Day Five Handout

CRTW 201

Dr. Fike

YOU MUST HAVE NOSICH'S BOOK WITH YOU TODAY. IF YOU DO NOT, YOU MUST GO GET YOUR BOOK OR A COPY OF CHAPTER 2 AT THE LIBRARY.

Announcements: Please turn in your optional paper on your focused topic. Write your global cultural event at the top.

• [NOT SPRING 2020: Next Class: Bring the Concepts Exercise in hardcopy. It will help us continue our study of the elements, and you must have a copy in front of you. Watch the video before class.]

• I will gladly talk with you about your work in progress if you make an appointment to see me in my office. Bring two copies of your paper.

• Parts of this handout are so important that you may want to print out a copy. See especially notes on the elements, the exercise on paper one, and the notes from Paul and Elder's book.

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ITEMS FOR YOUR TOOLBOX FROM WRITING ANALYTICALLY (on reserve at the library)

WA, chapters 1-3

• Chapter 1:

  • Commonplace vs. heuristic.

  • Critical thinking is recursive.

  • Passage-based focused freewriting.

  • Ditch the 5-par. form.

    • "5-paragraph form runs counter to virtually all of the values and attitudes that [students] need in order to grow as writers and thinkers--such as respect for complexity, tolerance of uncertainty, and the willingness to test and complicate rather than just assert ideas. The form actually discourages thinking by conditioning writers to be afraid of looking closely at evidence" (8).

    • "Five-paragraph form is a procrustean formula that most students learn in high school. . . . [I]t usually lops off a writer's ideas before they have the chance to form, or it stretches a single idea to the breaking point. . . . [T]he form does not promote logically tight and thoughtful writing. It is a meat grinder that can turn any content into sausages. . . . [It has the] capacity to produce the same kind of say-nothing prose on almost any subject. . . . [T]he 5-paragraph form militates against sustained analytical thinking" (209-11).

  • Focus your topics.

  • Paraphrase X 3. (Make a statement. Then elaborate 3 times.)

  • Page 15 sounds like Paper One: "To a significant extent, the final draft re-creates for the reader the writer's experience of arriving at his or her key ideas. Good analytical writing, at whatever stage, has an exploratory feel. It shares its discovery process with the reader." The difference, though, is that your papers are "archeological": you're doing your reasoning in reverse order.

• Chapter 2: What counterproductive habits of mind do they critique? What "heuristics" do R & S emphasize in this chapter? Other questions about chapter 2: What do R & S teach you about analysis and evaluation, focus, critical reading, Paper 1 (37 and 48-49), belief perseverance (43; see also 60, middle), and knowledge (48)? Do you see connections between chapter 2 and Nosich's elements of CT?

  • Belief perseverance on page 43: how people "stop looking at anything in their evidence except what they want and expect to see." Page 60: "People tend to avoid information that challenges (by not conforming to) views they already hold. Screening out anything that would ruffle the pattern they've begun to see, they ignore the evidence that might lead them to a better theory." Belief perseverance is also known as "confirmation bias."

  • Page 48 sounds like Paper One: "We should examine our opinions, not primarily to assert and defend them, but to explore them for what they might reveal about ourselves and the communities to which we belong. Opinions as kneejerk reactions--reflexes--cannot help us. But thoughtful examination of our opinions can." Do "10 on 1," not "1 on 10."

  • Look for the "go to" sentence. (Page 39: "a 'go to' sentence, a characteristic way of putting things.")

  • The Method

• Chapter 3: What are the five "analytical moves" that R & S explore in this chapter? Within each section, what did you mark as most important? What is the difference between analysis and argument, according to R & S (73)?

  • The Five Moves:

    • "Suspend judgment (understand before you judge)." (Use the elements, then the standards: analyze, then evaluate.)

    • "Define significant parts and how they are related." (Do an outline.)

    • "Look for patterns of repetition and contrast and for anomalies (aka The Method)."

    • "Make the implicit explicit (convert to direct statement meanings that are only suggested--make details 'speak'"). (Look for implications.)

    • "Keep reformulating questions and explanations (what other details seem significant? what else might they mean?)." (CT is recursive.)

ELEMENTS EXERCISES

A curious conscientious citizen always quickly inquires into practical problems.

• Watch video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-TyPfYMDK8&t=4s.

  • Which elements seem to be in play here?

  • What elements relate to the word "preconceptions"?

• 15 minutes: Divide into four groups. Each group takes two of the elements (exclude context and alternatives). Using Nosich's book, prepare to "teach" your elements to the rest of the class.

  • Highlight key passages in Nosich's descriptions.

  • Come up with a paraphrase or summary of your elements.

  • Do an SEE-I for your elements.

• Share your discoveries with the rest of the class. (If you don't understand what the presenters are saying, ask questions.)

HERE ARE SOME NOTES ON THE ELEMENTS

See Nosich 61: There can be alternatives within all 8 elements as well as alternatives to context. Note: You're all used to alts already as in "thinking outside the box." However, alts in CRTW are not an element in their own right (if they were, they would be on the wheel of elements). Instead, they exist WITHIN the other elements (61): alternative contexts, points of view, concepts, assumptions, etc. N 49: "alternatives encompass the different choices that could be made in the reasoning."

• Context = the background (Nosich 48-49); it informs all the elements on the circle. Context is like a theatrical set--it is the backdrop for the action of the play.

  • Note that the diagram on 49 does not accurately show that there can be alternative contexts.

• Purpose is always an infinitive (to + verb) and is more general than Q @ I.

• Q @ I is always a question. It must end with a question mark. Q @ I should mention the information under consideration. It is more specific than purpose. Use "the following" or "as follows" and a colon to introduce the Q @ I. Do not put a colon or a comma after a form of the verb "to be."

• The conclusions/interpretations often answer the Q @ I. Therefore, they align closely with what we call a _______________. Of course, conclusions may go well beyond that.

• For assumptions, see the point Nosich makes on page 52: you must make your assumptions conscious. See also the last three words on page 58: "beliefs you carry" (emphasis added).

• Implications and consequences: See WA 33 re. asking, "So what?" Cf. WA 62: "The word implication comes from the Latin implicare, which means 'to fold in.'" Thus, when you talk about implications you unfold or reveal a hidden meaning. WA 33: "suggested meanings."

• For concepts, see page 56. Concepts are "terms"; they are nouns. Problematically, concepts can be unconscious (Nosich 73). If something is a sentence, it is probably not a concept. Paul and Elder 16-17: "general categories."

• Point of view means a vantage point, perspective, frame of reference, lens, or "hat." It does not mean opinion in Nosich-speak. Paul and Elder 16: a comprehensive focus or orientation.

• Questions: Can you draw thee following relationships?

  • What is the relationship between context and assumptions? How does each relate to background? Possible answer: Background + Context --> assumptions.

  • What is the relationship between assumptions, information, and interpretation (N 58)? Possible answer: Information --> assumptions (lens) --> interpretation.

  • What is the relationship between assumption and implication/consequence? Can you give an example? Possible answers: Assumption --> implication/consequence. Example: The ideal is to be really thin --> anorexia.