Teaching and Learning > DISCOURSE

Reading to Learn to Read Philosophy

Author: Renee Smith

Journal Title: Discourse

ISSN: 2040-3674

ISSN-L: 1741-4164

Volume: 10

Number: 2

Start page: 175

End page: 194

Return to vol. 10 no. 2 index page

For things we have to learn before we can do them, we learn by doing them. (Aristotle)

Abstract

Given the right sorts of reading assignments, students can learn to read philosophy by reading philosophy. This paper identifies a number of obstacles to students' reading philosophy and recommends re-envisioning student-learning outcomes in light of the revised Bloom's taxonomy of learning objectives and using directed reading assignments that help students achieve them. It describes seven reading assignments in philosophy that emphasize active learning to facilitate students' learning to read philosophy as they read philosophy.

Introduction

Not long ago, I seriously contemplated teaching my introduction to philosophy course without a book and by assigning no readings at all. I had been teaching philosophy for several years and just like the courses I took as a student and for which I was a teaching assistant in graduate school, I assigned the standard list of readings for my classes, usually one per class meeting or about 30 per semester. Then it dawned on me that the students were not doing the reading. The reading, even though it was standard fare, was difficult for them. Having changed books a few times but kept the same problem-based approach to the course, the topics I covered in class became generic and accessible versions of the central problems in philosophy—the existence of God, the mind-body problem, the problem of free will, etc. It was actually easier to teach these topics when the students had not read. When a student complained on a course evaluation that she should not have to buy a book she did not use, I very briefly considered eliminating the book. I know others have had the same thought and some have found creative alternatives to using the standard list of readings to teach philosophy (for example, see Irvine 1993).

However, I was not ready to abandon ship. I do think students gain something valuable from reading philosophy. Of course, they learn something about what philosophy is and how it is done, but they also learn to think philosophically—at least they can if they are taught how to develop and use these skills as they read. So rather than throwing in the towel, not to mention my career, I committed myself to getting students to read. At first, I made a pseudo attempt to do this by creating online reading quizzes for each of the assigned readings in the course. Students were required to complete these quizzes prior to coming to class the day that reading was assigned. These short, 10- question quizzes got students to open the book and at least skim the reading. I made them true-false and multiple-choice quizzes to avoid having to grade hundreds of quizzes every week.

If my goal were simply to get them to open their book, to skim it, and to feel like the expense of the book was at least somewhat justified, these quizzes accomplished this objective. However, these quizzes did very little to satisfy what I take to be the core learning objectives of any philosophy course. Completing a course in philosophy, students should be able to:

Reading philosophy is an integral part of satisfying these objectives, but students are frequently unwilling and often unable to read philosophy in such a way that will provide them with anything close to the rich sort of learning experience we want for them. If all but a few students are unmotivated, unable, or unprepared to read and we do nothing to help them overcome these obstacles, then why would we continue to teach given that no one is learning? It is not unreasonable to think that it is our job to give students at least some of the tools necessary to satisfy these learning objectives and this requires thinking about why they do not read and how we can help them read philosophy better. When I was developing a new course in philosophical writing, I began to think differently about how to use the readings I assigned to teach students not only about philosophy and how to write philosophy papers, but how to read philosophy. There have been a number of articles that address writing to learn philosophy, such as Richardson, (2002) and Roberts, (2002), but the activity of reading philosophy to promote learning has received much less attention (two noteworthy exceptions are Concepción, 2004 and Adler, 1998). McKeachie and Svinicki (2006, p. 11) note that a central course objective should be to facilitate student learning. It is the presumption of this paper that directed reading assignments facilitate student learning not only by getting students to do the reading, but also by helping students learn how to do the reading as they read philosophy.

1. Identifying the obstacles to students reading

It is easy to imagine a number of reasons external to the course why students do not read. Their schedules are packed with coursework, jobs, social commitments, and extracurricular activities. They are distracted by their lives. Reading requires a type of focused attention for which they are unprepared. Moreover, many students have very poor reading skills and some have learning disabilities, which make reading of any kind, and even more so reading philosophy, nearly impossible. A former colleague was amazed when he asked his students to read a short paragraph aloud in class and many of them could barely do so. More than a few students simply cannot read at the level required to read philosophy.

We can do very little overcome these external obstacles to students doing the reading. Still, there are a number of obstacles that are internal to our courses that we can help students overcome in order to facilitate learning. Students will not read when:

We are responsible for reinforcing these obstacles when we do not give students the tools they need to read well, when we do not use the readings we assign to teach philosophy, when we do not convey the value of the readings, and when we let them, and ourselves, off the hook.

2. Overcoming these obstacles

We can help our students overcome these obstacles by rethinking the way we understand expected student learning outcomes and by creating assignments that help students hone the skills necessary for learning to read philosophy by actually reading philosophy. What I am proposing is a number of directed reading assignments that focus on particular skills necessary for reading philosophy. No doubt, reading itself is an activity; but it can range from the low-level activity of skimming or scanning to high-level activities such as 'connecting ideas and sources of information, spotting faulty logic in argumentation, recognizing bias …, [and] identifying unsupported ideas' (Meyers and Jones, 1993, p.27). These assignments are premised on the assumption that active engagement with the material will promote student learning, which seems to have empirical support (ibid.). Students complete certain tasks and are engaged in certain activities as they read—the very sorts of tasks and activities they need to read philosophy well.

Directed reading assignments give students a clear objective when doing the reading, guide them through difficult material, and teach them how to tackle philosophical readings. Additionally, these assignments provide the basis for using the readings in class to teach the material, which will make the readings relevant to what students are reading, and they can be assessments of student learning. Finally, if students are going to come to appreciate the problems and methods of philosophy, they can only do so once they have a deeper understanding of philosophy. This understanding can come from reading philosophy. A useful model for rethinking student-learning outcomes and creating directed reading assignments is Bloom's taxonomy. By now, most people reading a journal like this one are well versed in Bloom's levels of intellectual behaviour involved in learning. In the cognitive domain, that geared towards acquiring knowledge, learners progress through stages of intellectual activity, from the more simple to the more complex. The higher up the ladder one goes, the more substantial the learning becomes. Bloom's taxonomy was revised in the early 1990s and the stages were renamed to reflect the activities that characterize them as follows.

It is well documented that instructors tend to focus their coursework at the lower levels of the cognitive domain and our reading assignments are a further reflection of this. If we do any more than telling them to read something, it is usually giving short reading quizzes. These quizzes tend to be low-level emphasizing the first or second level on Bloom's taxonomy. For example, here is a question I have used on an open-book reading quiz.

How does Anselm conceive of god?
a. something greater than which cannot be thought
b. an omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent being
c. something greater than which has not been thought
d. the ruler of the universe

Students merely need to recall, verbatim, Anselm's conception of God. Simply skimming the article, a student will find the answer in this passage in the third sentence of the assigned excerpt from the Proslogium.

And, indeed, we believe that thou art a being than which cannot be conceived [emphasis added].

This sort of assessment only encourages students to skim the reading and does not motivate them to learn from it. As such, students are likely to think memorizing a definition or argument is more important than understanding it. Moreover, I am inclined to think that this emphasis on what it says in the reading encourages students to plagiarize. They are prone to copy passages to 'get it right' because the emphasis on what is stated in the reading and not what is expressed in it.

While it is important that students learn some of the jargon of philosophy, assignments that aim at higher-level cognitive skills will promote the sort of learning required for doing philosophy. Moreover, McKeachie and Svinicki (2006, p. 32) point to research that shows that higher-level reading assignments, rather than those that are fact-based (such as most reading quizzes), contribute better to student learning. What reading assignments must do, they say, is get students to think about the reading. (op. cit.). Meyers and Jones (1993) suggest providing students with study questions to guide them through the reading, modelling how to read and interpret a passage, having students create concept maps, using the readings as the basis for in-class activities, and tying writing assignments to the reading assignments (p. 133). These are all worthwhile activities; however, the emphasis in the assignments that follow will be to engage students in philosophical activities as they read philosophy in order to facilitate students learning to read philosophy by reading philosophy.

3. Remembering the student learning outcomes in directed reading assignments

A student completing a course in philosophy should know what some of the central problems, arguments, and issues in philosophy are. He or she should also be familiar with the methodology used for tackling philosophical questions, be able to give and evaluate arguments, and be able to consider objections. At least some of the language in this abbreviated list of standard outcomes leans towards the higher levels of cognitive activity on Bloom's taxonomy. Perhaps certain writing assignments ask students to demonstrate that they know certain things about philosophy or that they can employ philosophical methodology, but how often do our reading assignments help students achieve these outcomes? More often than not, reading assignments are just that: 'read such and such article for the next class meeting.' Alternatively, the assignments suggested below go beyond asking students simply to read something. Instead, they require that students perform some activity with respect to the reading, to engage with the reading, and to think about what they are reading. In doing so, they acquire the sorts of skills necessary for really doing the reading and for reading philosophy philosophically.

Here, I offer seven sample assignments with the goal of teaching students to read philosophy by actually reading philosophy. They require that students move beyond the basic levels of thinking, use active learning techniques, and engage with the text. Several of these assignments were designed around particular readings in a sophomorelevel course in philosophical writing focused on the single topic of the ethics of abortion and others were developed for an introductory course in philosophy. Still, modified versions of these assignments would work with different readings or for more advanced philosophy courses. What is important is to think of ways to move beyond the 'read and be prepared to discuss such and such for next time, there will be a quiz' type of reading assignment and towards reading assignments that direct students to read in a way that promotes learning.

Assignment 1: Ongoing Glossary

Level 1 Understanding

A fundamental difficulty for students reading philosophy is the frequent use of technical jargon and 'big words' in philosophy papers. This coupled with the prevalence of vocabulary deficiencies, makes reading philosophy particularly challenging before even getting to the difficult content. Gabriel (2008, p. 111) reports that vocabulary deficiencies are a serious impediment to student learning. It is not difficult to imagine that rather than stopping to look up unfamiliar words, which is time-consuming and unlikely to lead to retained knowledge (op. cit.), a student would resort to skimming the reading or avoiding it altogether. To facilitate student learning, reading assignments should motivate students to improve their technical and non-technical vocabulary. With this in mind, this first assignment challenges students to seek out unfamiliar and technical terms or expressions and create a glossary of them. The glossary is a semester-long assignment in which students identify unfamiliar words sorting them into two categories: philosophical terms and non-technical terms that are new to them. They keep a list of these as they encounter them in the readings include an abbreviated citation, a brief description of the context in which the word is used (or the actual sentence), and a definition. I have asked that students find twenty words or expressions in each of the two categories by the end of the semester. Additionally, students can earn extra credit for discovering the word used in another reading and citing that occurrence. For example, if one author refers to an empirical fact, a student would add this to her glossary. Later, while reading another article, the student may recognize that someone describes something as being empirical. Having seen this word used in one context, having looked it up, and being motivated to look for other occurrences of it, the student is more likely to learn and retain the meaning of the term.

The first time I used a version of this assignment was in a 400- level (advanced undergraduate) epistemology course. Epistemology, for some reason, seems particularly riddled with technical terms and names of positions, arguments, and principles. The 'isms' alone are too many to count: Empiricism, Rationalism, Evidentialism, Foundationalism, Fallibilism, Reliabilism, Externalism, Internalism, Coherentism, Contextualism, etc. Having students create a glossary, asking them to share their newest entries in class, and allowing them to refer to their glossaries for other assignments, not only helps students overcome some of the challenges of reading philosophy by introducing them to its jargon, but it puts value on the activity of learning this vocabulary. Moreover, students come to understand and 'keep straight' the various positions, arguments and terms they encounter in the reading and this understanding allows students to engage with what they read rather than merely skimming it.

In an introductory-level course, I have given students a list of terms and asked them to find definitions or explanations of the terms in the assigned reading and to explain the relevance of these terms to the course topics in their own words. I described this assignment as 'preparing a study guide,' and found that a majority of students put a lot of effort into it. Despite initially complaining about the workload, later in the semester when students were given a choice of what kind of assignment to complete to demonstrate that they had learned, nearly all of them chose this assignment.

Assignment 2: Understanding and Applying New Concepts

Level 2 Understanding and Level 3 Applying

Once students have a tool to face the obstacle that technical language may pose, they need to learn to apply their understanding of philosophical terminology as they read. Over and above remembering the meaning of a term is understanding how it is used. For this assignment in a course on philosophical writing, students read the first chapter of Bedau's Thinking and Writing about Philosophy. In this chapter, Bedau characterizes five important features of philosophical writing: definitions, contrasts, examples and analogies, counterexamples, and questions. The goal in assigning this reading was to have students learn key features of philosophical writing so that they will recognize these features as they read and employ them when they write later in the course.

One might ensure students read by giving a brief quiz on the material in class, asking, for example, that they name or characterize the five features Bedau describes. This may be enough to get students to do the reading; however, the sort of learning it would promote is very low level. Instead, to move to a higher level of learning, one could assign a philosophical paper and ask students to apply these concepts as they read. For example, I assigned Russell's 'Philosophy for Laymen.' In this lesser-known paper, Russell argues that philosophy fulfils a particular function in society. It is less esoteric than his 'Value of Philosophy,' but it still requires that students attend to what they are reading in a directed way—by applying their understanding of the concepts introduced in the first reading. I asked students to answer the following questions about Russell's paper.

1. What are three important concepts Russell defines?
2. What are three of the most important distinctions (contrasts) Russell draws?
3. Identify at least one instance where Russell either gives an example or uses an analogy to support a claim and identify the claim that is being supported.
4. Identify at least one instance where Russell points out a counterexample to a general claim.
5. Suppose Russell wrote this paper in response to a single question.What might that question have been? What other questions does Russell intend to answer in this paper?

These questions require that students understand the concepts introduced in the Bedau chapter and be able to apply this understanding by recognizing those features of philosophical writing in what they have read. Students cannot answer these questions by skimming the paper. Moreover, in answering these questions, students are engaged with the text. For example, they must ask themselves, 'Is he drawing a distinction between the philosophy of general education and the philosophy of specialists? What is that distinction? Why is he drawing it?' They have some specific thing to accomplish in reading the text. Since their answers form the basis of small group discussions in the next class meeting, they come to class prepared. This in turn shows students how the reading relates to the topic of the course.

Assignment 3: Analyzing Concepts and Evaluating Analyses

Level 3 Applying and Level 4 Analyzing

For this assignment, students read Earl's 'Classical Conceptual Analysis' (2004) and Harris's 'The Concept of a Person and the Value of Life' (1999). The desired outcome is that students learn what a classical analysis is, how to identify and evaluate a candidate analysis, and how to develop an analysis oneself. Since this was a course in the ethics of abortion, additional goals of this assignment were for students to begin thinking about the criteria for personhood, marginal cases, candidate analyses and their strengths and shortcomings, as well as introduce students to the language philosophers use to talk about this issue. For the assignment, students used the method of analyzing concepts introduced in Earl's paper to state Harris's analysis of the concept of a person in terms of necessary and jointly sufficient conditions. Furthermore, they stated one candidate analysis he rejects and characterized his rejection of it in terms of the key elements of good analyses as Earl characterizes them. Finally, they offered their own candidate analysis of the concept of a person.

In completing this reading assignment, students satisfied the learning outcomes through directed reading—reading with the outcomes in mind. They learned the procedure for analyzing a concept and for evaluating an analysis, recognized that procedure and then applied that it. A reading quiz that asks, 'True or false, a sufficient condition, S, for x's being a C is one such that if x is a C then x is S?' is unlikely to help students satisfy the desired learning outcome even if it does get them to skim the reading. Alternatively, the proposed assignment prepares students to recognize and evaluate analyses in the other papers that they will read during the course.

Assignment 4:Translating a Text

Level 2 Understanding, Level 3, Applying, and Level 4 Analyzing

Often, the prose rather than the specific vocabulary of an assigned reading becomes an obstacle to student learning. For example, Bean (2001) notes that students have difficulty tracking complex syntax, they lack the cultural literacy assumed by the author, and they have difficulty appreciating a text's rhetorical context. To overcome these obstacles, students need to learn to translate what they read into something they can understand that captures the author's intended meaning. Since these issues arise frequently when students read historical works, one assignment that helps them understand the material is to have them translate a paper or passage by writing a summary of each paragraph in language a contemporary reader can easily understand. I have used this assignment when students have read and excerpt from Hume's Dialogues concerning Natural Religion in which Cleanthes, Demea, and Philo discuss the problem of evil. They translate the dialogue into contemporary English doing their best to preserve the author's intentions. They summarize each speaker's part to get to the core of the discussion being sure to make it clear the reasoning to which each person appeals and the conclusions, if any, that are drawn in light of the discussion.

Similarly, to help students keep track of an author's implicit dialogue with a philosophical opponent, I have asked students to translate a text into a dialogue of the conversation the author would have with his opponent. For instance, Moore offers an objection to Descartes' dream argument in his defence of empiricism, 'Certainty.' It is not hard to imagine the conversation going back and forth over whether one can know one is or is not dreaming. Asking students to create a dialogue between Moore, Descartes and the sceptic having read just a few pages of the text helps them understand the structure of Moore's argument and his objections to both Descartes and to the sceptic. The dialogue provides a map or guide for keeping track of the back and forth nature of giving and responding to arguments and objections— a key element of doing philosophy. Moreover, students can use their creativity to demonstrate their understanding of the text.1

Assignment 5: Dissecting and Reconstructing a Paper

Level 2 Understanding, Level 4 Analyzing, and Level 5 Evaluating

Inevitably, students have a hard time with this back and forth style of argumentation that philosophers use to defend a position. When an author summarizes and then rejects her opponents' arguments, the students often think the author is contradicting herself. Thus, it is essential to provide students with the tools and the skills for navigating through a complicated argumentative paper. The desired studentlearning outcome for this assignment is that students recognize some of the central elements of a philosophical paper and distinguish between the positions and arguments the author defends from those she rejects. Additionally, they learn how these elements can be organized to defend a philosophical position, which is an essential component of learning to read and write philosophy papers.

This assignment is similar to Bean's (2001) 'What it Says/What it Does' assignment in which students write brief summaries of each paragraph of an assigned reading and then identify its role in the overall paper. The following assignment begins with an in-class discussion of some of the strategies philosophers use in defending a philosophical position and by providing a list of key elements that philosophy papers may exhibit. For example, a philosophical paper defends a thesis, addresses a philosophical problem, considers alternative positions or arguments, defends an argument, considers analyses, responds to objections, etc.

For this assignment, students received an edited copy of John T. Noonan's 'An Almost Absolute Value in History,' specifically, one in which the paragraphs were presented out of order and the title was withheld. Students complete the following multi-part assignment:

1. Summarize each paragraph in just one or two succinct sentences.
2. Classify each paragraph according to the foregoing list of key elements of philosophical papers.
3. Number the paragraphs in the order in which the author most likely intended them.
4. Provide a title and three to five brief sections headings that would make the most sense for helping the reader understand the structure of the paper.

This assignment then served as the basis for class discussion. Students defended their classification of each paragraph, compared their summary statements, clarified their understanding of the argument, and discussed how best to organize the paper.

Since this was a writing course, this was also an opportunity to point out the use of logical language as signposts directing the reader to the key elements of the argument and the use of specific expressions to indicate transitions or relations. Since a key task in reading philosophy is identifying main lines of argumentation and distinguishing these from the rejection of alternative positions and from consideration of objections to the central argument, this assignment prepares students to read other philosophy papers. In addition, students learn to recognize argumentative strategies that they may encounter in other papers or that they may employ in their own writing.

Assignment 6: Outlining or Diagramming a Paper and Writing an Abstract

Level 4 Analyzing and Level 5 Evaluating

A paper's abstract provides an overview of a paper's main line of argument. In order to write an abstract, one must be able to extract the key elements of the paper. An abstract also invites the reader to closely consider the argument presented in the paper and provides important information about the content of the paper. In reading philosophy, it is important to understand the relationship between an abstract and the paper it introduces. In this assignment, students worked backwards. Rather than reading an abstract and then the paper, students read a version of Warren's 'The Moral Significance of Birth' that did not include the author's abstract and later produced an abstract from what they took to be the key elements of Warren's argument. The assignment required students to diagram or outline the paper in a single page. To do so, they must take note of the thesis of the paper, its structure including the main divisions and the objectives of each part of the paper.

They must be able to summarize the main line of argument as it is given in each part of the paper including objections considered and replies offered, conclusions drawn along the way, important distinctions drawn, etc. In class, they worked in groups to refine their diagrams and outlines and to construct what they took to be the most straightforward statement of the author's argument. Finally, they engaged in the following in-class activity.

Activity Directions: (1) Write a single sentence reflecting a core element of the author's paper. (2) Pass your paper to the person sitting next to you. (3) Read the paper you receive and add another sentence identifying another key element of the paper. (4) Continue to pass you paper and add a sentence until you receive a paper with seven sentences on it. (5) Write an abstract of the paper using the seven sentences you have received editing as necessary and underline the thesis statement.

A typical list of student-generated statements might be these.

Warren defends her pro-choice position through a distinction she draws between abortion and infanticide.
Warren claims that abortion is not homicide but infanticide is considered homicide.
Warren then draws distinctions between conservative, moderate, and liberal views of the moral significance of birth.
She considers the sentience and self-awareness criteria and in the end she rejects both.
From these two arguments, she shows why we do and should protect infants but not foetuses.
Since foetuses are not considered self-aware, she concludes that abortion is not as bad as killing a child or infant.
She also says that it is not possible to respect both the foetus's rights and the mother's rights until after birth, when they are separate beings.

An abstract using these statements might be this:

Warren defends a pro-choice position on abortion in her paper, 'The Moral Significance of Birth.' She describes three separate philosophical views of the moral significance of birth (the conservative, moderate, and liberal views). She rejects arguments that moral consideration should be given to foetuses based on viability, sentience, or self-awareness. She distinguishes between late-term abortions and infanticide by arguing that it is impossible to respect the rights of two distinct persons, the foetus and the child, during pregnancy. She argues that birth is the point at which the child gains moral standing because only then is it possible to distinguish between the mother's rights and the child's rights.

In this assignment, students learn to recognize the overall structure of a philosophy paper, how the parts relate to each other, and how to support a thesis. They also learn how to write abstracts by identifying the most important components of an extended argument. In turn, this prepares them to evaluate or raise objections to the argument. For instance, Warren's argument might rest on a particular view of rights that warrants further consideration. This fact emerges only after a careful reading of the paper and recognition of her overall argument. Thus this assignment facilitates student learning by helping students to identify elements of a philosophical paper that they can criticize, question or evaluate—all skills central to reading and doing philosophy. Moreover, having a clear grasp of the overall structure of her paper, her rejection of opposing positions, her understanding of important concepts and issues, the students are well prepared for class discussion focused on evaluating Warren's argument—much more so than if the assignment had been to 'read and be prepared to discuss Warren's paper.'

Assignment 7: Charting the Positions

Level 4 Analyzing, Level 5 Evaluating, and Level 6 Creating

This assignment helps students put together all that they have read on a topic, provide a preliminary analysis of the arguments, and develop a topic for a paper. It is not a directed reading assignment, per se, but it is the culmination of the foregoing reading assignments. Since this assignment was for a course in philosophical writing focused on the ethics of abortion, students had read about six of the central papers on this topic. Drawing on previous assignments, lectures and discussions, students created a chart or table in which they did the following.

1. Listed or summarized three of the central issues, arguments, positions, or claims relating to the abortion debate;
2. Clearly stated what at least two different philosophers would say about each of these issues, arguments, positions, or claims; and
3. Either
a. Wrote a paragraph explaining one item of agreement or consistency and one item of disagreement between two philosophers,
or
b. Wrote a short dialogue between two of the philosophers we had read in which their points of agreement and disagreement are illuminated.

For instance, students might identify divergent analyses of the concept of being a person (Noonan 1970, Harris 1999) the debate over whether personhood matters to the moral status of the foetus (Thomson 1989, English 1975, Noonan), the Violinist analogy (Thomson 1989, Wiland 2000), and the sentience criterion (Noonan 1970, and Warren 1989) for part one and go on to clarify the disagreement between Noonan and Warren in parts two and three. In doing so, students enter the philosophical dialogue which prepares them to write a paper on one of these issues. They come to see the big picture, to integrate what they have learned, and discover how to participate in the philosophical conversation.

4. Suggestions for using and grading these assignments

How these sorts of reading assignments can be integrated into a course will vary. One should not be intimidated by creating an unbearable amount of grading. These reading assignments can be used as the basis for in-class discussions and activities, and students can be assessed on how well-prepared they are for these activities. These assignments can be the basis for short writing assignments—either in class or at home. Alternatively, as a culminating project in the course, students can prepare a portfolio of their work during the course. Asking students to reflect on what they learned from completing certain activities, which activities were most likely to contribute to their understanding of the material, and which activities best helped them learn how to do philosophy (that is, a portfolio that requires reflection on the learning process, or metacognitive element) will further advance the student learning outcomes. What is important is that these activities somehow come to play a part in the assessment of student learning, that they facilitate learning through active engagement with the text, that they connect the material students encounter outside of the classroom with that in the classroom, and that they provide students with the skills they need to read and do philosophy.

5. Conclusion

Directed reading assignments go beyond the 'read this for next time' sort of assignment and facilitate student learning by teaching students how to use certain skills to read and do philosophy. Reading philosophy requires focusing one's attention, comprehending and applying technical concepts, recognizing of lines of argumentation, distinguishing positions defended from those rejected, tracking objections and responses, and being involved with the philosophical dialogue. Simply instructing students to read a paper without instructing them how to read it, without providing direction, goals, or the tools for reading it, and without making the reading an integral part of learning philosophy misses out on the rich sort of learning experience that comes from reading assignments that focus on higher-level cognitive skills—just the skills necessary for reading and doing philosophy.

Endnotes

  1. For instance, students might use the website Xtranormal (http://www.xtranormal.com/ ) to create their own cartoon dialogue. See Drey, Jeremy, January 16, 2011. 'So You Think An English Professor's Life Is A Cartoon', The Chronicle Of Higher Education. Accessed January 26, 2011: http://chronicle.com/article/So-You-Think-an-English/125954/?sid=at&utm_ source=at&utm_medium=en

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Wiland, E., 'Unconscious Violinists and the Use of Analogies in Moral Argument', Journal of Medical Ethics, 26 (2002) pp.466-468.

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This page was originally on the website of The Subject Centre for Philosophical and Religious Studies. It was transfered here following the closure of the Subject Centre at the end of 2011.

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