Solidarity Beyond Assessment: An Experimental Study in the Development of Critical Thinking and Writing Skills

• In Event: 037 - Section on Marxist Sociology Paper Session. Pedagogies for Solidarity: Education for Collective Consciousness

Abstract

Students often arrive to college ill-prepared to engage in critical thinking about solidarity as a means of analyzing their lifeworlds, and further lack the training necessary to transform their ideas into carefully constructed and intellectually-sound academic writing. Faculty often express frustration as they struggle to teach the content of their courses and work with students to develop the crucial skills indispensable to a well-informed and politically active citizen. Building on prior research in critical pedagogy and writing studies (Rickles et al 2013; Berkenkotter 1989), we implement an experimental study in the classroom as to engage students in entry-level courses, with consideration to the following three priorities:

1. Understand the social and scientific reasoning behind the use of evidence and source materials,
2. Develop arguments with attention to peers and audience,
3. Explore their voice as writers with an identified and reflexive contribution to an existing conversation.

For this study, we develop and implement a writing-intensive curriculum that utilizes critical thinking activities, peer-review, and rigorous analysis of social conditions. We will test the efficacy of these practices in introductory sociology and other social science classes, conducting a pre- and post-assessment with those students, and then comparing their results to student performance in concomitantly taught sections of the same course without this program. This study will help teacher-scholars better-understand which pedagogical approaches allow students to develop an ability to unlock critical thinking about solidarity and effectively communicate the powerful ideas yielded by critical theory.

Authors

• Joshua Edward Olsberg, National University

• Raphi Rechitsky, National University