Learning of the «Thinking and Writing» Сourse at a Pedagogical University: Concept and Forms of Work

Abstract

The article is devoted to conceptual and methodological provisions of the «Thinking and Writing» course, introduced into the curriculum of first-year students of all subjects at the Moscow Sity University. The сourse was created at the intersection of such disciplines as contemporary Russian language, speech culture, philosophy, logic, rhetoric, methodology, psychology, and cultural studies. This determined the principles of material selection and its unconventional combination, as well as the forms of practical assignments. Based on the methods of analysis, comparison and experiment, we identified two fundamental principles of the course organization: positioning within the framework of the thought activity and reflection. Five blocks of topics are practiced at interactive seminars, where a student can take the position of a workshop author, due to a system of varied research, analytical and creative tasks of different competency zones, the trajectories of which students determine independently. Students’ reviews of the course after its testing confirmed it's significance. Shifting away from traditional lectures to various interactive forms of working with students, during which they are involved in a collective intellectual search, provides great opportunities for the development of thinking, as well as for self-development through reading, writing and public speaking, which corresponds to the global educational model of free arts and sciences currently implemented in Russian education.