Getting Students to ThinkReasoning Patterns and Criteria

The doctor told Sardarji that if he ran eight kilometers a day for 300 days, he would lose 34 kilos. At the end of 300 days, Sardarji called the doctor to report he had lost the weight, but he had a problem. “What is the problem?” the doctor asked. Sardarji responded,

“I'm 2400 kms from home.”

Bill Strom, Dept. of Media + Communication

So what is critical thinking?

“Critical thinking is a process by which the thinker improves the quality of his or her thinking by skillfully taking charge of the structures inherent in thinking and imposing intellectual standards upon them.”

Richard Paul and Linda Elder, 2004

(Authors working with CriticalThinking.Org)

What are those standards?

Clarity: Please elaborate, exemplify.. Accuracy: Can we verify, check out..? Precision: Please be specific, detailed. Relevance: How does this relate, help? Depth: What is complex or difficult? Breadth: What other ways help us?

Toulmin’s Reasoning Model: A tool for argument analysis

Seven concepts help us articulate how to structure and evaluate arguments.

A. Claims: the assertion you want to prove. B. Grounds: the evidence that supports the

believability of your claim. (e.g., reason, facts, example, testimony, statistic, value, etc.)

C. Warrants: the assumption that makes reasonable the connection between grounds and claims.• not always spoken, but usually at work in

your audience’s mind

Toulmin’s Model

D. Backing: additional grounds/support for the warrant or the grounds.

• usually the sub- and sub-sub points in one’s argument.

E. Qualifier: a term or phrase (e.g., certainly, maybe, likely) that indicates the sureness or strength of a person’s claim.

F. Rebuttals: counter arguments to any part of one’s argument, & Reservations: your own stipulations admitting where your claim is not true.

Toulmin’s Model

Claim: It’s going to rain today.

Grounds:

1) Because Kuss said so, and 2) because the sky was red this morning.

Warrant: 1) Assuming Kuss is an expert, and assuming 2) sailor wisdom counts

Backing: 1) FYI, Kuss has 10 years exp. 2) and FYI, sailors have 100s of years exp.

Qualifier: 1) forecasts are usually right; 2) sailors are rarely wrong. So add “probably.”

Rebuttal & Reservation: 1) unless Kuss is biased, 2) unless sailors are colluding

Full example of Toulmin’s Reasoning Model

“probably”

Toulmin identifies common cultural warrants

By cause: x causes y to occur By sign: s is a sign of condition c By generalization: x¹, x², and x³ may

generalize to the set of all Xs. By parallel case: c¹ is parallel to c² By analogy: c¹ and d¹ are similar By authority: because person P is

credible

The Cereal Box assignment

Ask students to discern the main assertion, evidence, and warrant in an argument, article, or in this case, cereal box text. For example:

Evidence 1 Main Assertion

It’s high in Oatmeal Crisp

in potassium is healthy.

Potassium causes

good health (causal warrant)

Cereal…

Evidence 2 Main Assertion

It looks healthy. Oatmeal Crisp

is healthy.

Healthy-looking

foods actually

are healthy (sign warrant)

And more…

Evidence 3 Main AssertionGeneral Mills uses Oatmeal

Crispwhole grain. is healthy.

Assuming whole grainsgenerally create healthycereals. (generalization

warrant)

Etc…(note, same assertion, but different evidence & warrant)

Evidence 4 Main Assertion

It’s similar to Oatmeal Crisp

Harvest Crunch. is healthy.

Harvest Crunch

is healthy, so OC

must be too (parallel warrant)

Etc.

Evidence 5 Main Assertion

It’s like a banana Oatmeal Crisp

is healthy.

OC and bananas

share the quality of

healthy potassium

(analogy warrant)

and finally…

Evidence 6 Main Assertion

Heart and Stroke Oatmeal Crisp

Found. implies so. is healthy.

The Heart and Stroke

Foundation is a credible

organization (authority warrant)

So the point is…

We can ask students to…

1. Identify argument types in material

2. Explain their own arguments in assignments

3. Use such warrants in speeches

4. Contest such warrants in debate

Concluding thought…

The critical habit of thought, if usual in society, will pervade all its mores, because it is a way of taking up the problems of life. Men [people] educated in it cannot be stampeded by stump orators ... They are slow to believe. They can hold things as possible or probable in all degrees, without certainty and without pain. They can wait for evidence and weigh evidence, uninfluenced by the emphasis or confidence with which assertions are made on one side or the other. They can resist appeals to their dearest prejudices and all kinds of cajolery. Education in the critical faculty is the only education of which it can be truly said that it makes good citizens.

~ William Graham Sumner, Folkways, 1906