To the Instructor

1 To the Instructor This Instructor’s Resource Manual provides support for new and experienced teachers who adopt Critical Thinking, Thoughtful Writing for their composition courses. As is noted in the preface to the textbook, there are significant advantages to teaching writing within a critical-thinking framework. Critical thinking helps students actively explore and evaluate ideas as they write, and it helps writing teachers place structural and grammatical concerns in a meaningful context. In addition, there are special features in Critical Thinking, Thoughtful Writing that enhance classroom practice. For example, Chapter 3 explains how to integrate creativity into an expository writing course, Chapter 4 applies the decision-making model to revision, and Chapter 5 approaches sentence structure in terms of logic, thinking patterns, and social context. By combining the support in this Resource Manual with the wealth of material in Critical Thinking, Thoughtful Writing, instructors can develop and deliver their best writing courses ever. The Resource Manual is divided into four sections. Section One introduces the text and discusses the scholarship on which it is based. Section One also explains the structure of the text and proposes sample syllabi for both one and two-semester sequences. Instructors can use the Writing Inventory in Section One to determine the attitudes and needs of students at the beginning of their courses. The inventory can be repeated later in the course to look at progress. Section Two of the Manual contains detailed teaching suggestions for the individual chapters of Critical Thinking, Thoughtful Writing. The material includes overviews of each chapter, introductory exercises for each chapter, and summaries of the Thinking-Writing Activities and readings in each chapter. Section Two contains background information and short biographies of the writers whose work is excerpted in Critical Thinking, Thoughtful Writing. Two teaching tools, the video “Thinking Towards Decisions” and the “Test of Critical thinking Abilities” are found in this section as well. An array of classroom handouts make up Section Three of this Manual. The concept maps allow instructors to add a visual component to the chapters of Critical Thinking, Thoughtful Writing. The Reader Response handout gives directions for peer workshops. These materials can be copied onto overhead transparencies or reproduced for class distribution. Section Four of the Manual provides three bibliographies. The first lists books and journals for writing teachers. The second names resources on critical and creative thinking. The third contains numerous additional readings and videos for use with each chapter of Critical Thinking, Thoughtful Writing. I would like to thank John Chaffee, Christine McMahon, and Barbara Stout for inviting me to prepare this Instructor’s Resource Manual. I would also like to thank Patti Holt for her research assistance with the project. And finally, I would like to thank all the students who have helped me become a better teacher of writing through the years. Joyce Neff Old Dominion University, Norfolk, Virginia Copyright © Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. 2 Introduction to Critical Thinking, Thoughtful Writing: A Rhetoric with Readings Critical thinking and academic writing are synergistic. The scholarly books and articles we write reflect our attempts to think critically about our disciplines and about pedagogy. The writing that college students produce reflects their attempts to think critically about subjects they are studying. Although a few experienced writers are capable of “prewriting” in their heads and are able to produce something close to a final draft the first time they sit in front of their word processors, most writers take their texts through multiple drafts. Either way, final drafts inevitably reflect their authors' movements through their own thinking/ writing processes. Many of our students need to discover, develop, and then refine their thinking/writing processes. Until they do, they mistakenly assume their preliminary ideas will constitute acceptable academic writing. One of our tasks as writing instructors is to explain that the preliminary drafts of both beginning and experienced writers are typically unfocused, underdeveloped, incoherent, illogical, ungrammatical, or all of the above! Critical Thinking, Thoughtful Writing aims to expand students’ knowledge of thinking and writing processes so they can develop, revise, and produce successful texts. Assumptions behind the text 1. Students need clear explanations and multiple examples of the kinds of critical thinking and academic writing we wish them to master. 2. Students need opportunities to practice critical thinking and writing in risk-free, collaborative situations where they will receive feedback from peers, instructors, or both. 3. Students need important topics, from their own lives or from engaging readings, to think and write about. 4. Students need to write much more than instructors need to grade; thus, many ungraded writing activities are suggested. 5. Ungraded student writing should be assigned in such a way that everyone does it and everyone makes use of it in class. 6. Some ungraded writing should lead to carefully revised later drafts that will be graded. Ideally, students should think and write about several possible topics and then choose which to develop, into finished papers. 7. Instructors need to think critically about the requirements and goals of the writing courses at their institutions. They can then use Critical Thinking, Thoughtful Writing to support those goals. Copyright © Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. 3 Teaching Writing/Thinking Processes Composition and rhetoric have been the subjects of a great deal of research during the last forty years; many articles and books discuss both theoretical and practical aspects of the teaching of writing. Some instructors using this manual probably know this scholarship well; others who are new to the teaching of writing can benefit from the bibliography on teaching writing in section four of this manual. Scholarship in composition shows that most successful writers have recursive, rather than linear, writing processes; that successful writers understand their own writing processes; that successful writers are able and willing to revise their drafts to meet requirements of various writing situations; and that successful writers understand the social and cultural contexts in which they compose. Critical and creative thinking function at every stage of an effective writing process. Therefore, instructors of college composition courses can help students become successful writers by emphasizing connections between thinking and writing. Collaborative Learning Collaborative learning is one of the watchwords of recent writing pedagogy. Collaboration is a natural outcome of teaching writing as process with an emphasis on audience, voice, and context, whereas earlier, more traditional approaches concentrated on evaluating the student's efforts. Collaboration opens up writing, emphasizing its nature as a shared event and a human process that takes time, patience, and discussion. Even with these advantages, collaborative learning is still suspect because if it fails to work, the blame is placed on the technique rather than on the execution. The first misconception is to think that collaboration means simply working together. Without specific and carefully defined tasks, collaborative learning can result in chaos and confusion. Second, collaborative learning will not succeed as a hit-or- miss teaching technique. Students need to grow comfortable with and knowledgeable about this form of instruction. Regular use develops confidence and camaraderie. Third, because collaborative learning gives students so much responsibility, not all teachers are comfortable with collaboration. Sometimes, giving up the authority of the teacher-centered classroom can be difficult. Nonetheless, collaborative learning can be useful throughout a writing course. Collaborative techniques work well for motivational discussion, grammar review, and thinking-writing activities. For example, in collaborative motivation, students can be given specific essay topics and specific guidelines, often including study questions, to help them generate ideas. After a specific task is assigned, each group chooses a recorder, who is responsible for reporting back to the class. Be sure to pace the class time so that ‘reporting out’ (which you or a student can record on the chalkboard or on overhead transparencies) includes adequate time for sharing and discussion. Collaborative grammar groups are helpful to present grammatical principles to a class without the tedium of grammar lectures or endless textbook exercises. It is preferable to use students' own writing to illustrate and correct grammar errors. Critical Thinking, Thoughtful Writing often asks student to discuss critical thought skills in groups. Whenever possible, apply collaborative learning techniques to the suggestions in the Thinking-Writing Activities throughout the book. Copyright © Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. 4 Peer Review Peer review groups are effective once students are taught how to respond to a work in progress. Early in the semester, students benefit from peer-review modeling because they need to learn a language for response (how writers talk to one another about their drafts). For your first peer review session, use

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