Engaging Ideas

Learn to design interest-provoking writing and critical thinking activities and incorporate them into your courses in a way that encourages inquiry, exploration, discussion, and debate, with Engaging Ideas, a practical nuts-and-bolts guide for teachers from any discipline. Integrating critical thinking with writing-across-the-curriculum approaches, the book shows how teachers from any discipline can incorporate these activities into their courses. This edition features new material dealing with genre and discourse community theory, quantitative/scientific literacy, blended and online learning, and other current issues.

Learn to design interest-provoking writing and critical thinking activities and incorporate them into your courses in a way that encourages inquiry, exploration, discussion, and debate, with Engaging Ideas, a practical nuts-and-bolts guide for teachers from any discipline. Integrating critical thinking with writing-across-the-curriculum approaches, the book shows how teachers from any discipline can incorporate these activities into their courses. This edition features new material dealing with genre and discourse community theory, quantitative/scientific literacy, blended and online learning, and other current issues.

Foreword by Maryellen Weimer viiPreface to the Second Edition xiAbout the Author xxi1 Using Writing to Promote Thinking: A BusyProfessor's Guide to the Whole Book 1PART 1 UNDERSTANDING CONNECTIONS BETWEEN THINKING ANDWRITING2 How Writing Is Related to Critical Thinking 173 Helping Writers Think Rhetorically 394 Using a Range of Genres to Extend Critical Thinking andDeepen Learning 525 Dealing with Issues of Grammar and Correctness 66PART 2 DESIGNING PROBLEM-BASED ASSIGNMENTS6 Formal Writing Assignments 897 Informal, Exploratory Writing Activities 120PART 3 COACHING STUDENTS AS LEARNERS, THINKERS, ANDWRITERS8 Designing Tasks to Promote Active Thinking and Learning1499 Helping Students Read Difficult Texts 16110 Using Small Groups to Coach Thinking and TeachDisciplinary Argument 18311 Bringing More Critical Thinking into Lectures andDiscussions 20212 Enhancing Learning and Critical Thinking in EssayExams 21113 Designing and Sequencing Assignments to TeachUndergraduate Research 224PART 4 READING, COMMENTING ON, AND GRADING STUDENTWRITING14 Using Rubrics to Develop and Apply Grading Criteria26715 Coaching the Writing Process and Handling the PaperLoad 29016 Writing Comments on Students' Papers 317References 337Index 353