Engaging Ideas. John C. Bean
revised and relocated chapter on grammar and sentence editing (now chapter 15, previously chapter 5). Our revised chapter now takes a consciously translingual approach to linguistic diversity and moves the chapter toward the end of the book. The chapter still emphasizes careful sentence editing, but in the context of the writer's purpose, audience, and genre.
A revised chapter 7 on reading. Influenced by recent scholarship on the reading practices of disciplinary experts, our revised chapter focuses on reading mindfully across a range of reading purposes, which can vary depending on whether one's purpose is to formulate a deep response to a text (common in the humanities) or to advance mastery of content knowledge (common in the sciences and professional fields).
A revised chapter 10 on teaching undergraduate research. Arguing that undergraduates should be assigned authentic research projects written in appropriate disciplinary genres, this chapter now focuses on teaching metacognitive understanding of authentic research across the disciplines and provides many new examples of research assignments and teaching strategies.
Deletion of the second edition chapter on essay exams. The writing‐across‐the‐curriculum movement has always been troubled by timed in‐class essay exams—either because exam questions often ask for memorized information and thus are low on Bloom's taxonomy or they require a high level of critical thinking, but short circuit the process of revision where the work of critical thinking occurs. Rather than devote a chapter to essay exams, we have relocated much of the second edition's advice to other chapters.
Throughout the book, many new examples and updated references. In almost every chapter, the third edition contains new examples of assignments, critical thinking tasks, and teaching practices drawn from across the disciplines, as well as more ethnically and linguistically diverse examples.
Throughout the book, many updated applications of instructional technology and rhetorical uses of social media. Wherever appropriate we have updated and expanded our coverage of classroom technology and the affordances of social media ranging from the emergence of new genres to the uses of memes, podcasts, and other multimodal assignments.
What Hasn't Changed?
Throughout the third edition we have tried to retain the signature strengths of previous editions, with the continuing aim of integrating two important movements in higher education—the writing‐across‐the‐curriculum movement and the critical thinking movement. A basic premise, growing out of the educational philosophy of John Dewey, is that critical thinking—and indeed all significant learning—originates in the learner's engagement with problems. Consequently, the design of interesting problems to think about is one of the teacher's chief behind‐the‐scenes tasks. Equally important is creating a course atmosphere that encourages inquiry, exploration, discussion, and debate while valuing the dignity and worth of each student. Teachers of critical thinking also need to be mentors and coaches, developing a range of strategies for modeling critical thinking, critiquing student performances, and otherwise guiding students toward the habits of inquiry and argument valued in their disciplines.
Signature Features of Engaging Ideas
In keeping with these premises, therefore, the third edition retains—and in some cases improves or extends—the following signature features:
It takes a pragmatic nuts‐and‐bolts approach to teaching critical thinking, giving teachers hundreds of suggestions for integrating writing and other critical thinking activities into a disciplinary course.
It integrates theory and research from the writing in the disciplines literature with the broader literature from the scholarship of teaching and learning on critical thinking, intellectual development, active learning, and modes of teaching.
It gives detailed practical assistance in the design of formal and informal writing assignments and suggests time‐saving ways to coach the writing process and handle the paper load.
It treats writing assignments as only one of many ways to present critical thinking problems to students; it shows how writing assignments can easily be integrated with other critical thinking activities, such as use of small groups, inquiry discussions, classroom debates, and interactive lectures.
It has a separate chapter devoted to academic reading, exploring the causes of students' reading difficulties and offering suggestions for promoting more engaged and deeper reading.
It has separate chapters devoted to small groups and to increasing critical thinking in discussion or lecture courses.
It devotes a separate chapter to teaching undergraduate research and proposes alternatives to the traditional research paper.
It assumes that there is no one right way to integrate writing and critical thinking into a course; it therefore provides numerous options to fit each teacher's particular personality and goals and to allow flexibility for meeting the needs of different kinds of learners.
It emphasizes writing and critical thinking tasks that focus on the instructor's subject matter goals for the course, thus reducing, and in some cases perhaps even eliminating, the conflict between coverage and process.
It offers a wide array of ways to use writing in courses, ranging from short write‐to‐learn microthemes to major research projects and from formal academic writing to personal narratives; it also offers numerous ways to work exploratory writing into a course, including in‐class freewrites, blogs, and thinking pieces posted on class discussion boards.
It devotes a separate chapter to the creation of rubrics for grading student writing, discussing the upside and downside of rubrics. It also devotes a chapter to the art of providing effective feedback in ways that can minimize teacher time while maximizing helpfulness and care.
The third edition now contains two additional signature features: richer focus on self‐assessment, reflection, and peer review and alternatives to traditional grading (see the material noted in the “What's New” section).
Intended Audience
Something else that has not changed is our intended audience. Engaging Ideas is intended for busy college professors from any academic discipline. Many readers may already emphasize writing, critical thinking, and active learning in their classrooms and will find in this book ways to fine‐tune their work, such as additional approaches or strategies, more effective or efficient methods for coaching students as writers and thinkers, and tips on managing the paper load. Other readers may be attracted to the ideas in this book yet be held back by nagging doubts or fears that they will be buried in paper grading, that the use of writing assignments does not fit their disciplines, or that they will have to reduce their coverage of content. This book tries to allay these fears and help all professors find an approach to using writing and critical thinking activities that help each student meet course goals while fitting their own teaching philosophies and individual personalities.
We hope that for teachers one of the benefits of Engaging Ideas is greater enjoyment of teaching. Teachers should see writing assignments and other critical thinking activities as useful tools to help students achieve the instructor's content and process goals for a course. The reward of this book is watching students come to class better prepared, more vested in and motivated by the problems or questions the course investigates, more apt to study rigorously, and more likely to submit high‐quality work. A serendipitous benefit for teachers may be that their own writing gets easier when they develop strategies for helping students. Many of the ideas in this book—about posing problems, generating and exploring ideas, focusing and organizing, giving and receiving peer reviews of drafts, and revising