23 Feb 2010 [ Prev
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Ex 1: Of Memory and Knowledge in the Classical Era
Exercise 1 is a three-page essay that demonstrates your ability to apply, analyze, and evaluate the ideas you have encountered in the readings so far, with a special focus on Chapter 10 of Havelock's The Muse learns to Write. Submit your exercise by uploading it to Turnitin.com. (CourseID 3139124, password "mediaRplural".)
Since this is a 300-level class, I will assume you already know how to come up with a clear thesis statement, how to organize your argument around a blueprint, and how to integrate brief quotations from your sources.
Remembering and understanding are important critical thinking skills; indeed, you can't go any higher unless you've got the basics. This assignment already assumes that you can identify the key points and summarize the argument found in our assigned readings, and that in our in-class and online discussions we have already hashed out what we think the readings mean.
Instead of asking you to do that low-level thinking again, this assignment asks you to focus on applying, analyzing, and evaluating.
Since this is a 300-level class, I will assume you already know how to come up with a clear thesis statement, how to organize your argument around a blueprint, and how to integrate brief quotations from your sources.
Remembering and understanding are important critical thinking skills; indeed, you can't go any higher unless you've got the basics. This assignment already assumes that you can identify the key points and summarize the argument found in our assigned readings, and that in our in-class and online discussions we have already hashed out what we think the readings mean.
Instead of asking you to do that low-level thinking again, this assignment asks you to focus on applying, analyzing, and evaluating.
If you're already familiar with Bloom's Taxonomy, you can skip this next bit of review.
I'm asking you to take a stand on an issue raised by Havelock in Chapter 10, to demonstrate how at least one of the other readings addresses the same issue, and explore the intellectual issues that are raised by the connections you make.
Just as you would not expect to write an essay with one paragraph devoted to good spelling, another devoted to accurate use of sources, and a third paragraph devoted to proper use of vocabulary terms, this assignment does not ask you to write a separate paragraph devoted to each of these levels of critical thinking; the structure of your essay should follow from the argument you want to take.
Taking a stand requires evaluation; arranging a debate/discussion/journey requires analysis; choosing the issues, the readings, and the passages from the readings requires application; these intellectual activities are linked in complex ways, so try to think of them as interconnected, like ingredients in a well-mixed stew, rather than snacks to be prepared and consumed separately.
Okay, back to Exercise 1.It's very likely that you have already seen a list like the one at the right, since many faculty at SHU find it useful. The terms come from a 1956 publication often referred to as "Bloom's Taxonomy" (a taxonomy is a system of classification). This list (slightly updated since the original publication) presents a hierarchical arrangement of critical thinking skills.
The triangle is a useful illustration of the cognitive domain, in Bloom's taxonomy of learning (credit: Overbough and Shultz, ODU). Note that this assignment asks you to focus on the middle range -- applying, analyzing, and evaluating. But these are not isolated tasks -- the assignment does not not ask you to write a stand-alone paragraph on each.
I'm asking you to take a stand on an issue raised by Havelock in Chapter 10, to demonstrate how at least one of the other readings addresses the same issue, and explore the intellectual issues that are raised by the connections you make.
Just as you would not expect to write an essay with one paragraph devoted to good spelling, another devoted to accurate use of sources, and a third paragraph devoted to proper use of vocabulary terms, this assignment does not ask you to write a separate paragraph devoted to each of these levels of critical thinking; the structure of your essay should follow from the argument you want to take.
Taking a stand requires evaluation; arranging a debate/discussion/journey requires analysis; choosing the issues, the readings, and the passages from the readings requires application; these intellectual activities are linked in complex ways, so try to think of them as interconnected, like ingredients in a well-mixed stew, rather than snacks to be prepared and consumed separately.
- Applying: Choose and interpret appropriate passages; illustrate with examples; demonstrate connections that resolve tensions, and tensions that complicate connections; organize knowledge through writing.
- Analyzing: Compare, subdivide, arrange, explore; where there seems to be chaos, find patterns; where there seem to be clear rules, find exceptions; zoom in to find complexity or order that was not apparent on the larger scale; zoom out to find complexity or order that was not apparent on the smaller scale.
- Evaluating: Argue, defend, support; not only admitting but eagerly seeking out weaknesses/blind spots in your opinion, and celebrating strengths/brilliance in alternate views that are incompatible with yours.
