In this learning area, you will learn how to develop an argumentative essay and stronger critical thinking skills. This learning area will help you develop your arguments, understand your audience, evaluate source material, approach arguments rhetorically, and avoid logical fallacies. Here, you’ll also learn about evaluating other arguments and creating digital writing projects related to your argument.

WR 121 Critical Thinking and Writing Assignment Sequence

Course Overview

This is a first year college composition course, focusing on critical thinking and writing. I designed the content and writing prompts as a progression of examining knowledge and each assignment seeks to expand ways of thinking and by extension, ways of writing.

WR 121 College Composition

Offers broad preparation for both academic writing and professional communication. Includes composing for a variety of rhetorical situations, writing for both oneself, and for external audiences. Provides self-guided learning opportunities alongside more structured opportunities for practice with support as needed.

This is a project I assign my students in an introductory, non-science major astronomy class. Each student is assigned one of the 25 brightest stars in the sky and they are asked to research and apply concepts they have been learning in the class to their particular star. I leave it up to them to decide the format of their final project - most do PowerPoint but some have done videos or podcasts. One student actually landed a part time job at a radio station after they heard her recording her star project! Many students tell me this is a highlight of the course!

DISSENT BY DESIGN is a book that was produced during 2022-2023 in response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022.  It was on this date that I began a social media campaign on LinkedIn that directly addressed the invasion of a Sovereign country by a rogue super power. As a Graphic Designer I felt it was my obligation to do all I can to bring attention to this atrocity and bring the narrative to the forefront of the conversation so that we help end this conflict in all theways we can.  This book is a call to action, in the form of 'social media' posts throughout a one year period of time in our collective past, it is a documentation in chronological order of what happened, when and who was to blame and how many sufferred.   FInally, this book illustrates how Graphic Designers can use their knowledge as storytellers to forward a conversation about the most important things in our lives and how to preserve them.  We can be a vehicle of change and/or social engagement, to help people understand all the complex problems we face and to begin the process of solving those problems.  This is a way forus to bring past narratives to light once again, to rejoin the conversations that have been lost, and to further discuss and provide solutions through dialogue and change.

Try this fun problem! In any group of six people, what is the probability that everyone was born in different months?

This collection uses primary sources to explore the Black Power Movement. Digital Public Library of America Primary Source Sets are designed to help students develop their critical thinking skills and draw diverse material from libraries, archives, and museums across the United States. Each set includes an overview, ten to fifteen primary sources, links to related resources, and a teaching guide. These sets were created and reviewed by the teachers on the DPLA's Education Advisory Committee.

Students utilize their reading and writing skills as they think critically in order to sort books in multiple ways.

This collection uses primary sources to explore twentieth-century mining in the Mojave Desert. Digital Public Library of America Primary Source Sets are designed to help students develop their critical thinking skills and draw diverse material from libraries, archives, and museums across the United States. Each set includes an overview, ten to fifteen primary sources, links to related resources, and a teaching guide. These sets were created and reviewed by the teachers on the DPLA's Education Advisory Committee.

This collection uses primary sources to explore the Boston Tea Party. Digital Public Library of America Primary Source Sets are designed to help students develop their critical thinking skills and draw diverse material from libraries, archives, and museums across the United States. Each set includes an overview, ten to fifteen primary sources, links to related resources, and a teaching guide. These sets were created and reviewed by the teachers on the DPLA's Education Advisory Committee.

This learning video is designed to develop critical thinking in students by encouraging them to work from basic principles to solve a puzzling mathematics problem that contains uncertainty. Materials for in-class activities include: a yard stick, a meter stick or a straight branch of a tree; a saw or equivalent to cut the stick; and a blackboard or equivalent. In this video lesson, during in-class sessions between video segments, students will learn among other things: 1) how to generate random numbers; 2) how to deal with probability; and 3) how to construct and draw portions of the X-Y plane that satisfy linear inequalities.

A new instructional model, called Argument-Driven Inquiry (ADI), is introduced to elementary teachers in this article. The author shows how school librarians and classroom teachers can collaborate to help students construct and communicate evidence, or arguments. Evidence buckets, a collaborative activity, and related online resources are presented. The article appears in the free online magazine Beyond Weather and the Water Cycle, which is structured around the seven essential principles of climate literacy.

This collection uses primary sources to explore school desegregation in Boston. Digital Public Library of America Primary Source Sets are designed to help students develop their critical thinking skills and draw diverse material from libraries, archives, and museums across the United States. Each set includes an overview, ten to fifteen primary sources, links to related resources, and a teaching guide. These sets were created and reviewed by the teachers on the DPLA's Education Advisory Committee.

In this problem-based learning module, students will use their knowledge of the ancient Roman Empire and will work to analyze critical theories historians agree contributed to the fall of Rome. Students will then work to compare the problems faced by the Romans with problems citizens of the United States still largely face today. Through this investigation, students should recognize how modern technology, government agencies, laws and resources help to solve societal problems that could have once destroyed an empire. With this new understanding, students should work to present a solution to a major problem that plagued the Roman Empire during the years leading up to its collapse.

In this problem-based learning module, students will use their knowledge of the ancient Roman Empire and will work to analyze critical theories historians agree contributed to the fall of Rome. Students will then work to compare the problems faced by the Romans with problems citizens of the United States still largely face today. Through this investigation, students should recognize how modern technology, government agencies, laws and resources help to solve societal problems that could have once destroyed an empire. With this new understanding, students should work to present a solution to a major problem that plagued the Roman Empire during the years leading up to its collapse.Remix Resource uses key South Carolina standards for 6th Grade Social Studies and Language ArtsOriginal Resource uses key Ohio standards for 7th Grade Social Studies and Language ArtsAuthor: Blended Learning Teacher Practice Network Date Added: 07/23/2018License: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0  Language: English Media Format: Audio, Downloadable docs, Graphics/Photos, Text/HTML

The cartoon analysis worksheet was designed and developed by the Education Staff of the National Archives and Records Administration. This worksheet will be useful when introducing students to cartoons as sources of historical, social and cultural information.

The cartoon analysis worksheet was designed and developed by the Education Staff of the National Archives and Records Administration. This worksheet will be useful when introducing students to cartoons as sources of historical, social and cultural information.

The short story "The Cask of Amontillado," by Edgar Allan Poe is an effective venue for teaching English I literary terms. The following lesson plan is designed to engage the reader in a deeper than superficial reading of the text. It is also designed to elicit discussion and written critical-thinking responses. This lesson assumes that the literary terms have already been introduced. However, if they have not, the teacher may use this lesson to introduce these terms in the context of the literature.

CARLA's Social Justice in Language Education project is creating instructional materials that address a wide range of social justice topics in ten languages. Grounded in multiliteracies pedagogy, these materials will improve students' language abilities, intercultural understanding, and career competencies through critical engagement with target language texts.

The Social Justice in Language Education website currently includes the following:
--Social Justice Bibliography: provides a curated list of resources in three main categories--general social justice resources; social justice and language education; and language-specific resources.
--Social Justice and Language Education Presentations: includes recordings of a webinar highlighting the intersection of language and social justice and another webinar that describes the process of developing research-based curricular unit and lesson plan templates that support language instructors in the teaching of social justice themes.

What is fake news? Why does it matter? How do we challenge it?
This resource is as much about learning about fake news as it is about taking a step back to pause and reflect.

After a warm up "Real or fake" test to engage students in the topic, we get into the crux of the matter, looking at where fake news comes from, it's often political nature and financial incentive, and who is targeted by it.

If fake news is nothing new in human history, recent inventions have massively increased the range and speed at which information spreads. Smartphones and social media means we have never, potentially, been more exposed to fake news and this has negative consequences, including stigmatization of people, reinforcement of stereotypes, the closing rather than opening of discussion and debate. It can even lead to violence.

Thankfully, we can challenge fake news thanks to our critical thinking. An extensive range of tips and steps we can take are taken from the Navigating the News (Part II) resource and linked in the resource before it finishes off with a "fake news" game into order to practice and stimulate thinking more.

--

This resource is part of the information science collection.

From June 2018 to May 2019, we administered an assessment to 3,446 students, a national sample that matches the demographic profile of high school students in the United States. The six exercises in our assessment gauged students’ ability to evaluate digital sources on the open internet. The results—if they can be summarized in a word—are troubling: •Fifty-two percent of students believed a grainy video claiming to show ballot stuffing in the 2016 Democratic primaries (the video was actually shot in Russia) constituted “strong evidence” of voter fraud in the U.S. Among more than 3,000 responses, only three students tracked down the source of the video, even though a quick search turns up a variety of articles exposing the ruse. Two-thirds of students couldn’t tell the difference between news stories and ads (set off by the words “Sponsored Content”) on Slate’s homepage.Ninety-six percent of students did not consider why ties between a climate change website and the fossil fuel industry might lessen that website’s credibility. Instead of investigating who was behind the site, students focused on superficial markers of credibility: the site’s aesthetics, its top-level domain, or how it portrayed itself on the About page.