What are some resources others have found helpful? For context, I am teaching an undergraduate course called Culture, Ethnicity, and Mental Health at a university in New York City. Critical/analytical writing skills are not the primary focus of the course, but nevertheless very important skills for students to develop. I am interested in accessible, incremental approaches that will help my students learn these skills. Any and all ideas are welcome!
I found that modeling these skills for your students first encourages the type of critical thinking skills you want to see in your student's writing. This is not always easy to do, without giving several examples of writing, which students may or may not read.
William I have some papers here in Researchgate that explores mainly critical reading or critical appraisal in pregraduate students, speciallly in medicine and in internship, but I have explored it too, with good results, in first, third o or fifth degrees. I have a semester for critical appraisal and then another semester for writing, according to CIERM or in your case APA instructions. For me it's better to give them some articles already published for critical reading (you have to construct some guides) and then they have to argue by writting their points of view. With this homewotk they are starting to write. Then they have to write an essay (a protocol) where writing is the most important point ( I have a rubric for that too) . Now my students ar epublishing. But at least two semesters. You can do it in one semester by the way. I send you a guide (one of wich I use for homework) and the article related to. Altough is in Spanish you could see how the students can write and well, after some sessions. I hope will be useful.
I recently used Ennis-Weir Critical Thinking Essay Test in a study, and actually the manual itself says it can be used as a teaching tool. Although not specific to psychology, it includes several critical thinking skills which are relevant. You can find it here:
http://faculty.education.illinois.edu/rhennis/tewctet/Ennis-Weir_Merged.pdf
It might be a good starting point, or a base-line assessment.
The paper I posted here goes through a staged approach to writing in a 'critical' manner. The attached powerpoint slides go through the same 'method' with two sample essay topics.
Hope it is of some use.
You might also investigate 'computer aided argument mapping' mentioned in both attachments and in a number of my papers.
Article 'Not quite right': Helping students to make better arguments
Hi William, here is a short presentation on the essential points of scientific writing.
http://fr.slideshare.net/lichtfouse/scientific-writing-for-impact-factor-journals
William, thanks so much for posting the question, and to all those who responded, thanks for the ideas and resources you provided. I am beginning to teach a cross-disciplinary course after having been a research professor (non-teaching) for several years, and this issue is a major concern.
I dare to sugget to read State of the art on the literature you are focusing. Most of these papers include, besides the historical backgrounds, critical points of view. In this way, you have your students fully focused on a specific topic regarding time, changes, improvements, or declining trnds in a sole paper. Thanks for caring your students by being a self-critical teacher.
Hi.
I do have a general answer, you could consult my book: "Secrets of Writing Killer Essays & Reports." (It's available from Amazon and many other online sources.)
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