Critical Thinking Book One - Problem Solving, Reasoning, Logic, and Arguments (Grades 7-12+)

Today everyone talks about teaching critical thinking as a cornerstone (according to some people, /the/ cornerstone) of an education. It was pretty obscure when it came out, though, because it didn't fit into any of the subject cubbyholes. It has math in it, but it's not a math course. It has reading and writing essays, but it's not an English course. It touches on political topics, but it's not a Current Events or a Civics course. So it couldn't be sold as a textbook, except to schools that could handle cross-disciplinary courses. Harnadek does a great job of taking subtle big ideas from all these disciplines and making them accessible to a teenage audience. One of my unsung heros.

As we are heading towards implementation of CCSS, I am developing more argumentative essay lesson plans. This text will be helpful somewhat.

I love this book. Critical thinking is a fabulous introduction to logic for my middle school homeschooler. It has great introduction and explanation of all vocabulary with LOTS of examples. I paired this book with the Bluedorn's "Thinking toolbox" (chapters 1-4) and "Fallacy detective" (chapters 5-8), but I did to help cement and compliment the main text of C.T. We used a writer's mystery series at the end of chapter 4 to add a fun way to practice all the logic terms we had learned. (I tried to look up the title but can't find it right now.) The only suggestion I would make is that I do not believe this is high school text. I would use this for 5th grade to 8th grade. After 9th grade, you might consider using Memoria's press, "Traditional Logic". It is written by a Christian press, but only the examples at the end of the chapters are religiously based, so the book can easily be used by secular learners. A friend of mine son's used Coursera for his high school logic. As good of a logic book as this is, it's best for middle school.

Lots of good information about setting the stage for critical thinking. This book also has clear lessons that guide the teacher to helping his/her students use higher level thinking skills.

It is a good book to use, but you must have all of the books in the series, so that the teacher can use it for individual needs of the student.

We did not care for this book. The explanations were inadequate, and usually the answer key simply listed the answer without any explanation of how the answer was arrived at. I have a Ph.D. and I couldn't understand how some of the answers were arrived at. We abandoned this text and found a different logic curriculum which was more student-friendly.

Everyone should learn to think critically. This book is just one more step taken to ensure my child does. I like the book and would purchase again.

I've not got very far yet, but seems to be a fair introduction to logic.I believe it has more content than I expected.