Can They Critically Think? Examining Passing Characters
(Apply The Five Analytical Moves, The Method, information from our Reasoning Packets and suggestions on how to write Introductions and Conclusions from Writing Analytically) to write a paper that will provide an evaluation on the critical thinking ability of one of the characters from Passing, as defined on the Critical Thinking definition handout.
We learned how to Inductively arrive at conclusions—that is to investigate, infer, analyze, and then develop a stance. For this paper, we will practice deductive analysis: starting with a pre-developed premise, then evaluating evidence, and filtering all arguments through the lens of that premise. The essay will still focus on developing detail-specific inferences, however, in support of a claim.
You will choose one character from Passing and develop an evaluative argument revealing why that character does or does not fit the definition of Critical Thinking provided.
Introduction: Introduce the text and your chosen character. Develop a claim that indicates that your character does or does not fit the definition (including a reason), according to some pattern of behavior in the text. This is the controlling idea for your paper. Your introduction should be brief.
Body: Support your claim with details from the text and inferences developed from those details. Analyze the language to show how the way the character speaks reveal their critical thinking ability ( or lack thereof). You must, at some point, examine whether a character uses, exposes, and/or avoids specific logical fallacies and discusses how that relates to your claim. While you’re not responsible for all of the character’s actions in the novel, purposefully leaving out crucial components that lead to their character development is not acceptable and will lead to fallacious reasoning (called cherry-picking)- to this end, you will include a counter-argument (a consideration of the possible argument against your claim) at some point. You must have strong, text-based evidence for all of your claims.
Conclusion: Conclude your paper by developing a second claim-indicate how lack or possession of critical thinking is important to argument of the text as a whole beyond the specific character (i.e. the argument of the novel as a whole).
Your paper should be lively and stylistically sophisticated. Include a title that invitingly previews the content of your essay. Additionally, you are expected to display a mastery of basic essay structuring, like paragraphing, transitions, quotation integration, etc .. Papers submitted with multiple sentence-level and/or proofreading errors ( one or more per page) will receive reduced grades.
Avoid the following, as they will bring down your grade: over-quoting, summary, first or second person (I, you, your, we, mine, us, etc.), committing logical fallacies, clichés, speculation, and broad generalizations. Do not stray from your claim: it is the guiding thought for your paper.
Format: MLA-style formatting. Include an MLA-style Works Cited page, citing the novel.
Suggestions on What to Avoid:
• Avoid assumptions and fallacies in your writing; you are being assessed on YOUR critical thinking ability while you are assessing the character’s
• Do not base your argument on your personal beliefs; this is textual analysis.
• Do not over-quote. Limit quotations to 1-2 typed lines (max) at a time to encourage strong inferencing from specific details.
• Do not stop developing detail-specific inferences; your close examination and interaction with your chosen details is important to developing clear analysis. Generalized, topic-based inferences will still lead to lower grades
• No cliche introductions or conclusions
