Freshman Honors
Thinking Critically
Chapter 1
 Successful thinking – solve problems, make intelligent decisions, and achieve goals to
give life purpose and fulfillment – crucial for living in a meaningful way
 Thinking is an active process
 Two core processes – thinking critically and thinking creatively
o Thinking critically – carefully exploring the thinking process to clarify our
understanding and make more intelligent decisions
o Thinking creatively – using our thinking process to develop ideas that are useful,
unique, and worthy of further elaboration
 We can think critically because of the capability to reflect – to think back on what we are
thinking, doing, or feeling
 “the unexamined life is not worth living” – Socrates, Greek philosopher
 Three core areas central to being an accomplished thinker and living a successful,
fulfilling life
o Establishing and achieving your goals
o Becoming an intelligent and effective decision maker
o Becoming a confident and productive creative thinker
 Goals – organize thinking, give life order and direction, suggest course of action,
influence decisions, contribute meaning to life
 To achieve goals – identify appropriate goals and devise effective plans and strategies to
achieve them
 Common thinking errors when seeking goals
o Neglect to explicitly identify important goals
o Concentrate on less important goals first, leaving insufficient time to work on
more important goals
o Don’t identify all of the steps required to achieve our goals
o Underestimate time each step will take and/or fail to plan the steps in our
schedule
 Method for achieving short-term goals
o Step 1 – identify goals
 Identify short-term goals
 Rank the goals in order of importance
 Select the most important goals to focus on
o Step 2 – devise effective plans to achieve your goals
 List all of the steps in the order in which they should be taken
 Estimate how much time each step will take
 Plan the steps in your daily/weekly schedule
 High-achieving people can envision a detailed, 3D pictures of their future where their
goals are clearly inscribed – also can construct mental plan and make sacrifices
 Low-achieving people live in the present and past – difficult to identify most appropriate
goals, to devise effective strategies for achieving goals and make necessary sacrifices
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Images work in both subtle and overt ways to persuade people to do, believe or buy
something – inspire, support, and reflect beliefs and goals
Creative thinking teaches us information can be experienced and communicated in
different ways
o Incorporate visual and verbal descriptions and information when using critical
approaches to problem solving
Use questions of fact, interpretation, analysis, synthesis, evaluation and application to
sort through visuals
To reach goals we must make informed, intelligent decisions
An educated thinker learns to make effective decisions
How to Make Decisions
1. Define the Decision Clearly
 Be specific for greater likelihood of success
 Strategy – write a one-page analysis that articulates your decision-making
situation as clearly and specifically as possible
2. Consider All the Possible Choices
 Explore all choices, not just the obvious ones
 Strategy – list as many possible choices for your situation as you can,
both obvious and not obvious. Ask other people for additional
suggestions, and don’t censor or prejudge any ideas
3. Gather All Relevant Information and Evaluate the Pros and Cons of Each Possible
Choice
 Seek out ALL information for best chance of success
 Strategy – For each possible choice that you identified, create questions
regarding information you need to find out, and then locate that
information.
 Evaluate pros and cons
 Strategy – Using a chart, analyze the pros and cons of each of your
possible choices.
4. Select the Choice That Seems to Best Meet the Needs of the Situation
 Attempt to synthesize all that you have learned
 Strategy – Identify and prioritize the goals of your decision situation and
determine which of your choices best
Thinking Critically
 Critical thinker – someone who has developed a knowledgeable understanding
of our complex world, a thoughtful perspective on important ideas and timely
issues, the capacity for penetrating insight and intelligent judgment, and
sophisticated thinking and language abilities
 Critical – Greek “critic”
o To question, to make sense of, to be able to analyze
o Related to criticize – constructive criticism develops critical thinking
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Socratic method – a method of inquiry that uses a dynamic approach of
questioning and intellectual analysis in order to explore the essential nature of
concepts
Characteristics of a critical thinker
o Open-minded – listen carefully to every viewpoint, evaluating each
perspective carefully and fairly
o Knowledgeable – offer opinion based on facts
o Curious – explore situations with probing questions that penetrate
beneath the surface of issues instead of being satisfied with superficial
explanations
o Independent thinkers – not afraid to disagree with the group opinion
o Skilled discussants – able to discuss ideas in an organized and intelligent
way
o Insightful – don’t get distracted by details
o Self-aware – aware of own biases and quick to point them out and take
them into consideration
o Creative – break out of established patterns of thinking and approach
situations from innovative directions
o Passionate – have passion for understanding and are always striving to
see issues and problems with more clarity
Think actively
o Get involved in useful projects and activities instead of being disengaged
o Take initiative in making decisions on your own instead of waiting to be
told what to think or do
o Follow through on commitments
o Take responsibility for consequences of your decisions
Active thinking is one of the keys to effective learning
Everyone has their own way to make sense of the world
Thinking critically involves using thinking abilities to attack problems, meet
challenges, and analyze issues
Important dimension – ability to ask appropriate and penetrating questions
Six categories of questions
o Fact – seek to determine basic information about situation – “who, what,
when, where, how?”
o Interpretation – seek to select and organize facts and ideas, discovering
relationships among them i.e. chronological relationships, process
relationships, compare/contrast relationships, causal relationships
o Analysis – seek to separate an entire process or situation into its
component parts and to understand the relation of these parts into
whole
o Synthesis – combine ideas to form a new whole or come to a conclusion,
make inferences about future events, create solutions, and design plans
of action.
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o Evaluation – help make informed judgments and decisions by
determining the relative value, truth, or reliability of things – identify the
criteria or standards used and determine to what extent the things in
common meet those standards
o Application – help take the knowledge or concepts gained in one
situation and apply them to other situations
Our family, friends and life experiences shape our beliefs and opinions
Thinking for yourself involves balancing your view against those of others