primarily as a “communication skill” rather than as a process and product of critical thought. If writing is merely a communication skill, then we primarily ask of it, “Is the writing clear?” But if writing is critical thinking, we ask, “Is the writing interesting? Does it show a mind actively engaged with a problem? Does it bring something new to readers? Does it make an argument?” As chapters 2 and 3 explain, experienced writers begin by posing two kinds of problems—what we might call subject matter problems and rhetorical problems. Subject matter problems drive the writer's inquiry. The writer's thesis statement (or hypothesis to be tested in empirical research) is a tentative response to a subject matter problem; it poses a contestable “answer” or “solution” that must be supported with the kinds of reasons and evidence that are valued in the discipline. But writers also think critically about rhetorical problems: who is my audience? What genre should I employ and what are its features and conventions? How much do my readers already know about and care about my research question? How do I want to change my audience's views? What alternative views must I consider? Writers produce multiple drafts because the act of writing is itself an act of problem‐solving. Behind the scenes of a finished product is a messy process of exploratory writing, conversation, and discarded drafts. Chapters 2 and 3 deal with these issues in depth.
Step 2: Design Your Course with Critical Thinking Objectives in Mind
Once teachers are convinced of the value of critical thinking, the next step is to design a course that nurtures it. What is such a course like? In her comprehensive review of the literature on critical thinking, Kurfiss (1988) examined a wide range of successful disciplinary courses devoted to the teaching of subject matter and critical thinking. In each case, she explains, “the professor establishes an agenda that includes learning to think about subject matter. Students are active, involved, consulting and arguing with each other, and responsible for their own learning” (88). From this review, she derives eight principles for designing a disciplinary course that supports critical thinking:
1 Critical thinking is a learnable skill; the instructor and peers are resources in developing critical thinking skills.
2 Problems, questions, or issues are the point of entry into the subject and a source of motivation for sustained inquiry.
3 Successful courses balance challenges to think critically with support tailored to students' developmental needs.
4 Courses are assignment centered rather than text and lecture centered. Goals, methods, and evaluation emphasize using content rather than simply acquiring it.
5 Students are required to formulate and justify their ideas in writing or other appropriate modes.
6 Students collaborate to learn and to stretch their thinking, for example, in pair problem solving and small‐group work.
7 Several courses, particularly those that teach problem‐solving skills, nurture students' metacognitive abilities.
8 The developmental needs of students are acknowledged and used as information in the design of the course. Teachers in these courses make standards explicit and then help students learn how to achieve them. (88–89)
This book aims to help teachers develop courses that follow these guidelines. Of key importance are Kurfiss's principles 2, 4, and 5: a good critical thinking course presents students with “problems, questions, [or] issues” that make a course “assignment centered rather than text [or] lecture centered” and holds students responsible for formulating and justifying their solutions orally or in writing. This book particularly emphasizes writing assignments because they are perhaps the most flexible and most intensive way to integrate critical thinking tasks into a course and because the writing process itself entails complex critical thinking. But much attention is also given to class discussions, small‐group activities, and other teaching strategies that encourage students to work collaboratively to expand, develop, and deepen their thinking. Attention is also given throughout to the design of problems at appropriate levels of difficulty, to the developmental needs of students, and to the importance of making expectations and criteria clear (principles 1, 3, and 8).
Step 3: Design Critical Thinking Tasks for Students to Address
A crucial step in teaching critical thinking is to develop good problems for students to think about. Tasks can range from enduring disciplinary problems to narrowly specific questions about the significance of a graph or the interpretation of a key passage in a course reading. The kinds of questions you develop for students will depend on their level of expertise, their current degree of engagement with the subject matter, and the nature of question asking in your own discipline.
When we conduct workshops in writing across the curriculum, we like to emphasize a disciplinary, content‐driven view of critical thinking. One of John's workshop strategies is to ask faculty to write out one or two final examination essay questions for one of their courses—questions that they think assess subject matter knowledge and a desired level of disciplinary or generic critical thinking. Participants then discuss the kinds of thinking needed and possible ways to revise the questions to increase or decrease the level of complexity. Once participants have revised their questions, John suggests that it is a shame to waste them on an in‐class exam, where students are graded on a hasty, unrevised rough draft. More learning might emerge if such questions were integrated into the fabric of a course, where the question could keep students longer on task, stimulating deepened and more complex thought, engagement, and disciplinary learning. Chapters 4, 5, 6, 8, and 9 focus specifically on the design of critical thinking tasks to serve as formal or informal writing assignments or as starting points for other critical thinking activities.
Step 4: Develop a Repertoire of Ways to Give Critical Thinking Tasks to Students and to Coach Critical Thinking
Once you have developed a stockpile of critical thinking problems based on your course's subject matter, you can choose from dozens of ways to integrate them into your course. This book presents numerous options for giving critical thinking problems to students. These include the following:
Problems as formal writing assignments. Formal writing assignments, which require revision and multiple drafts, keep students on task for extended periods and are among our most powerful tools for teaching critical thinking. They can range in length from one‐paragraph microthemes (see chapter 4) to major research projects within a disciplinary genre (see chapter 10). As these chapters show, effective academic assignments usually require that the student develop and explore a disciplinary problem or propose and support a thesis or test a hypothesis in response to a problem. Such problem‐centered assignments, which are primarily argumentative or analytical, are more effective for developing critical thinking than topic‐centered assignments, which students often interpret as asking for information (“Write a research paper on one of the following topics.”).
Problems as thought‐provokers for exploratory writing. Although students usually write only a few formal papers for a course, they can do behind‐the‐scenes
