| Title of Article + Proper MLA Citation for Works Cited page | Gita DasBender. “Critical Thinking in College Writing: From the Personal to the Academic.” Writing Spaces: Readings on Writing, Volume 2,, a peer-reviewed open textbook series for the writing classroom, 2011, 37-50. |
| Summarize the article — include your reaction, thoughts, anything to help you remember its claims. 100 to 150 words | At the start of the article, the author states that when you begin to think about the term critical thinking that your mind begins to go blank and fuzzy. I never quite knew how to explain my brain when I have to explain something in two words but the author sure did. I think this is a perfect way to show just how complex the term critical thinking is. It takes a whole process just to explain it, as the author writes that readers come to learn so many techniques that they can use. One that I often see in writing is pausing in a quote. The author writes this, “So let’s say that in reading the essay you encounter a quote that gives you pause. In describing her encounter with a weasel in Hollins Pond, Dillard says, “I would like to learn or remember, how to live . . . I don’t think I can learn from a wild animal how to live in particular . . . but I might learn something of mindlessness, something of the purity of living in the physical senses and the dignity of living without bias or motive” (220).” This quote that the author brings in shows how the pause can enhance writing just with a short breath from the reader. In the second half of Daasbenders writing there is an example paper with comments and underlining to look at. Reading through these comments on this writing I thought to myself that this is something I should do for myself. I want to step back and look at my writing from a different perspective. Essentially put me in someone else’s shoes, a bystander per se, composing a peer review on my own paper breaking down and analyzing just like the author’s example. |
| Define new terms and concepts by quoting or paraphrasing the original author. | Enthralled – This term means to be excited and encaptured by something
Mindlessness – learning this in the new context of writing, its talked about in the contex of being an active reader Textual analysis – “Summarize the writer’s ideas”,”Evaluate the most important ideas,Identify gaps or discrepancies in the writer’s argument”,”Examine the strategies the writer uses”,and ”Extend the writer’s ideas” (DasBender 44). |
| How does this reading connect to other articles from class and/or your own research?
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This specific article connects to one very similar from my writing 101 class. We once read about critical thinking and the importance of putting it into play. However, that article did not go this far into depth about how to go through the process of critical thinking. It does have a very strong correlation though and having these two articles in my knowledge is helping me to build a strong foundation for my writing and reading process. |
| Based on the reading, craft one question to act as a springboard for class discussion. | After reading up on all the information provided by Gita DasBender what is one thing you want to put to play in your own writing? |