Critical thinking has been very much discussed in education, and there are many definitions of it available. These definitions can change, depending on discipline or culture. But definitions do agree that critical thinking involves careful, skeptical, and conscious thinking; in Western academic circles, it is the sort of thinking guided by logic and method that academics value. Critical thinking includes the ability to view any object of study from multiple perspectives and to recognize the cultural, ideological, and cognitive frames (or schemata) we bring to understanding. 

Whatever the activity, the goal is to make communication an integral part of the way students learn—they are writing to improve their knowledge and understanding of your course content, not merely to repeat ideas you have poured into them. When they write, they take what you teach and make it their own, and that, in essence, is critical thinking.

Critical thinking is a habit and a skill, something which, like the composing process, many of our students may have to learn and practice. Putting words on paper or preparing to address an audience helps students slow down and consider an issue in greater depth. It also demands that they express their views or opinions at some level. Even a plain explanation or review of the "facts" requires students select pertinent facts, organize them in a rhetorically effective way, and present them accurately.

These skills are frequently viewed developmentally, usually according to Bloom's taxonomy, as follows:

• Knowing. Gathering and reporting information and displaying mastery of basic knowledge or course content.
• Understanding. Using facts to predict, infer, order, compare. Using knowledge in different contexts.
• Applying. Using knowledge to solve problems or do something.
• Analyzing. Breaking down problems/data/facts and seeing patterns and components in order to understand the parts and how they fit together into a whole.
• Creating. Generalizing about facts/knowledge across more than one situation. Seeing larger relationships, creating new knowledge, and drawing conclusions.
• Evaluating. Assessing and making value judgments. Solving problems in an original way. Seeing from multiple perspectives and using sophisticated reasoning.

To promote critical thinking skills more fully, ask students to make an argument, take a stand, or defend a thesis. To do so in a responsible way for an academic or educated reader requires that they consider the following:

• All sides of the issue. By considering all sides and showing, whether through a literature review or through discussion, that they understand the issues, student strengthen their own position.
• Their own position. They may not even be clear on their position until they begin brainstorming. Conducting research and pursuing invention techniques may challenge their initial assumptions. Teach them to be ready to alter their thesis as they explore it.
• Convincing and comprehensive evidence. Writing an argument makes students ask what is convincing to an educated reader. How much evidence is enough? What kind of evidence counts, and what kind may be persuasive yet not sufficient?
• Awareness of fallacies. A good argument is based on solid logic, without hasty generalizations, faulty causal attributions, misleading statistics, and so on.
• Reasonableness. A reasonable writer or speaker will make concessions, show awareness of other possible arguments, and be sensitive to different perspectives. A reasonable one will not play on emotion to excess or expect readers to assent based on their personality or reputation.

While every assignment cannot necessarily ask students to present a full-fledged argument, every assignment can expect students to present and defend a thesis in a reasonable and logical manner.

To up the level of critical thinking even more, ask that students go beyond defense of a thesis. Encourage students to find creative solutions to problems and make defensible value judgments. Use case study assignments or challenge students to discover problems themselves. Ask for a critical analysis and proposed solutions. In short, ask for synthesis and evaluation.

The Critical Thinking Resource Guide, developed at Washington State University in 1999-2000, is an excellent tool for creating assignments and evaluating critical thinking skills. Students often express concern about expressing their own ideas. They may worry that disagreement with a professor will lower their grade, or they may believe that opinion, along with the first-person "I," has no place in college writing. Show them that you do value their views, and that you will read with an open mind if they argue well.

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Additional Resources

Chaffee, John. Thinking Critically. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1985. 

Facione, Peter. Critical Thinking: What It Is and Why It Counts. California Academic Press, 1988.

Potts, Bonnie, "Strategies for Teaching Critical Thinking," ERIC Digest (ED 385606)

Critical Thinking Resources. The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga Faculty Development.

The Foundation for Critical Thinking sponsors a website that includes useful reading materials and announcements of conferences and related events.