Sociological Writing as Higher-level Thinking

Abstract

Educators agree that developing critical thinking skills is a key goal of college education. While the literature on higher-level thinking emphasizes the significance of writing for developing such skills, teachers often receive little guidance about the kinds of writing assignments that can prove most beneficial for helping students to develop and practice these new forms of thinking. This teaching note describes the course scaffolding surrounding one such assignment in a writing-intensive course, which challenges students to use common course texts to interpret evidence they have found in an outside setting—including TV shows, movies, and newspaper reports. The assignment demonstrates one way that students can be prompted to integrate intentionally the processes of thinking and writing, and it could be implemented across the undergraduate curriculum.