My Comments on "Critical Thinking, Critical Reading, and Writing."

Below find my comments on the "Critical Thinking, Critical Reading, and Writing" section of a student's writing inventory. I decided to share them to show you some of the nuances involved with this set of learning outcomes. My comments are in red. As you read the writing inventories of other students, you may want to leave comments like mine which point the students toward other ways of thinking about an outcome.

As always, write with questions.

Steve

Critical Thinking, Reading, and Writing Critical thinking is actively examining, evaluating, and synthesizing information. Critical reading is understanding and analyzing what you have read. Critical writing is taking the information and writing about it.

By the end of first year composition, students should

• Use writing and reading for inquiry, learning, thinking, and communicating-

-It is important in writing and for someone reading to understand immediately what the subject is about.

-Use writing and reading for inquiry, learning, thinking, and communicating is understanding the mode of inquiry to a given question and being able to use that mode to communicate the results.

--Also remember that one can learn more about a subject or a reading the process of writing about it. I've lost count of the number of times I've started to write something and, in the process, ended up writing something else, because having to think about the topic enough to write about it allowed new insights.--Steve

• Understand a writing assignment as a series of tasks, including finding, evaluating, analyzing, and synthesizing appropriate primary and secondary sources-

-Finding, evaluating, and analyzing is part of learning. Synthesizing is putting together all of your information into a clear outline.

--This outcomes is speaking about the place research, that is, going to others to find out what they have to say about your topic, has in all writing. As you've learned, writing is a process, and an essential aspect of this process is thinking about (analyzing and synthesizing) the insights others can offer. The knee jerk reaction to take the time to learn from others and to research is one of the primary differences between those who get a good college education and those who don't. Not only have those in college been exposed to more training and knowledge, they develop the habit of using the expertise of others (just as they come to expect others to use and rely on their expertise).

• Integrate their own ideas with those of others-

-Integrate their own ideas with those of others means using the words and ideas of others in your writing.

• Understand the relationships among language, knowledge, and power-

-The relationship among language, knowledge and power to me means that language is critical in order to capture how knowledge is used and is more powerful and effective when used by people of higher positions.

--This outcome is always a tough one for students to fully get.

You've heard that "knowledge is power," and the statement makes sense. Doing the work to gain new knowledge gives you access to knowledge and skills others don't have, so your chance of making a good, informed decision, even on matters as small as keeping to a budget or in buying a house, improve. Sometimes knowing a key piece of information or a key technique or skill allows you to make a good decision rather than screw up. The effects of such good decisions accumulate, and one soon learns it's worth the time to find out what others can tell you--to research.

The ability to use rhetoric, that is, to learn to accomplish your goals through effective communication, the ability to adapt your message to different audiences, and the ability to pick (and use) the right language for the situation is also one key to power. Heck, Socrotese argued that rhetoric and power were so intertwined that only leaders should be trained in how to manipulate people through communication.

There is also this: certain languages, like "standard" English come to be associated with power and those who have power. Standard English is what is used in colleges. It's what is used in most business communication. It's what is used by our business leaders. It's often used as the base language through which international affairs are conducted. At one time, Latin served this function in Europe, then it was French, now it is English.

Finally, you also know that there are situations where one form of English is more effective that others. Think how your friends would react if you suddenly started refering to yourself as "one" or "we" and started using "whom." Since knowing how to shift and adapt your language to your audiences is a key to effective rhetoric, then knowing different ways to use language is also a key to power.

Faculty in all programs and departments can build on this preparation by helping students learn

• The uses of writing as a critical thinking method-

-The uses of writing as a critical thinking method would be knowing how to organize thoughts and ideas, knowing how to ask appropriate questions, and knowing how to gather relevant information.

--Remember, writing is a process and you don't have to publish or turn in every aspect of your process. Some of the techniques used in pre-writing, like brainstorming, clustering, mind-mapping, listing, and questioning, are powerful means to gather and organize your thougths, those of a group, and to find relationships between these thoughts. You don't have to limit the use of such techniques to writing papers. You can use them in meetings. You can use them to organize your thoughts on a difficult task, like gathering all the information you need to gather to pick out and buy a home or car. In short, you can use many of the techniques you learn to write well in daily decision making.

As you learned in chapters two and three, you can also use various genres of writing, like the minute paper, vocabulary journal, summarizing, and paraphrasing, to help you get more from any kind of reading.

• The interactions among critical thinking, critical reading, and writing-

-Critical thinking is examining an idea in many different ways. Critical reading is taking what you already know and applying it to whatever you are reading. Critical writing is taking the gathered information and writing about it.

--Look at chapter two to get a handle on critical reading. Reading critically means reading actively. It means spending the time needed to understand the nuances of a text. It means applying techniques--like rhetorical analysis of situations--until you can use them in daily life and such analysis is second nature.

Critical thinking, critical reading and writing also means learning yourself well enough to know what your goals are and where you need to spend time and effort in close, critical readings.

• The relationships among language, knowledge, and power in their fields-

-The relationship among language, knowledge and power to me means that language is critical in order to capture how knowledge is used and is more powerful and effective when used by people of higher positions.

--Remember my discussion of discourse communities on the class blog? Just as each discourse community has ways of reading and genres of writing they use in different ways, they also have conventions of how language should be used, what kind of language is appropriate, and how to use language to modulate relationships involving power. Since all relationships involve power, it's important to learn the rules governing language/knowledge/power in whatever communities you enter.