Strategic Thinking and Reading BBI 3420 PJJ 2009/10 Dr Shameem Rafik-Galea

Strategic Thinking and Strategic Thinking and ReadingReading

BBI 3420 PJJ 2009/10 Dr Shameem Rafik-Galea

Critical thinking the ability to discipline and control thinking so that you can process information more easily

MIND an acronym that stands for the components of the critical thinking process : M (Material), I (Inquiry), N (iNtrospection), D (Decision)


M : MaterialsM : MaterialsThe expression “it takes two to tango” is much like

critical thinking which a dance depends on two participants. One partner, concepts, and the other partner is information, consists of details that change from issue to issue. Without information, concepts only shadow dance; they have no meaning. Information, then, interacts with concepts to make your thinking an intricate and beautiful tango.

When two partners perform together consistently, discerning who’s leading and who’s following is often difficult. This same difficulty holds true with the interdependent thinking partners of concepts and information. Knowing the definitions of concepts and information is one thing; telling the difference between them in practice is another.


For example, what concepts do you associate with the word college? To identify them, you first ask yourself, “What aspects of college remain the same, no matter what schools I consider?” The answer probably includes students, faculty, residence halls, classrooms, books, notebooks, tuition, fees, and so forth.

These are the concepts of college. The details that describe a particular college ( e.g. Professor Barnes, Ingram Hall, Introductory Spanish, $ 1095 per semester). If you transferred to another school, the information would change; the concepts however, would remain the same.

Identifying concepts and information is essential to the thinking process. To paraphrase Lord Bryon, “On with the dance, let your concepts and information be unconfined!”


I : InquiryI : Inquiry A popular supermarket tabloid uses the slogan “Inquiring

minds want to know.” Why? The writers know that people want the scoop on a story-what happened and why.

Tabloid headlines often arouse your assumptions about the people or events in the story. These assumptions affect your points of view and play a role in your setting a purpose for reading.

The questions at issue you ask about the tabloid’s article result in your achieving purpose. These same factors come into play when you read a textbook or think about subject matter. Understanding the role in your thinking process makes you a more critical thinker.


Assumptions and Points of ViewAssumptions and Points of View Mary Storm of Brooklyn, New York, wrote a humorous story

called “A Dog Named Sex”, which ran in Ann Landers column on August 22,1994. in this story, the narrator describes several ways in which his dog’s name, Sex, resulted in confusion.

For example, when he went to get the dog a license, he said “I want a license for Sex.” The clerk replied that she wanted the same thing. He told the clerk that he had Sex since he was nine years old, and the clerk said, “You must have been quite a kid!”

When he took the dog on his honeymoon, he told the manager that Sex kept him awake at night, and the manager said he had the same problem.

After a number of similar experiences, the narrator said that Sex ran away from home one evening, and he spent several hours looking for him. When a cop asked him what he was doing on the streets at four o’clock in the morning, he said that he was looking for Sex. The narrator concluded his story by saying that his court case was coming up next Friday.


The humor of the preceding story depends on both assumptions and points of view embedded in the concept of sex. Assumptions are the beliefs and expectations you take for granted about situations, people, places, and so forth.

They come from actual or vicarious background experiences ( or from both). Identifying your assumptions helps you analyze your interpretation of a situation.

Your point of view is your perspective-the position from which you view or evaluate things.

Just as an astronaut’s view of Earth from a space shuttle differs from your view of Earth from your window, your particular perspective affects how you see things.


Gender, ethnicity, educational background, personal experience and other concepts affect a person’s point of view. For example, a Hispanic male who graduated from Harvard ten years ago probably has a different point of view of the university experience than a Hispanic female high school student who is applying for admission to Harvard this year. Recognizing point of view helps why you, or someone else holds a particular opinion about an issue.

In the story of a dog named Sex, the people the narrator met assumed that the word sex referred to something other than a dog. The narrator assumed that people understood he was talking about a dog when he talked about Sex. These differing assumptions and perspectives resulted in a variety of misunderstandings


Purpose and QuestionPurpose and Question

The phrase “One if by land, two if by sea” from Longfellow’s epic poem “The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere” refers to a signal which would tell Paul Revere whether the British would be marching over land or coming by sea to fight the American colonists. In this book, Punctured Poems, Richard Armour changes Longfellow’s words to say “One if by land, two if by sea…Now what do I do? He signals three.” Armour’s pun indicates what Revere might have thought had the signal not been one of the two he expected. Questions, then, affect purpose, and purpose plays a role in questioning.


To help you understand the definitions of the terms, consider the following example. While reading the newspaper, you turn to the sports page and begin to read an article about your favorite professional basketball team. Your purpose is to know what happened at the game. The primary question at issue for you might be “Did they win?” Your roommate, who heard the score on the radio, enters the room and reads over your shoulder to answer the question. “Who scored the winning basket?” Two people can have the same purpose but a slightly different question at issue.

To think or read critically, you need a reason. What you want to know about the topic or what you need to know to satisfy your goal results in question(s) at issue. When you read or think critically, you need to clarify or refine your purpose by identifying a problem you need to solve or a question you want to answer.


N : IntrospectionN : Introspection The word introspection comes from the Latin word

introspectus, meaning “to look inward.” In critical thinking, introspections means using what you already know to think about and process new materials under consideration. This combination of old and new knowledge results in inferences and interpretations.

The process of referring involves using information of occurrences to make predictions about the present or future or guesses about the past. Making accurate predictions or educated guesses often poses problems, because people who get identical information about a topic do not necessarily view or interpret the information in the same way. As a result, people can make completely different predictions using the same information. You form guesses and inferences by interpreting the information at hand in light of your background knowledge, assumptions and point of view.


Differing inferences and interpretations using the same information resulted in the tragic death of a Japanese exchange student in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, in October 1992. Invited to a Halloween costume party, the student and his American friend attempted to find the home where the party was being held. By mistake, they went to the wrong address in a neighborhood that had recently experienced several burglaries.

Since the home owners had answered the knock were frightened of burglars, the man at the house at the house came to the door with a gun. As the exchange student moved toward him saying, “We’re here for the party,” the man yelled “Freeze!” The student, new to the United States and unfamiliar with the expression, continued to advance.


The man inferred only someone who intended harm would continue to move toward him. The man also inferred that since the intruder failed to “freeze”, he intended to rob the home. Acting on his incorrect inferences, the man shot the student, fatally wounding him.

The student failed to infer that he was at risk, because burglary and homicide are not societal problems in Japan and, therefore interpret the command of “freeze” as a warning statement. The home owner used his own perspective and recent information about neighborhood burglaries to interpret the actions of the student as threatening. Ironically, the nonthreatening student was at risk, while the threatening home owner was not.


D : DecisionD : Decision You gathered the information you need. You identified your

purpose and questions. You analyzed your interpretation and inferences. Now it’s time to make a decision. In the words of the American proverb, it’s time to fish or cut bait!

Since all critical thinking is done for a purpose, it must come to an end in a decision concerning the situation or solution to the question at issue. In a way, the decision often brings you full circle in your thinking. You may reach some decision about the question at issue, but that decision might be to examine another question or gather more information before reaching a question. Decisions do not have to require action. A student who critically examines possible majors as a freshman may not reach a conclusion on the perfect major. Instead, that student may eliminate certain majors and begin the thinking process again as new courses and information become available.


In some cases, two people begin with the same purpose and question and use the same information, but their individual points of view, assumptions, and inferences lead them to different decisions. For example, rational people armed with the same information about the death penalty often come to separate and different conclusions.

Whenever you reach conclusions, implications, or consequences, follow. Conclusions and implications/ consequences are analogous to causes and effects. They form chain reactions, that is a conclusion sets into motion a series of possible outcomes (implications) and specific outcomes (consequences).

For example, the implications of living in an apartment rather than at home or in a residence hall might include the need for transportation to and from your institution, as well as the cost of utilities, monthly bills, and cooking for yourself.


Problems occur when conclusions are reached with little or no consideration of logical implications and consequences. Perhaps you rent an apartment within walking distance from the campus because you don’t own a car. You expect to use a public bus for transportation to and from shopping.

After you move into your apartment, you discover that your city has no transit system. The consequence of your action is that you are left depending of on others for transportation to and from a supermarket and other stores. Thus, reaching a conclusion or solving a problem requires careful consideration of the implications and consequences of each available alternative before making a final decision.

Reconsider the newspaper report of the basketball game. You had a purpose (to locate information) and a question at issue (who won the game?). After reading the article, you found the information that answered your question. You might make inferences, but you need not make a decision based on your original question. In other words, you were thinking, but it was not necessary for you to think critically.


Fortunately, the outcomes of most decision can be rethought. Even decisions that appear monumental can be altered.

For example, perhaps you decided to live off campus because it offered you more privacy and independence, and a change from living at home or on campus. However, you discovered your expenses were greater, you hated walking to campus in bad weather, you didn’t like to cook yourself, and you got lonely. At this point, you might feel compelled to stick to your decision. But why? If you made a decision that isn’t working, what’s a better choice : being miserable or rethinking the situation and making another decision?

The notion of assessing and rethinking is, for some people, a new idea because they think that once you decide, you stick with that decision no matter what. Assessing a decision gives you the power and freedom to change your mind, your situation, and your life.


Concepts : Mental Systems for Concepts : Mental Systems for Organizing and Storing InformationOrganizing and Storing Information

You might think of concepts as interconnected and organized systems of information. For instance, each concept organizes typical information and examples that relate to it (e.g., dogs have four legs. Dogs bark. A Dalmatian is a dog.). It also contains specific , unusual example

s ( A basenji is a breed of dog that yelps but cannot bark.)

The Concept of ConceptsThe Concept of Concepts


A concept includes functions. (Some dogs are pets. Some dogs, such as Seeing Eyes dogs, work. Some dogs bite.) and integrates these functions to create rules for future use (Use care when approaching a dog to see if it is friendly or if it bites.)

A concept reminds you of your feelings about the information (I like dogs. I am afraid of dogs). It even differentiates between real and false uses of the label that identifies the concept (A hot dog is not a dog.) Thus, a concept is a mental system characterized by categories such as definition, important and relevant characteristics, standard examples or uses (or both), special or nonstandard examples or uses (or both), and related domains.


Concept DevelopmentConcept Development

Your ability to create concepts began at birth. Even before you understood the meanings of words, you understood the meanings of concept-hot, cold, hungry, uncomfortable, loud, soft. As you grew, you learned words or images for the concepts. Unconsciously, but continually, you refined and added to your understanding of these concepts (for example, hot day differs from hot stove).

You continue this updating all your life as you gather and use information. So, for some concepts, you have well developed systems of understanding. For others, your system may be less complete. How do concepts originate? They develop from background knowledge, which forms from memories of actual or vicarious experiences.


According to British author Edward de Bono, a memory is what remains when something happens and does not completely unhappen. You store some experiences as specific memories. Specific memories include such data as the name of your first grade teacher, your address, and what your family looks like.

You store other experiences generally rather than exactly. Similar or repetitive information is forgotten. For example, when you see a stray dog on the street, you do not sure that exact memory. Unless the dog’s behavior is atypical (if it tries to bite you, for instance), you organize that memory as part of your overall concept of a dog (e.g. they have four legs; they bark; they are pets).

Conceptualizing dog (or anything else) helps you group or categorize experiences so that every new experience doesn’t surprise you. Although you sometimes develop concepts through direct experience, you also develop them through vicarious experiences (e.g., reading about dogs that are trained to find drugs.)


Concepts provide ways to process and think about new information. For example, repeated and organized experiences contribute to your ability to make assumptions. In addition, concepts from models of past experience which help you make predictions, or inferences, about current situations.

Failure to consider the important and relevant attributes of a concept sometimes contributes to poor decision making. For example, consider how concepts help you think about a decision to join a campus organization. No matter what the organization, you consider the same factors: membership qualifications, responsibilities, time commitment, financial obligations, demographic composition, future benefits and so on.

Each course you study also contains relevant concepts. For example the subject if history includes concepts such as people, time, law, countries and so on.


Universal Concept versus Personal ConceptsUniversal Concept versus Personal ConceptsI know that you believe you understand what you think I said, but I am not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant.

Quote from the 60’s

Although concept formation is a personal and individualized process, some concepts (e.g., rich) lack universal agreement about meaning. For a child, the concept of rich might be five dollars. For multimillionaire Bill Gates the concept of rich would be much different. Thus, personalized meanings can result in communication failure in reading.

Other concepts, however, such as cube, ten, and pregnant, have precise and definite meanings that do not vary. Using these universal concepts facilitates communication and understanding. Without them you may think you understand what is being said, only to find out that what was said wasn’t what was meant.


Although universal concepts develop in much the same way as personal concepts, the latter are products of your culture and point of view, whereas the former arise from the world at large.

In clearing up communication misconceptions that arise from either personal or universal concepts, you first identify which key concepts and ideas are relevant to the topics that you read about, think about, or discuss. Then you examine the concepts to identify those that might be ambiguous to you or others.

Once you do so, you consider how others define any concepts that seem vague. You do this by talking with others or checking reference books.


The Purpose Of NewspeakThe Purpose Of Newspeak The purpose of newspeak was not only to provide a

medium of expression for the world-view and mental habits proper to the devotees of Ingsoc [English Socialism], but to make all other modes of thought impossible.

It was intended that when newspeak had been adopted once and for all and Oldspeak forgotten, a heretical thought-that is, a thought diverging from the principles of Ingsoc-should literally be unthinkable, at least so far as thought is dependent on words.

Its vocabulary was so constructed as to give exact and often very subtle expression to every meaning that a Party member could properly wish to express, while excluding all other meanings and also the possibility of arriving at them by indirect methods.


This was done partly by the invention of new words, but chiefly by eliminating undesirable words and by stripping such words as remained of unorthodox meanings, and so far as possible of all secondary meanings whatever. To give a simple example.

The word free still existed in Newspeak, but it could only be used in such statements as “This dog is free from lice” or “This field is free from weeds.” it could not be used in its old sense of “politically free” or “intellectually free,” since political and intellectual freedom no longer existed even as concepts, and were therefore of necessity nameless….

A person growing up with Newspeak as his sole language would no more know that equal had once had the secondary meaning of “politically equal,” or that free had once meant “intellectually free,” than, for instance, a person who had never heard of chess would be aware of secondary meanings attaching to queen and rook. There would be many crimes and errors which it would be beyond his power to commit, simply because they were nameless and therefore unimaginable.


Information Source of ConceptsInformation Source of Concepts

According to the Oxford Companion to the English Language (McArthur 1992), information is a commodity that can be shared or retained; pure or altered; bought, sold, or given away; or allowed to disappear or saved for future use. Information comes from reading, seeing and listening, as well as experiencing life. Thus, information-in a variety if ways-is the source of the concepts you develop.

How can you best use information? As Samuel Johnson said in 1775, “Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves or we know we can find information on it.”


If you know a subject, (meaning that you possess breadth and depth of concepts about the subject), locating information is not a problem.

If you don’t know a subject, you must locate the information that will help you gain knowledge.

However, locating information is the easy part. Once you find that information, it does not become yours until you analyze its content, examining its structure, and considering its source. What you make of the information you collect is what you use to expand old concepts and create new ones.


ContextContext

Ideally, precise understanding of universal concepts precedes clear understanding of text and situations. Unfortunately, many words differ in meaning depending on the situation. Or context, in which you find them. The courses you take and the experiences you have form contexts for words you encounter. Each different subject, job, location, or activity involves its own set of words that apply to it.


Each set consists of three kinds of words. General vocabulary words, such as pencil, and contemporary, apply to a variety of contexts and maintain consistent meanings in most cases.

Technical vocabulary words, such as electron, amino acid, and photosynthesis, consist of terms specific to a particular subject. Specialized vocabulary words, such as set, discipline, and cell, are general vocabulary words that also have precise meanings in subject areas.


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Strategic Thinking and Reading BBI 3420 PJJ 2009/10 Dr Shameem Rafik-Galea