FOSTERING CRITICAL THINKING SKILLS THROUGH ARGUMENTATIVE
WRITING
Susana Widyastuti
Fakultas Bahasa dan Seni, Universitas Negeri Yogyakarta
Email: susana_widyastuti@uny.ac.id
Abstract: The urgency for developing students’ critical thinking (CT) abilities has left English
as a Foreign Language (EFL) teachers trying hard to integrate CT into their teaching practices.
This study highlights the role of language as a way of thinking, judging and assessing. It seeks
to investigate how the elements of CT are displayed in students’ essay so as to reveal the
development of their CT skills. The data are in the form of essay written by the fourth semester
Indonesian students taking essay writing course. The analysis is based on Stapleton’s criteria
of CT (2001), i.e. claims, kinds of reasoning, the extent of evidence, recognition of
opposing arguments and refutation, and fallacies. The results show that there are many weak
arguments in the essays due to the insufficiency of reasons and evidence. It is highly possible
for an essay to have multiple arguments. However, the logical correlations between them are
not clearly articulated in the essays and many students fail to show them. Students also lack of
refutation skills as they tend to accept a claim from other sources without trying to judge and
evaluate it. While most conclusions are in the form of suggestion, they can be made better by
clearly showing the position of the writer in relation the arguments posed in the essay. Fallacies
are mostly found in the form of generalization and over-simplification. The results are expected
to give insights to teachers about how CT skills could be effectively taught and improved in
writing classes.
Key words: argumentative writing, critical thinking (CT), English as a Foreign Language
(EFL)
MENGEMBANGKAN KEMAMPUAN BERPIKIR KRITIS MELALUI MENULIS
ARGUMENTATIF
Abstrak: Pentingnya mengembangkan kemampuan berpikir kritis (critical thinking atau
CT) mahasiswa telah membuat para pengajar English as a Foreign Language (EFL) berusaha
keras mengintegrasikan kemampuan berpikir kritis dalam pengajaran mereka. Penelitian ini
menggarisbawahi peran bahasa sebagai sarana berpikir, menilai, dan mengevaluasi. Penelitian
bertujuan untuk menggali bagaimana elemen-elemen berpikir kritis ditunjukkan dalam teks dan
mengkaji perkembangan berpikir kritis dalam teks. Data berbentuk teks essay yang ditulis oleh
mahasiswa semester 4 yang mengambil matakuliah Essay Writing. Data dianalisis berdasarkan
kriteria Critical Thinking (CT) oleh Stapleton (2001), yaitu argument, reason, evidence,
opposition and refutation, conclusion, dan fallacy. Hasil penelitian menunjukkan bahwa
argumen sering lemah karena tidak didukung oleh alasan dan bukti yang cukup. Suatu esai
sangatlah mungkin mengandung banyak argumen. Namun demikian, hubungan logis antar
argumen tersebut tidak jelas dalam esai dan bahkan banyak mahasiswa gagal menunjukkan
hubungan tersebut. Mahasiswa juga lemah dalam hal refutation skill karena mereka cenderung
menerima klaim dari sumber lain begitu saja tanpa mencoba mengevaluasi dan
mempertanyakannya. Kebanyakan kesimpulan berbentuk saran dan bisa dibuat lebih baik
dengan menyatakan dengan jelas posisi penulis dalam menanggapi argumen-argumen yang
dikemukakan di awal. Fallacy kebanyakan dalam bentuk generalisasi dan penyederhanaan
berlebihan. Hasil penelitian ini diharapkan dapat memberikan masukan tentang bagaimana
kelas menulis dapat dirancang secara efektif supaya dapat menumbuhkan baik kemampuan
berpikir kritis maupun kemampuan berbahasa.
Kata kunci: tulisan argumentatif, berpikir kritis, English as Foreign Language (EFL)
INTRODUCTION
This study seeks to foreground the
interconnections between critical thinking
(CT) and language. The close correlation
between thinking (cognition) and language
development has long been recognized by
scholars and educators, because it is
through language people come to know the
world and express what they think about.
It is particularly relevant for argumentative
writing in the English as a Foreign
Language (EFL) context, because to make
an argumentative writing people need to
have both higher-order thinking skills and
higher levels of foreign language
proficiency (see Atkinson, 1997; Chamot,
1995; Tarvin & Al-Arishi, 1991).
Critical thinking (CT) has been
widely considered as an essential skill in the
twentieth century particularly in the area of
language education. Although CT itself is a
complex concept and is not easy to define,
it is an identifiable thinking skill and thus
can be practiced. Facione defines critical
thinking as "purposeful, self-regulatory
judgment that results in interpretation,
analysis, evaluation, and inference, as well
as explanation of the evidential, conceptual,
methodological, criteriological, or
contextual considerations upon which that
judgment is based" (1990, p. 3).
Beyer defines it as the ability to
make “reasoned judgments" (1995, p. 8).
Critical thinkers thus should be able to
judge, evaluate, and question an idea or
thought based on reliable evidence by
establishing logical relationships among
statements or data. Such ability is crucial in
developing language competence
especially in constructing arguments and
inferring a conclusion from one or multiple
premises.
Stapleton (2001) highlights the
strong correlations between thinking and
writing. A thinking mind should be
reflected in writing. Stapleton (2001, pp.
536-539) proposes six critical thinking
elements in a written text.
a. Arguments: claims which are
supported by a reason. In academic
writing, an argument is usually a
main idea, often called a “claim” or
“thesis statement”.
b. Reasons: statements which are used
to support claims and generally
answer why the claim should be
believed.
c. Evidence: statements or assertions
serving to strengthen the argument.
d. Recognition of Opposition and
Refutation: Opposing viewpoints
that run counter or offer alternative
interpretations to those expressed in
the claim.
e. Conclusion: a statement or series of
statements in which a writer sets out
what she wants the reader to
believe.
f. Fallacies: errors in reasoning.
The outline of the essay writing
course that becomes the setting of the study
places CT as an important learning
outcome. In doing so, multiple-step writing
processes are applied on the basis that the
more they write, the more they practice, the
more they think. Weekly writing tasks are
used to easily trace and identify the
progress. The steps basically involve the
planning, writing, and revising. While the
main writing process itself is not
unimportant, the planning (researching,
brainstorming, and outlining) and postwriting
(feedback and revision) are crucial
for improving writing performance and CT.
This study particularly highlights
the need for (1) the planning or pre-writing
stage which allows students do enough
reading, research and exploration on the
issue being assigned and plan their writing
(brainstorming and outlining) and (2)
continuous feedback from the lecturer to
allow them do self-reflection and revise
their texts. This is to say that
comprehending the concept they need to
write and evaluating/revising their own
writing are crucial for sharpening their CT
skills.
Closely related to the writing steps,
topic is an important aspect that determines
the goal, nature and structure of writing.
Thus the topic chosen in this study is the
one that can stimulate students’
argumentative skills. The topic is carefully
selected by considering the CT elements, as
students need to have something to think
critically about, and the language aspect, as
students at the same time need to learn how
to use various language resources to
construct their arguments. By doing so,
students are able to develop their English
language skills while simultaneously
becoming more knowledgeable about the
issues in the world they live in.
METHODS
The setting of the study is an essay writing
course taken by the 4th semester students of
the English literature study program. The
language of instruction is English and all of
the students are Indonesians. Their English
language levels and abilities vary and they
frequently lack of confidence. This
situation is similarly described in a study by
Tsui (1996) which also reveals that the
cause is the lack of opportunities and
willingness to use English in everyday
context.
The data were the collection of
students’ argumentative essays. The course
ran for 16 weeks which were used mostly
for writing practices. Each week students
attended 2 classes which ran for 100
minutes each. In the second class students
wrote independently based on the topic
assigned to them. The teaching method was
generally communicative and learnercentered,
in which lecturer talked to
students intensively to discuss and give
feedback to their writing. Such method was
intended to stimulate students’ writing
productivity and improve their confidence
in writing, both in the content and language
aspects. The feedback and evaluation
focused on the writing progress by paying
attention to each CT element.
At the first two weeks the classes
were focused on the ‘the what’ and ‘the
how’ an argumentative essay could be
written. It included the nature, types,
content, structure and language of an essay.
It was found from the discussion that
students particularly did not have enough
understanding about the critical nature of an
essay they needed to produce during the
course and about the language expressions
that could help construct their critical
arguments.
The tasks were broken down weekly
into a series of stages using various topics,
to allow students learn specific CT skills or
elements suggested by Stapleton (2001).
The writing process was done
systematically. Students were given
instructions and given time to brainstorm
and develop their outlines, given
opportunities to do peer-review and given
feedback on the process. This was surely
time-consuming, yet the intention was to
maximize the quality of students’ writing.
Various topics about social life were
selected on the basis that they could
stimulate and elicit students’ personal and
intellectual arguments as well as sharpen
their awareness to current social
phenomena. The topics would need
students to collect enough information and
to decide what kind of arguments they
would construct, including problem
solving, cause and effect, decision making,
social criticism. For the final assignment,
students were particularly asked to write
about 2019 presidential election in
Indonesia. Students were allowed to
develop or break down the topic into more
specific sub-topics they were most
interested in.
The process of analysis was done
through a close look at each essay. Each
element was identitified and the key clauses
indicating the CT element was highlighted.
To achieve validity, each essay was
examined by two raters.
RESULTS
The discussion that follows focuses not only
on how each element is displayed but also on
how the linguistic choices are effective to
show each element. However, it is necessary
to note that the data may contain
grammatical mistakes.
Table 1 shows the distribution of each
CT element in 30 essays.
argumen
t
reaso
n
evidenc
e
Oppositio
n and
refutation
conclusio
n
fallacie
s
Rate
r 1
138 69 57 25 29 11
Rate
r 2
128 82 56 18 30 8
Table 1. CT elements in students’ essays
1. Arguments
Feldman (1998) argues that a good
argument should be purposeful, clear, and
concise. The results indicate that crafting an
argument is a challenge for the students.
There are two interesting phenomena that
can be learnt from students’ essays. Firstly,
most opening sentences in the essays are
used to pose a problem, that is the main
argument. However, not all of them are
directly followed by definition or
clarification of what they mean in the
argument. If the definition is present, it
mostly uses simple present tense. Modal
auxiliary such as “may”, “might” and verbs
like “suggest”, “show” “demonstrate”
“indicate” are not used often.
Extract 1
Press or social media has a very important
role in the life of a nation. Press plays an
important role in the process of creating the
character of society and developing
national insight. Besides, press is an
important component in the process of mass
communication. According to Jalaludin
Rachmad: mass media is the medium used
for chanelling communications to the
public such as the press, radio, television,
movies and so on. As a means of
communication for dissemination
information and ideas to the public, the
mass media has an important role in human
life in various fields, such as political,
economic, social, and cultural fields, etc
(Jalaludin Rakhmat, 1990: 135) (Student
A).
Extract 2
The Indonesian election day is coming with
more figures and political parties
nominated in the candidate list. With that in
mind, it is necessary for all active voters to
make themselves prepared by being more
critical to political issues and candidates
they are about to vote. An attempt to think
critical about politic might help citizens to
build a wiser way of thinking responding to
the complicated political condition in
Indonesia. Following the critical attitude
toward political issue, open minded voters
might be more considerate about their vote
as to avoid random vote and political party
domination in a particular society (student
B).
In B’s first paragraph (extract 2), the
main argument is well constructed in the
first two sentences. While the first sentence
is more general and provides the context of
the main argument, that is about the
growing number of political figures and
parties, the second is an argument in the
form of suggestion, with a conjunction
’with that in mind’, about how to deal with
such political phenomenon. This argument
shows the writer’s standing about being
critical voters. The use of several adjectives
in the paragraph strengthens the force of the
main argument. In the last two sentences in
extract 2 the writer addresses briefly about
being a wise and open-minded voter. The
readers are orientated that the rest of the text
would be about the qualities of a critical
voter.
2. Reasons
Supporting reasons are indispensable to an
argument. In other words, a claim can not
stand alone without a convincing reason.
Otherwise, it is called an opinion. Critical
thinkers should provide the ‘why’ aspect of
the proposed argument (see Crosswhite,
2012) in order to make people convinced
and believe in what we have claimed in the
argument. A well-written reason can help
readers understand and accept the writer’s
position.
Langer & Applebee (1987) suggest
that "the greatest variety of reasoning
operations occur during essay writing,
suggesting that this type of activity
provides time for students to think most
flexibly as they develop their ideas" (p.
100). Through essay writing students have
the opportunities to develop arguments
based on the interconnections between
many claims from various resources.
The reasons need to show a direct
logical relationship with the argument. A’s
paragraph (extract 1) mostly argues that the
Indonesian press has been used widely as a
political means. However, he does not
provide any logical reason why this takes
place within the context of Indonesia. The
majority of the paragraphs explain the topic
by providing definition (by quoting some
sources), history and examples. Thus A’s
text lacks of the quality of an argument.
3. Evidence
The findings show that there are a huge
number of arguments. However, the number
of reasons and evience is not as many as that
of the arguments. In a nutshell, the arguments
are weak due to the lack of supporting reasons
and evidence.
Ramage and Bean (1999) state that
evidence can be in the form of personal
experience, research studies, statistics,
citing authorities, comparisons and
analogies, pointing out consequences, facts,
logical explanations, and defining words.
The evidence given by A (extract 1) is in the
form of facts. Most of them specifically
support the argument about the political
role of media. They are not in line with the
main argument in the first paragraph.
Extract
3
Extract 3
For example is TvOne which is led by Ardi
Bakrie, the son of the general chairman of
party Golkar, Aburizal Bakrie (student A)
Extract 4
The example of the case is the president
election in 2004 (student A)
Research studies and statistics are rarely
used although such data are available in many
online and printed sources. This shows that
students do not do intensive research through
such existing resources prior to the writing
process.
4. Opposition and refutation
The descriptive nature of most students’ texts
indicates the lack of abilities to counter the
argument at hand. They hardly have the sense
of ”judging” and “questioning” (see Beyer,
1995). On the other hand they just copy
information from other sources without any
evaluation.
5. Conclusions
Conclusion should restate and reconfirm
the writer’s position and show the
correlations between all the CT elements in
the given essay (see Halpern, 2013). Most
importantly it should contain the writer’s
critical point of view about the earlier
claims in the essay.
Extract 5
The press should not be used as a political
device, but as a device that gives
information to the public in order to make
them receive a good political education and
to know the development of the nation
(student A)
A’s conclusion is clear and indicates
his standing that, through the use of ‘should
not’ he strongly disagrees with the
employment of the press for political
purpose. He also inserts a concluding
personal statement suggesting the better
way of using the press. The conclusion
reconfirms the arguments stated earlier.
Nevertheless, the focus is more specific
than the main argument stated in the first
paragraph (see my earlier explanation on
argument). B’s conclusion is also in the
form of suggestion in relation to the earlier
arguments (extract 6).
Most essays have conclusions,
which usually contain suggestion.
However, not all of them use explicit
expressions like ‘in conclusion’ as used in
extract 6. In most cases, the readers are left
wondering about the interconnection
between all the arguments proposed by the
writer and, thus, have to figure out the
relevance of the concluding sentence in the
last paragraph.
Extract 6
That way, we will not be easily framed to a
certain way of thinking by individuals who
want to steal our right to vote in freedom.
We have to stand in our own perspective
and assumption to maintain the principle of
election in Indonesia. In conclusion, we
have to be more critical and more
concerned about political condition in
Indonesia. As an eligible voter, our vote
will contribute to the future of Indonesia, so
we have to use it with responsibility and full
consciousness (student B).
6. Fallacies
Defined as flaws of reasoning, fallacies
detract the overall value of an argument.
Thinking critically means finding logical
fallacies, the situation when the reason does
not adequately support the claim in a
number of ways.
Extract 7
It suggests that social media is dangerous
for guiding people’s assumption and that is
way the politics in Indonesia is always
controlled by certain people (student C).
In extract 7 the writer generalizes the
idea of the danger of social media, and, at
the same time, switches the discussion
away from social media to the Indonesian
politics which is not directly related to the
first claim. The writer over-simplifies the
claim although it contains a complex
argument. The absence of evidence of the
danger of social media weakens the
argument and makes the readers wonder
about the relationship between the two
clauses.
DISCUSSION
It is particularly interesting that
participants might come to the classrooms
with presumably low critical thinking
skills, yet they understand that the essay
they write are supposed to be
argumentative. They are expected to
understand and apply the major tenets of
argumentation as a type of writing which
requires high critical thinking (see
Rottenberg, 1991).
The data provide fruitful insights into
understanding students’ CT abilities. Firstly,
apart from the absence of certain elements in
some essays, some students are not able to
show the correlations among CT elements.
The elements should be mutually informing,
yet students fail to show their interconnection
in the essay. This can be due to students’ lack
of linguistic competence, particularly in the
use of conjunctions. While it is highly
possible for a text to have multiple arguments,
they have to support each other and construct
the main argument postulated in the first
paragraph. Irrelevant or absent conclusions
are part of this inability. Thus, a critical
thinker should be able to generate logical
correlations among various elements. To
draw logical relations needs students to do
critical reflection in a way they have to be
able to construct their own ideas and
develop sound standards for analyzing and
assessing them.
Secondly, while students are
encouraged to think critically, they seem to be
prone to receive any information without
questioning. They tend to transfer the
sentences from the sources to their essay
without any attempt to evaluate and digest
them. This is to say that the essay has not gone
through a critical thinking process. As
suggested in the low result of refutation skills
discussed earlier, questioning a claim seems
an unacceptable attitude in the existing
traditional writing course.
Overall, the results highlight that the
course needs to be well-designed in order to
foster students’ skills in displaying each
element in their essay. In this case, firstly,
CT and how its elements can be displayed
through texts should be clearly stated in the
course objectives and students should
understand from the very beginning that CT
is part of the learning goals. Secondly, its
outline needs to give clear instructions
which aim to practice and sharpen each CT
element. The learning goals and design
should go beyond linguistics aspects and
pay bigger attention at the development of
students’ CT (see Brown, 2004).
CONCLUSIONS
Since higher-order thinking skills
are increasingly required for success in a
knowledge-based society, it is crucial to
develop CT skills so as to improve students’
exposure to the use of English in academic
and day to day use and to the world they live
in. The study suggests that the integration
of CT aspects in EFL argumentative writing
has helped the students develop not only
their critical thinking skills but also their
English language competence. Without
adequate practice in critical thinking, EFL
students may lack confidence in their
academic life and miss the opportunity to
advance up the ladder in the global
workplace which has become more
challenging.
Focusing on this reconstruction,
further research should also take into
account on how to improve students’
awareness on the importance of background
knowledge through reading. Without such
knowledge students will not be able to find
ways in their writing to make meaningful
connections between their writing and their
world. The research can also take into
account the role of reading for shaping CT
in writing. The natural way to improve
one's writing is to cultivate the habit of
reading for pleasure. Reading can be the
most effective, convenient and enjoyable
way to better writing.
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Referensi:
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Library UNY
Journal UNY
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