by Melody Peterson, Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser
Building Arguments
Advanced Optional Writing Assignment
Inferences: What Follows? Discovery Exercise
Recognizing Inferential Thinking
Defining Infer, Understanding the Words Infer and Inference
Discovery Exercises
Drawing Inferences from Evidence
Drawing Inferences from Facts
Distinguishing Inferences from Facts
How Inferences Can Go Right and Wrong
Reading
The Adventure of the Speckled Band by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Drawing Inferences from Careful Observation
Core Discovery Writing Application
Using Facts and Inferences to Describe a Photograph
Generalizations Are Inferences
Composition Writing Application
Writing a Paragraph from Facts, Inferences, and Generalizations
Core Discovery Writing Application
Analyzing the Use of Facts and Inferences in a Newspaper Article
Reading
Tougher Grading Better for Students
Building Arguments:Inferences
Chapter Summary
Chapter Quiz
Readings
Friends by Tim O''Brien, He Fixes Radios by Thinking by Richard P Feynman, The Mistake of the Sand Flea by Paul Krafel
Objectives Review of

PROBLEMS OF CRITICAL
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Thinking for Yourself: Developing Critical Thinking Skills Through Reading and Writing

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