The Thinking and Writing course is one of two foundational courses in Keene State College’s Integrative Studies Program. The Integrative Studies Program is at the core of the College’s commitment to a liberal arts education. The program’s focus on broad questions, and the integration of knowledge and skills, complements student work in a chosen major. Drawing on disciplinary and interdisciplinary perspectives, the program offers students intellectual concepts and skills for understanding themselves and their place in the world, including the values that contribute to personal growth and social responsibility.
The Integrative Studies Program begins with the idea that teaching and learning is a process that builds connections across courses and disciplines, and between campus and community life. Integrative learning gives students the opportunity to draw on multiple perspectives, develop connections between those perspectives, and formulate new ways of knowing. Students experience integrative learning as a challenging process that emphasizes adaptability in diverse personal, professional and civic contexts. Though not required as part of the Program, students are encouraged to consider as part of their integrative education developing competence in a second language, participating in a study abroad program, and engaging in experiential learning opportunities.
Thinking and Writing (4 credits) is organized around the following list of learning outcomes in writing, reading, critical thinking and information literacy:
Writing Outcomes
- Use writing for inquiry, learning, thinking, and communicating
- Understand writing as a process that requires sustained thought over time and permits writers to use later invention and re-thinking to revise their work
- Formulate an original, complex and debatable claim, thesis, or hypothesis relating to the course theme or topic and develop that claim, thesis, or hypothesis in a 15-20 page semester-long researched writing project.
- Control syntax, grammar, punctuation, and spelling
Reading Outcomes
- Use reading for inquiry, learning, thinking, and communicating
- Analyze and evaluate the rhetorical features of peer and published texts (audience, thesis or main argument, quality of evidence, structure)
- Understand the importance of reading in academic inquiry and research
Critical Thinking Outcomes
- Move beyond initial reactions to an issue, topic, or idea toward a deeper understanding of the complexity of the issue
- Examine an issue, topic, or idea within a broader context, (for example, where does this issue sit within a larger social, political, or historical framework?)
- Examine an issue, topic, or idea from more than one perspective (for example, reading not just those authors who support the writer’s position or viewpoint)
Information Literacy Outcomes
- Integrate their own ideas with those of others
- Practice appropriate means of documenting their work
- Understand a writing assignment as a series of tasks, including finding, evaluating, analyzing, and synthesizing appropriate primary and secondary sources.
