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Assignment Design & Critical Thinking
in Writing-Intensive Freshman Classes
Arlene Wilner
Rider University
Classroom-Inquiry Project
sponsored by
The Carnegie Academy
for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning
2000-2001
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Assignment Design & Critical Thinking
in Writing-Intensive Freshman Classes
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What do faculty expect of college
students?
How do entering students think?
How can we design assignments to
bridge the gap between where
students are and where we would
like them to be?
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Data From Faculty
9 co-researchers/ 4 disciplines
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Syllabi with goals, objectives, criteria for evaluation, and daily assignments;
“justification statement” explaining the rationale behind the design of the syllabus
Sequence of writing assignments for the semester
Reflections on design of specific assignments that students also analyzed, as above
Videotaped interviews with 2 English Dept. faculty - a doctoral candidate and a
senior Professor
Focus group discussion with 5 faculty (2 English, 2 History, 1 Political Science)
who teach writing-intensive classes
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Data From Students
~300 students in study group
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Pre- and Post- semester essays reflecting on learning experiences in high school and in
college
Reflections on at least two of their writing assignments from the second half of the term
Comments regarding helpfulness of instructor feedback on papers and specific examples of
helpful feedback from xeroxed papers
A large sampling of students’ essays from my classes and numerous others (over the course
of two years)
Videotaped focus group discussion with 2 freshmen and 2 seniors
Audiotaped interviews with 2 students who took my CMP 115 in fall 2000
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The Perry Paradigm
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Dualism
Multiplicity
Contextual Relativism
Commitment within Relativism
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Well-Structured Problem
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Lends itself to a relatively
algorithmic solution
Parameters are finite
Solution is unambiguous
Resolution is testable
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Ill-Structured Problem
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Contingency permeates the task
environment
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Solutions are always equivocal
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Idea of ‘getting it right’ gives way to
‘making it acceptable under the
circumstances’
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Abilities Associated with
Ill-Structured Problem-Solving
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Entertain uncertainty and contingency
Imagine sympathetically, although not necessarily to embrace, a
position or state of mind different from one’s own
Develop criteria for evaluating the persuasiveness or validity of a
position (as opposed to an “opinion”)’
Seek the historical, social, and political contexts out of which ideas
emerge
Understand that different disciplines bring different sets of
assumptions and ways of knowing to inquiry
Construct an argument that incorporates an awareness of
alternative positions and one’s reasons for rejecting them
College teachers usually value habits of mind very different from
the ones cherished by recent high school graduates.
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Video 1--four students
“How can we tell what the author meant?’
Click here for video 1
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Langer’s 1994 Study of High School
Students’ Writing Across Disciplines
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“Students were rarely challenged to explain
their interpretations or encouraged to
examine the evidence on which they had
based their conclusions. More typically, in all
areas of the curriculum, they were asked to
summarize information and points of view
that had been presented to them by the
teacher or the textbook.”
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Pre-Semester Assessment Prompt
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Describe the course you consider to be the best in
your education so far. Be as specific as possible in
explaining why the course affected you as it did.
Aspects you may wish to comment on include
course content, class activities, the teacher’s
methods and approaches, class atmosphere, and
grading policies, among others. Please give as many
details as you can to show why this particular class
was so effective in your view.
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Preferences of
High School Students
Fun/variety of activities
 Personal attention and sensitivity to
individual personalities and “styles of
learning”
 Either well-structured problems or nonproblems (Craig Nelson’s “BaskinRobbins” stage of critical thinking)
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Students’ Characterization of Best
Learning Experience in High School
The Exception
In my many years of school I have had a number of different
classes. Many of these courses were exciting or fun but they
all seemed to be missing something. I think what I am talking
about is content. Content is needed in a course to get me
interested. I would have to say that my favorite course was
World History. It was not the teacher who made the course
fun or any activities. One of my biggest interests is ancient
civilization . . . In the end it is content which will attract me
to a course, not great teaching.
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Students’ Characterization of Best
Learning Experience in High School
To make everyone comfortable, he had a radio in
the back of the room that would be playing at all
times. He wore crazy shirts with periodic tables and
silly science-promoting slogans and sang songs
about filling atomic orbital levels. (Junior
Chemistry)
He got so involved with the class that he had a
feeling for each individual’s needs and learning
style. (Senior AP Physics)
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Students’ Characterization of Best
Learning Experience in High School
She would “kiss” her students for class
participation and enthusiasm using chocolate
Hershey Kisses as rewards. (Honors English)
We had a journal in class. We wrote two entries a
week. When we handed them in, our teacher, and
only our teacher, would read them. There was never
a negative comment on them. Her comments made
you feel so good about yourself. (Senior English)
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Students’ Characterization of Best
Learning Experience in High School
The class delve[d] deep into the various genocides
such as the potato famine, the Cambodian killing
fields and perhaps the most intriguing, the Holocaust.
What made the class interesting was the “no right or
wrong answer.” We didn’t have a textbook. We all
used our knowledge and combined it with our
teacher’s immense knowledge and before we knew it
we conducted several intelligent talk forums during
class. (Holocaust/Genocide)
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Students’ Tendency to “Assimilate”
Literary Criticism
Toni Morrison, from Introduction to Huckleberry Finn
Thesis:
I was disturbed by Huckleberry Finn when I first read it
as a child. Now, as an adult, I understand my complex
and ambivalent attitudes toward this classic work.
Students’ Version:
Morrison dislikes Huckleberry Finn because it is racist.
(Race, Class, and Gender in the U.S.)
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Students’ Tendency to “Assimilate”
Media Studies
Ben Bagdikian, “Dr. Brandreth Has Gone to Harvard”
Thesis:
Corporate interests strongly but surreptitiously
influence the content of supposedly non-commercial
programming and articles
Students’ Version:
Advertising is sneaky in the way it tries to influence
us (e.g., the sexy girl in the car commercial). (CMP 100)
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Students’ Tendency to “Assimilate”
Science
Ken Flieger, “Aspirin: A New Look at an Old Drug,”
FDA Consumer Jan/Feb. 1994.
Thesis:
While aspirin, administered in professionally supervised doses,
has been proven to reduce the risk of heart attacks in patients
with a history of cardiovascular disease, its value as a
preventative substance for healthy people is less clear because
research results have been inconsistent.
Students’ Version:
Aspirin can help prevent heart attacks when taken in low doses.
(Technical Writing)
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“Understanding Difficulties”
Mariolina Rizzi Salvatori
“While initial disorientation, as a response to difficulties,
is to be expected, I would suggest that students', and
teachers', consistent circumventions of them, particularly
in entry-level courses, demonstrate the effects of
educational approaches that, by stream-lining and
providing answers for difficulties, nurture continuous
dependence on a hierarchy of experts most of whom are
unwilling or unable to share with others the processes
that enabled them to acquire and amass their cultural
capital.”
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A Sampling of Course Objectives
for Basic Composition
(first level of a three-semester sequence)
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How to distinguish between a general claim and an
illustration, an abstract idea and a concrete example
How to summarize accurately the ideas in assigned readings
How to identify the strengths and weaknesses of an argument
How to compare and contrast different ideas on a topic of
intellectual import
How to recognize irony, shifts in persona, and other rhetorical
strategies
How to use one’s understanding of the ideas of others to
effectively advance a position in writing
How to use textual evidence gracefully and persuasively to
support a claim
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Characteristics of
Assignments in Study
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Require close reading of challenging texts
Require students to incorporate summary/
paraphrase of ideas or plot elements in
support of ideas or arguments
Invite acknowledgment of ambiguity,
uncertainty, and qualification
Require explicit statement of a clear central
idea (thesis) that is a non-obvious claim
Often require integrating perspectives from
two or more texts
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Video 2--Michele Haughey
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Students’ responses to an ill-structured problem
Click here for Video 2
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An Ineffective
Ill-Structured Problem
This assignment will give you an opportunity to agree or disagree with
one or both of the authors we’ve recently read—Stephen Nilsson
and/or George Kleiman.
Requirements: Adequate first paragraph that includes name of article
or lectures, name of author, and approximate date of publication. . .
AND A GOOD THESIS that states your judgment of the author’s
ideas about a particular issue: for example, Kleiman writes about
schools, technology, and the media, so you should limit your thesis to
one of these.
Body paragraphs that support your claims with quotations or
paraphrases from the handouts, text, or lecture. Be sure that you
know what topic or issue each paragraph addresses.
A conclusion that invites the reader to think further about the issue.
Correctly punctuated sentences: no fragments or run-ons. 2-3 pages.
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A More Effective
Ill-Structured Problem
TOPIC: Confining your discussion to the course texts listed below,
COMPARE the cultural ideology(ies) closest to your beliefs with the
one(s) most foreign. REFLECT on what your discussion tells you
about your culture and your place in it.
TEXTS:
Gunn Allen, "Grandmother”
Bulfinch, Greek myth
Michelangelo, Creation of Adam
Sartre, "The Wall”
Sartre, "Existentialism"
Hawking, “Our Picture of the Universe”
Achebe, "Chi"
African Myth
Nihongi
Popul Vuh
Miwok myth
Genesis
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A More Effective
Ill-Structured Problem
PRE-WRITING:
1. List the texts in order of decreasing congruence with your own cultural beliefs.
2. Take the one (or two) texts most congruent with your own beliefs and the one
(or two) least congruent. List as many points of likeness and difference as you can.
3. Sort your points logically and decide on an order of presentation.
4. Add or refine points as additional thoughts occur during this brainstorming stage.
LENGTH AND FORMAT: About three pages, word-processed, double-spaced.
Document citations from the course texts informally using parenthetical references
within the body of your text. [For example, Sartre's narrator says, " . . . " (SR 49);
Michelangelo depicts a creator who . . . handout).]
CRITERIA FOR EVALUATION: 1. Demonstrated understanding of texts
2. Intelligence of argument
3. Clarity of argument
4. Correctness and effectiveness of prose style
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Freshman Students’ Responses
“This assignment is different in the sense that we
were given a topic in a sense, but no two papers will
look anything like each other.”
“Overall, my high school classes were more about
memorization than contemplation.”
“The most difficult part of this assignment was
trying to tackle an idea such as creation without
contradicting myself. It is not an easy assignment,
let alone to do in only 3-4 pages.”
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Freshman Students’ Responses
“Dealing with creation, this paper has forced me to review
my own beliefs. Questions have arisen to which I have no
answers, but that’s just a process of life. I have also been
introduced to ideas that have sparked interest/debate.”
“Most challenging about this assignment was taking my
personal views and structuring them into something someone
else could comprehend.”
“I looked at my own beliefs in a more skeptical way than I
have before. When you have a collection of different
theories, where most of them seem absurd, it’s hard not to
question your own theory.”
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Video 3--Anne Osborne and Kathy Hoff
“Truth,” “History,” Fiction”--sophisticated disciplinary
epistemologies
The challenges of being thrown into Multiplicity “willy-nilly”
Click here for Video 3
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Video 4--Anne Osborne and Michele Haughey
How can “belief” inhibit “knowledge”?
“Where does my voice fit in?”
Click here for video 4
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Balancing Guidance and Freedom
BHP 150 Great Ideas II
Spring 2001
Profs. Rusciano and Wilner
In The Prince (1513), Machiavelli gives advice on how a political leader
should conduct himself to maintain order as well as his own position. He says
he wants to write something “useful” and that he wished to “follow the real
truth of things [rather] than an imaginary view of them” (44). Write a paper
of 3-4 pages in which you consider how Machiavelli’s philosophy, as set forth
in the excerpt you read from The Prince, is an implicit response to Plato’s
ideas of proper governance as set forth in “Allegory of the Cave.” Ideas to
consider (not a set of questions to be answered independently as if for an
exam): What do the two theories say about how individuals can, and should,
perceive reality? What is the obligation of a leader to the people regarding
their understanding of reality? Why is Machiavelli often considered antiPlatonic in his views of politics and knowledge? Be sure to cite textual
evidence to support your assertions, including the page number(s) in
parentheses following the quotation or citation.
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Video 5--Frank Rusciano and Anne Salvatore
The difficulty for faculty of determining
“what is self-evident”
Click here for Video 5
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Suspicions and
Speculations Confirmed
1. The rich get richer, and the poor, poorer: Being placed in an
enriched, honor, or AP class is not a guarantee that critical
thinking (ill-structured problem-solving skills) will be taught,
but not being placed in such classes seems to guarantee that
they will not be. Since many college classes depend on the
kinds of high-level skills fostered by our assignments (analysis,
synthesis, reasoned and evidence-based critique), it is
imperative that ALL of our students be given the opportunity
to practice them early and often.
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Moving Up the Perry Scale
Kathy (honors): “I discovered that understanding the theme
is really only the beginning of really knowing what the
writer is trying to show. P.S. I used quotes from Sartre and
Plato as well as other works that we read in order to prove
points in my Psychology papers. Things we discussed in
class stayed in my mind throughout all the discussions I had
in my other classes.”
Jane (honors): “I think that I question things differently
now. For example, I found that the essay “Discovering
Columbus’ made me think more about the way information
is presented and whether or not it should be taken as fact. I
applied this idea to readings in my other classes.”
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Moving Up the Perry Scale, cont’d.
Karla (honors): “I have always been open to the points of view of
other individuals and when I would hear, say, about ‘rituals’ (not
necessarily religion-based) that were done in other countries that to
many people would seem ‘crazy’ or ‘terrible,’ I would think, well,
somehow it makes sense to them. However, Things Fall Apart gave me a
depthful [sic] insight into the views of other people and their rituals and
helped me to understand how these ideas and rituals could make sense
to them.”
Craig (honors): “Basically, I learned in this class the
importance of learning more than “just the facts” and also
the importance of discussion.”
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Moving Up the Perry Scale, cont’d.
Peter (developmental): “The readings that we have discussed, especially Plato
and Machiavelli, have opened my eyes to the kind of world we live in.
Although there was plenty of work involved, I felt that the challenge brought
out something in me, that I never knew I had--the ability to gain knowledge
and apply it to different aspects of my life.”
Susan (standard course): “Reading a story, essay, or series of letters has always
been a way to learn what a teacher thinks of them. I then would have to be
able to spit back to that teacher how they felt about that piece of literature.
Now, within this course, I have been able to freely think for myself . . . . Then,
finding out I could support my ideas and feelings with evidence taught me
how to be able to stand up for my viewpoints and feelings on various topics.”
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Suspicions and
Speculations Confirmed
2. While we hope that critical thinking skills are “generic” in that
they are transferable across disciplines (to varying degrees,
depending on whether the domains share an emphasis on wellor ill-structured problem solving), the skills themselves cannot
be taught ‘generically.’
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Curricula and assignments are tied to particular content and
require manipulation of that content in particular ways over
which we instructors have control. Imagining one or more of
several possible solutions to the problems we pose is an act of
intellect, creativity, and ethics--for ourselves, and for our
students.
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ONGOING
HYPOTHESES
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Faculty need to balance attention to affective domain (students’
sense that teachers care about them as individuals and are alert to
their current ways of thinking and feeling) with strategies that foster
accountability to discipline-grounded criteria and modes of inquiry.
There are no formulas, but it is possible to cultivate a sense of better
and worse practices within a spectrum of choices. Assignments
designed as “ill-structured problems” appear to nurture the sorts of
engagement with ideas generally associated with critical thinking
(especially when combined with constructive feedback in the form of
“conversation”).
Since faculty can benefit from “learning communities” just as
students do, common readings across sections can enable productive
workshops on assignment design.
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Video 6--Michele Haughey and Kathy Hoff
The value of collaborative faculty development
Click here for Video 6
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Video7--“Are you sure the cameras
are off?”
What can we know, and how can we know it?
Discuss!
Click here for Video 7
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