Critical Thinking and the Liberal Arts.

This report describes the development over three trial semesters of a required course for sophomores at Baker University (Kansas) to develop reasoning and critical thinking skills that would prepare them for a required senior capstone course. The report describes the work of the faculty team that prepared two textbooks ("Reasoning and Writing: An Introduction to Critical Thinking, and "Reasoning and Thinking,") designed to integrate instruction in written composition and critical thinking with the study of primary texts, and which included readings from classic texts, discussion questions, and other course material. Evaluation of the process suggested the following: focused training is recommended for humanities faculty who are not comfortable teaching material where answers are either right or wrong; faculty who teach critical thinking must themselves understand logic and be able to pass the understanding on to students early in the semester; writing is best taught in a trial-and-error process with much student-faculty interaction; critical thinking courses should be student-centered, using discussion questions rather than lectures; evaluation of reasoning and writing skills is difficult and time-consuming; and faculty members should be drawn in equal numbers from humanities, sciences, social sciences, and other departments. Appended are course descriptions and reading assignment lists. (BF)