2: Critical Thinking and Reading Resulting in Writing

Photo of children trying a critical thinking exercise stacking hoops in complex shapes

As they undertake scholarly inquiry and produce their own arguments, students summarize, analyze, synthesize, and evaluate the ideas of others. Students may encounter the ideas of others in a variety of texts generated both inside and outside the classroom: print, visual, aural, oral, spatial.

Students learn accepted and ethical ways to integrate other texts into their work, rightly handling citation and adaptation.

Students use writing  as a critical thinking tool.

(image credit: “Create-Learning Team Building & Leadership. Camp Inquiry 2011. Teaching critical thinking and reflection skills (53)” by Flickr user “Michael Cardus)

3: Writing as Process

Screenshot of text marked up, showing revision processes

Students understand and practice writing as a process, recursively implementing strategies of research, drafting, revision, editing, and reflection.

In learning about their own writing process and doing guided reflective writing about that process, students learn to critique their own and others’ works. They also become aware that it usually takes multiple drafts to create and complete a successful text.

(image credit: “process writing” by Flickr user Adrian Miles)

4: Domain of One’s Own

Comic representation of Domain of One's Own

By the end of this course, students will:

  • acquire, design, and administer a web presence using free or open-source tools.
  • conduct inquiry, research, critique, and publication in electronic environments.
  • explain and practice digital citizenship, which includes utilizing the concepts of intellectual property (such as fair use and copyright).
  • reflect on learning as part of a deliberately constructed digital identity.

(image credit: “Domain of One’s Own” by Flickr user Giulia Forsyth)