Transform your student's critical thinking skills with these simple principles!
Thoughts are a set of connected ideas. How someone interprets your thoughts depends on how you organize and present them. There are virtually infinite ways to organize and present thoughts.
Students who practice reading people's thoughts and organizing and presenting their own thoughts will awaken their natural gift to discern the world around them. They will not only see what people say but also through what is said. That gift is critical thinking. It's always with you—you need only choose to use it.
I want to help students awaken their gifts for critical thinking through reading, writing, and handwriting.
Read for Thoughts
Reading is interpretation of expressed thoughts. It's more than just taking in words and sentences. Rather, reading is a process of picking out thoughts that authors have put into words.
Write Organized Thoughts
Writing is organization and expression of thoughts. It has a mental component (organizing thoughts) and a physical component (expressing those organized thoughts). Most people think of writing in terms of expression—simply putting words to paper. So, they often dive headlong into putting words to paper before organizing any thoughts or foreseeing how readers will interpret their messages. The results are usually pages full of jumbled statements or blank pages because the writers don't know where to begin.
Neatness Counts
Handwriting is manual expression of thoughts. How you express your thoughts reveals who you are. There are plenty of ways to express thoughts. For example, you could send a text, make a speech, act on stage, or paint a picture. However, I believe handwriting is the most important way to express thoughts, for its simplicity and its encouragement for patience, self-discipline, and diligence (among other things).