Strategic Thinking and Reading

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

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M Materials

• The 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 whos leading and whos 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.

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• 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!

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I 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
  tabloids 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.

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Assumptions 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 dogs 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 oclock 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.

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• 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 astronauts view of Earth from a space
  shuttle differs from your view of Earth from your
  window, your particular perspective affects how
  you see things.

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• Gender, ethnicity, educational background,
  personal experience and other concepts affect a
  persons 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

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Purpose and Question

• The phrase One if by land, two if by sea from
  Longfellows 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 Longfellows words to say One if
  by land, two if by seaNow what do I do? He
  signals three. Armours 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.

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• 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.

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N 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.

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• 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, Were
  here for the party, the man yelled Freeze! The
  student, new to the United States and unfamiliar
  with the expression, continued to advance.

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• 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.

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D Decision

• You gathered the information you need. You
  identified your purpose and questions. You
  analyzed your interpretation and inferences. Now
  its time to make a decision. In the words of
  the American proverb, its 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.

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• 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.

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• 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 dont 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.

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• 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 didnt 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 isnt working, whats 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.

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Concepts Mental Systems for Organizing and
Storing Information
The Concept of Concepts

• 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.)
  

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• 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.

BBI 3420 PJJ 2009/10 Dr Shameem Rafik-Galea
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Concept 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.

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• 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 dogs 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 doesnt 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.)

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• 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.

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Universal Concept versus Personal Concepts

• I 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 60s
• 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
  wasnt what was meant.

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• 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.

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The 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.

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• 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.

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Information 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.

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• 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 dont 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.

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Context

• 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.

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• 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.