Learning to Think Things Through: A Guide to Critical Thinking Across the Curriculum, 3/E
Gerald Nosich, Buffalo State University

ISBN-10: 0138132429
ISBN-13: 9780138132422

Publisher: Prentice Hall
Copyright: 2009
Format: Paper; 256 pp
Published: 01/16/2008

Suggested retail price: $28.67
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For Freshman Orientation/Critical Thinking courses as well as a supplementary text for use in any subject-matter course at any educational level.

 

This short, inexpensive guide is designed to help students learn to think critically in any subject-matter course. A combination of instruction and exercises shows them how to use critical thinking to more fully appreciate the power of the discipline they are studying, to see its connections to other fields and to their day-to-day lives, to maintain an overview of the field so they can see the parts in terms of the whole, and to become active learners rather than passive recipients of information. The model of critical thinking (used throughout the book) is in terms of the elements of reasoning, standards, and critical thinking processes. This model is well-suited to thinking through any problem or question.

  • Reorganized Table of Contents–The chapter on Elements of Reasoning now appears as Chapter 2.

    • Helps students develop the tools for critical thinking before they start applying them within their disciplines.

  • “Outcomes” sections at the end of each chapter.

    • Helps students assess their progress in learning to think critically within and about the discipline.

  • “Point of View” section–In Chapter 3.

    • Enables students to more fully appreciate the point of view and the power of the discipline they are studying.

  • “How Do You Fit into the Picture? Becoming a Critical Thinker”–In Chapter 5.

    • Helps students take seriously the idea that critical thinking in a discipline is not just about what you do–it also starts to influence who you are.

  • Based on Richard Paul's model of critical thinking–Used by hundreds of teachers with great success in all disciplines taught at the college level; the major theme of the annual International Conference on Critical Thinking, held at Sonoma State University since 1981; and the model in workshops on critical thinking presented by the Foundation for Critical Thinking.

    • Provides instructors with the first short published presentation of the model designed specifically for use as and adjunct text in courses across the curriculum.

  • Brief, yet substantive, and immediately applicable.

    • Enables students to read the text all the way through near the beginning of the semester, then to refer back to it again and again, applying specific critical thinking concepts to different parts of the subject matter as the course moves along, gradually integrating the parts together.

  • Designed to fit with any level of teacher involvement–Works for instructors who want to focus directly on critical thinking in the way they teach their discipline, as well as for instructors who want to allow their students to work through critical thinking questions on their own, while class time is spent on subject matter instruction.

    • Allows students to self-study, freeing up valuable class time.

  • A focus on high intellectual standards.

    • Teaches students 1) to be clear in their writing, reading, speaking, understanding; in the problems they identify, reformulate, address, and find solutions for; 2) to be accurate in their reading and in their rendition of other points of view; 3) to focus on what is relevant and important to the question at hand, rather than dwelling on minor side issues; 4) to go deep enough to address the complexities and the underlying factors of an issue; 5) to be precise, sufficient in their reasoning, and as comprehensive as the topic requires.

The main changes to this edition put greater emphasis on clarifying and on critical writing. Explicit instructions to write now appear throughout the book. There are three new sections in the book as follows.

 

NEW!  There is a new section on clarifying–by stating, elaborating, exemplifying, and illustrating. (The process is called SEE-I.) It is introduced in Chapter 1, and it is then used in exercises and explanations throughout the book (pgs. 37, 48, 144).

  • SEE-I can be used as an assignment-tool and an assessment-tool on any important ideas in the course.  It gives students a way to prepare for exams, both in this course and in other courses. It enables them to be actively thinking their way through the ideas in any course.

NEW! There is a new section on critical writing at the end of Chapter 5.

  • The new section lays out a structure students can use to do a piece of writing based on their analysis. The structure includes some steps for reflection and revision.

NEW!  In keeping with a greater emphasis on critical writing, there is a short example of writing on a central question in a discipline.  The example is the kind of short essay a critical-thinking student might write in an Introduction to Sociology course which can be used as a model to generate critical writing in any area of study.

  • The example can be used as a model to generate critical writing in any area of study.

 

To the Instructor
 
To the Student
 
(NOTE: Each chapter concludes with a Some Outcomes section and Exercises.)

1. What Is Critical Thinking?

Some Definitions of Critical Thinking. Some Prominent Features of Critical Thinking. Three Parts of Critical Thinking. What Critical Thinking Is Not. Impediments to Critical Thinking. Deeper, More Pervasive Impediments to Critical Thinking. How Deep Is Our Need for Critical Thinking? The Experience of Learning to Think Things Through. An Overview of the Book That Lies Ahead.


2. The Elements of Reasoning.

The Nuts and Bolts of Critical Thinking. The Elements of Reasoning. Three Additional Elements of Reasoning. How to Analyze a Piece of Reasoning Using the Elements. Example: Thinking Through the Logic of Getting Married. Trusting the Process.


3. What Is Critical Thinking Within a Field or Discipline?

The Parts of Critical Thinking Within a Field. Thinking Biologically, Thinking Sociologically, Thinking Philosophically, Thinking Musically … The Logic of the Field or Discipline. Learning the Vocabulary of the Discipline. Fundamental and Powerful Concepts. The Central Question of the Course as a Whole. The Point of View of the Discipline. Impediments to Thinking Critically Within a Discipline. Trusting the Discipline.


4. Standards of Critical Thinking.

Clearness. Accuracy. Importance, Relevance. Sufficiency. Depth and Breadth. Precision. Understanding and Internalizing Critical-Thinking Standards. Additional Critical-Thinking Standards. Non-Critical-Thinking Standards. Evaluating Around the Circle. A Note on Reading as a Critical-Thinking Process.


5. Putting It All Together: Answering Critical-Thinking Questions.

The Core Process of Critical Thinking. How Do You Fit into the Picture: Becoming a Critical Thinker. Thinking Through Important Critical-Thinking Questions.


Responses to Starred Exercises.

Notes.

Index.

“This text stacks up very well against its competition because it is concise. The difficulty in choosing texts on critical thinking is that they are either too complicated, do not offer enough coverage or use a particular discipline to explicate critical thinking. What makes this text effective is that it is easy to work with and applicable to any and all disciplines.”

 

--Susan Quarrell, Lehman College

Dr. Gerald Nosich has been working in Critical Thinking since 1977.  He is a Professor of Philosophy and in the Intellectual Foundations Program at Buffalo State College.

 

Since the mid-1980s he has become committed to teaching for Critical Thinking across the curriculum.  He believes that, in the final analysis, the only way for students to master content, in any course, is by learning to think their way through it.  And the only way for students to take effective control of their own lives and choices is by learning to think more critically about them.

 

Dr Nosich  has given more than 200 workshops on all aspects of teaching for critical thinking. These have been given for instructors at all levels of education, in the U.S., in Canada, Thailand, Lithuania, Austria, and Germany.  Virtually all of these have been on teaching for critical thinking across the curriculum.  They include workshops on methods, infusing, strategies, assessment, skills, using the elements and standards, research, and questioning techniques. 

 

He has been an evaluator for SACS. He has helped create critical-thinking programs across the curriculum at Buffalo State, at South University, at Missouri Western State University.  He has been instrumental as a professional developer at institutions that have developed exemplary programs of Critical Thinking across the curriculum, such as Surry Community College, Wilkes Community College, Northwest Vista College, and Western Kentucky University.

 

On a content level, he has given many general workshops in teaching for Critical Thinking in any subject matter course.  But he has also given workshops on teaching for critical thinking in a wide range of more specialized subject matters, including:

  • writing and composition
  • the biological and physical sciences,
  • social sciences,
  • education,
  • nursing and other health-related fields,
  • arts, humanities, literature and language arts,
  • business education,
  • technical and professional fields,
  • librarianship.

The emphasis in his workshops, as in Learning to Think Things Through, is on helping students learn both to think through the subject matter and to internalize the power that the discipline can have in their experience of education and in their own lives.

 

Dr. Nosich  has worked with the U.S. Department of Education on a project for a National Assessment of Higher Order Thinking Skills.  He has given highly-acclaimed teleconferences sponsored by PBS and Starlink on teaching for critical thinking within subject-matter courses.  He has served as a consultant for ACT in Critical Thinking and Language Arts assessment.  He has served as an NEH Evaluator for Critical Thinking programs, and as a docent at the New Orleans Museum of Art. He has been Assistant Director at the Center for Critical Thinking at Sonoma State University.  He is the author of numerous articles, audio- and videotapes on critical thinking.

 

On a more personal note, he has at times exercised and not exercised good judgment: he has ridden a motorcycle alone to Baghdad (and to Ur of the Chaldees, the birthplace of Abraham); he has worked as an immigrant ditch-digger in Switzerland, been imprisoned by Communist authorities in Czechoslovakia, stowed away on a Sicilian ship to Algeria, sailed up the Nile with his family in a felucca, and lived with Maasai warriors in central Africa and in a yurt in Mongolia.  He is a Hurricane Katrina refugee and lives, reasonably far from future hurricanes, in Buffalo, New York.

Do your students really understand a chapter after they have read it? Can they accurately tell its purpose, the main questions it raises, and the conclusions it draws? For teachers who want their students to learn to think more critically, one question dominates: How can I teach critical thinking within my subject matter?  Learning to Think Things Through: A Guide to Critical Thinking Across the Curriculum provides the answers to these and many more questions.

 

The main goal of the text is to show how critical thinking can help students comprehend any subject so they can see the parts in terms of the whole, to become active learners rather than passive recipients of information. Learning to Think Things Through gives students a written guide to critical thinking that is clear, short, inexpensive, accessible, and shows readers how to think through any problem or question.

 

"This text stacks up very well against its competition because it is concise.  The difficulty in choosing texts on critical thinking is that they are either too complicated, do not offer enough coverage, or use a particular discipline to explicate critical thinking.  What makes this text effective is that it is easy to work with and applicable to any and all disciplines."

        --Susan Quarrell, Lehman College

 

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