Module Information

The objective of this module is to develop students’ critical thinking and writing, essential to any degree but especially important for students of a Liberal Arts Scheme. To achieve this, it considers, in broad terms, how to present an argument, how to assemble and order evidence and data, and how to move from these to establishing valid and significant conclusions. It then builds on this foundation to consider one specific area of enquiry (that of understanding the past), and one specific method of enquiry (that of using visual evidence).

To introduce students to the types, stages, and processes of Critical Thinking.

To introduce students to the work of selected critical thinkers and their texts.

To develop students’ critical thinking and writing skills.

This module is divided into three stages of three weeks each, which will build upon one another. Stage 1 introduces students to three key aspects of critical thinking and writing. Stage 2 builds on this in the context of how we learn about, and from, the past, and Stage 3 considers the nature and scope of visual elements in perceiving, recording, and constructing our social world.

The module will be taught as a one-hour lecture/presentation per week, with a linked weekly seminar/workshop. Students will undertake a significant number of hours of independent study each week, developing their critical thinking.

For students registered for BA Liberal Arts, this module forms the first half of the first year core course. It is followed in semester two by EL10220 Language in the Modern World.

Weekly Programme: in weeks 1 - 9 inclusive there will be two hours contact time per week, the first hour being a lecture-style presentation, and the second being tutor-guided discussion and/or workshop tasks which help students to engage actively with the material. The two hours of contact time in week 10 will be devoted to an open forum and discussion.

Indicative list of weekly sessions and department delivering each stage of the module:

Stage 1: Ways of Thinking (Modern Languages)
1. Dialectics - the process of presenting an argument
2. Analysis - varieties of evidence and data
3. Synthesis - goals and conclusions

Stage 2: Ways of Understanding the Past (History /Welsh History)
4. What is history? - the methods and purposes of historical investigation
5. Memory and Evidence - the testimony of experience and historiography
6. Postmemory - inherited, collective, and generational notions of the past

Stage 3: Ways of Seeing (Art/Media)
7. Ways of Seeing - is seeing believing?
8. Reading Images - how media mediate social reality
9. Points of View - presenting an argument visually
10. Overview forum and discussion