Stages of Critical Thinking Essays

Stages of Critical Thinking Essays Stages of Critical Thinking Essay Stages of Critical Thinking Essay Essay Topic: Critical Thinking Complete the matrix by identifying the six stages of critical thinking, describing how to move from each stage to the next, and listing obstacles you may face as you move to the next stage of critical thinking. |Stages of critical thinking |How to move to the next stage |Obstacles to moving to the next stage | |EXAMPLE: |Examine my thinking to identify problems |Deceiving myself about the effectiveness of| | |that affect my thinking. my thinking | |The Unreflective Thinker | | | |The Challenged Thinker |We need to shift our values, by starting to|we don’t tend to talk or even ask for other| | |explore the foundation of how we think and |people’s ideas. | | |become aware of how we came to think and | | | |believe as we do. | |The Beginning Thinker |We try to get better without any regular |I fail to realize that my critical thinking| | |practice. |needs to be practice and used every time. | |The Practicing Thinker |We become self-aware of the need to do a |The more pract ice I do the more overly | | |regular practice. |confident I become. |The Advanced Thinker |Just advance step by step as I continue to |I am unable to get familiar with the skills| | |practice the skill. |and the critical thinking fundamental. | |Master Thinker |We finally become more skilled and |It becomes much more difficult to be able | | |knowledgeable for it becomes easier to us. |to keep up with the skills. |Write a 150- to 200-word explanation of your current stage of critical-thinking development and explain why you placed yourself at that stage. Format your paragraph consistent with Associate Level Writing Style Handbook guidelines. Strategies to Develop Critical Thinking Now that you identified your current stage as a critical thinker, it is necessary to adopt strategies to develop your thinking. Of the nine strategies you read about this week, choose three that you can begin to practice.Identify the strategies and describe how you can implement each strategy in your dail y life. |EXAMPLE | |Strategy: Deal with my emotions. | |Implementation Plan: | |When I am faced with a decision, I will examine the positive and negative emotions associated with my decision. This will help me | |limit the influence of my emotions on my decisions. | Strategy 1: When I am faced with a challenge, decision, I will make sure that I take control of the issue at hand and not being | |defensive, or arrogant. This will help me take charge of my iedeas, and goals. | |Implementation Plan: | | | |Strategy 2: | |Implementation Plan: | | | Strategy 3: | |Implementation Plan: | | | Write a 150- to 200-word summary of your thinking. Describe critical thinking and reflect on your current stage of critical thinking and your identified strategies. Determine what you can do to develop stronger critical thinking skills.

10 Ways To Create Immediate Character Empathy

10 Ways To Create Immediate Character Empathy 10 Ways To Create Immediate Character Empathy Need fast, practical help getting readers to care about your main character? Enjoy this blog by my friend and colleague, an award-winning, bestselling novelist. JJ Guest post by Brandilyn Collins Regardless of genre, novelists must create empathy for protagonists at their first appearance. Mere actionisn’t enough! The most interesting plot won’t matter to readers if they don’t care about your main character. Here’s how to make that happen. Most of these work best when combined with at least one other. Your character must be: Need help writing your novel?Click here to download my ultimate 12-step guide. 1. Displaying a valued trait such as loyalty, love, or courage. Especially important if the protagonist soon makes a bad choice. It’s far easier to create empathy for a character right away than to erase negativity. So before he makes any negative choice, show your protagonist help a child, tend a sick person, stand up for a friend†¦ 2. Particularly good at something. People enjoy watching real talent. This approach involves details. Don’t merely tell us a hunter is efficient with a gun. Show him treating the weapon lovingly, oiling it, practicing with it. Besides a keen eye, maybe he smells prey before seeing it. 3. Treated unjustly. This approach can work on its own, although other techniques can enhance it. It’s human nature to feel bad for someone who meets injustice. 4. Wishing for something universally understood. This includes love, acceptance, purpose. Such desires help soften characters- even those who first come across as selfish or uncaring. So this is a great approach to characters harder to like. 5. Thrust into danger. Anything from facing a storm to a bad guy with a gun. But because we’ve read so many danger-filled scenes, use at least one other technique to make us care about the character. 6. Thrust into grief. The challenge here is that readers don’t yet know the character well enough to feel her pain. But resist the temptation to load in a bunch of backstory to enhance the grief. It’ll slow your story. Find ways to incorporate other empathy approaches within the action. 7. Caring for others, especially at a cost to oneself. Known as a pet-the-dog scene, the Bad Guy shows his tender side: kill the human, kiss the hound. Two points to remember when using this technique: (A) Overdone, the scene can become syrupy. (B) The caring needs to be unassuming. A true caregiver doesn’t stop to think how kind he’s being. 8. Unique, attention-getting. Your character may do off-the-wall things, may look different or think in unique ways, may have an unusual first-person voice. The possibilities are many. This approach needs to be mixed with at least one other. A character can act in all sorts of unusual ways to make you look twice. That doesn’t mean you’ll like him enough to keep reading. 9. Attempting to overcome a fear or make a change. Readers identify with this. We don’t like facing our fears or change. But two challenges: (A) Present the problem clearly enough that readers understand what’s must be overcome and why it’s so hard for the character- without loading in backstory. (B) Sometimes this is more of an internal battle. The character may be deciding whether to walk out on a relationship, or he may have conflicting desires. To make an inner struggle compelling in the opening scene, put it in the context of action. 10. Facing an inner struggle. Differs from #9 in that the character isn’t trying to make a change. She doesn’t know how to handle a burden- guilt, depression, bitterness, jealousy, hate Sometimes the character doesn’t even know she’s burdened. She may be in bondage due to intense bitterness but not realize it. In this case, give the reader just enough information to understand more about the character than the character understands about herself. Just remember that you want the reader to like your character, not think she’s an idiot. Again, it helps to mix in other approaches. Exercise Read the opening scenes to at least five novels you’ve enjoyed. Which techniques were used, and how were they combined? Then read your novel’s first scene. Will readers empathize with your protagonist by the end of it? See how others- who’ll be honest with you- react. Brandilyn Collins (www.brandilyncollins.com) is a best-selling author of 30 books. She isknown for her Seatbelt Suspense ®- fast-paced, character-driven novels with myriad twists and a thread of faith. Brandilyn teaches fiction-writing techniques in her book Getting Into Character. She has won numerous writing awards and is a frequent speaker at writers conferences. Brandilyn and her husband have three grown children and live in the Pacific Northwest. Which of her techniques above will help your work-in-progress? Tell me in the Comments below. Need help writing your novel?Click here to download my ultimate 12-step guide.