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Using research associated with Richard Arum and Josipa Roksa and the framework of Bloom’s Taxonomy, it contends that students often learn content without learning how to think about it. Drawing on Martha Nussbaum’s defense of the humanities and Socratic pedagogy, it links discussion-based teaching, metacognitive reading practices, and Renaissance Literature instruction to more coherent, creative, and critically reflective student learning.",{"@graph":69,"@context":122},[70,84,105],{"@type":71,"itemListElement":72},"BreadcrumbList",[73,77,79,82],{"item":74,"name":75,"@type":76,"position":8},"https://docshare.wps.com","Home","ListItem",{"item":78,"name":9,"@type":76,"position":14},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/",{"item":80,"name":40,"@type":76,"position":81},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/research-report/",3,{"item":83,"name":65,"@type":76,"position":19},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/the-cea-forum-winterspring-2013-step-dame-studys-purpose-early-modern-literature-and-critical-thinking-why-humanities-matter/597583/",{"url":83,"name":65,"@type":85,"image":86,"author":91,"headline":65,"publisher":94,"fileFormat":97,"inLanguage":63,"description":67,"dateModified":98,"datePublished":99,"encodingFormat":97,"isAccessibleForFree":100,"interactionStatistic":101},"DigitalDocument",{"url":87,"@type":88,"width":89,"height":90},"https://docshare.wps.com/thumbnails/the-cea-forum-winterspring-2013-step-dame-studys-purpose-early-modern-literature-and-critical-thinking-why-humanities-matter/597583.png","ImageObject",300,407,{"name":92,"@type":93},"pop out","Person",{"url":74,"name":95,"@type":96},"DocShare","Organization","application/pdf","2026-11-02","2026-10-15",true,{"@type":102,"interactionType":103,"userInteractionCount":52},"InteractionCounter",{"@type":104},"ViewAction",{"@type":106,"mainEntity":107},"FAQPage",[108,114,118],{"name":109,"@type":110,"acceptedAnswer":111},"What central purpose does the article assign to the Step-Dame study?","Question",{"text":112,"@type":113},"It presents early modern literature as a way to teach core critical-thinking skills, while also encouraging metacognitive reflection during reading and interpretation.","Answer",{"name":115,"@type":110,"acceptedAnswer":116},"What evidence does the article use to connect humanities with critical thinking?",{"text":117,"@type":113},"It cites findings attributed to Richard Arum and Josipa Roksa from Academically Adrift, describing how rigorous coursework correlates with stronger critical-thinking and writing outcomes.",{"name":119,"@type":110,"acceptedAnswer":120},"How does the article explain why humanities teaching can foster deeper thinking?",{"text":121,"@type":113},"It argues that discussion-based pedagogy and Socratic methods treat each student as an individual contributor, enabling more creative and ultimately more critical engagement with ideas.","https://schema.org",{"og:url":83,"og:type":124,"og:title":65,"og:site_name":95,"og:description":67},"article",{"robots":126,"canonical":83},"index,follow",{"doc_id":128,"site_id":62},597583,1792190663,{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":131},{"doc_id":128,"user_id":132,"nickname":92,"user_avatar":133,"doc_module":4,"category_id":39,"category_name":40,"doc_title":65,"doc_description":67,"doc_content":134,"file_id":135,"file_url":136,"file_type":137,"file_size":138,"view_count":52,"is_deleted":4,"is_public":8,"is_downloadable":8,"audit_status":8,"page_count":139,"language":140,"language_code":63,"site_id":62,"html_lang":63,"table_of_contents":141,"faqs":142,"seo_title":143,"seo_description":67,"update_tm":144,"read_time":145,"preview_page_count":4},962090760408,"https://ap-avatar.wpscdn.com/davatar_085a072bc5b1113ac321206ff7593b45","THE CEA FORUM  \nWinter/Spring 2013  \nStep-Dame Study’s Purpose: Early Modern Literature and Critical Thinking  \nEmily Ruth Isaacson  \nChowan University  \nGiven what seems a constant barrage of criticism aimed at the academy from politicians and the public—and the great concern for buzz words like accountability and transparency—it has become fairly routine to see a defense of the humanities in opinion pieces in Inside Higher Education, The Chronicle of Higher Education, The New York Times, [and even CNN.com. The](and even CNN.com. The)[ ](and even CNN.com. The)pieces range from defending the intrinsic worth of the humanities to defending the concrete skills that we teach, like critical thinking and writing. Most of these arguments seem to imply that it’sone way or the other; the defenders who argue for the former tend to see the pragmatic conversation as sullying the aesthetics of our disciplines, while the defenders arguing for the latter see the lack of discussion of anything other than marketable skills as pie-in-the-sky idealism.  \nI’m certainly not the first to make this observation—and I hope that I’m not the last—but I think it’s possible to make both arguments. Perhaps it’s necessary to make both to ensure the survival of the humanities, which just about all of us seem to agree are in dire straits, given the current scrutiny of the money we bring to our institutions and the current economic restrictions we’re all facing. What I want to do in this article is to first consider the role the humanities play in the teaching of those core skills of critical thinking, one of the more practical aspects of the  \nTHE CEA FORUM  \nWinter/Spring 2013  \nhumanities. Though, of course, I hope that I also convey to my students my own love of literary studies, with the focus on the beauty ofthe art and the intellectual stimulation of literary criticism. From there, I will present my own experience of teaching Renaissance Literature as a case study in the ways that we can teach critical thinking in our literature classrooms. While the connection between critical thinking and literary studies has always been something that most of us understand intuitively, we can focus our attention not only on the early modern texts and inclass discussions, but we can also help our students develop a more coherent set of critical thinking skills by actively teaching students to think metacognitively about what they’re doing while reading and interpreting that literature.  \nThe Humanities and Critical Thinking Skills  \nIf Richard Arum and Josipa Roksa, authors of the study Academically Adrift, are to be believed, the humanities are where most of the student learning happens in the first two years of college. To put it more precisely, Arum and Roksa have observed that students who take courses that are rigorous (twenty pages of writing over the course of the semester and forty pages of reading each week) are more likely to develop critical thinking skills and writing skills, as tested in the Collegiate Learning Assessment mechanism (Arum and Roksa 131) . While critics of their study have fairly pointed out that the CLA does not account for certain types of subject specific learning, the fact remains that we all—across all disciplines—pay lip service to the idea that we want to foster critical thinking skills. The reality is, however, that even if students are learning subject specific materials, students still only learn things that would fall onto Bloom’s Taxonomy at the lower order thinking skills of knowledge, comprehension, and application (or  \nTHE CEA FORUM  \nWinter/Spring 2013  \nremembering, understanding and applying, in the revised version of the taxonomy) . That is, students may be learning a great deal of basic content, but they do not seem to be learning how to think about that content despite our stated desire to teach critical thinking.  \nWhile Arum and Roksa do not speculate on why it is that the humanities are more conducive to honing crit","cbCaiaQDWQ7gV4rH","https://ap.wps.com/l/cbCaiaQDWQ7gV4rH","pdf",209330,28,"English","# THE CEA FORUM\n## Winter/Spring 2013\n## Step-Dame Study’s Purpose: Early Modern Literature and Critical Thinking\n## The Humanities and Critical Thinking Skills","[{\"question\":\"What central purpose does the article assign to the Step-Dame study?\",\"answer\":\"It presents early modern literature as a way to teach core critical-thinking skills, while also encouraging metacognitive reflection during reading and interpretation.\"},{\"question\":\"What evidence does the article use to connect humanities with critical thinking?\",\"answer\":\"It cites findings attributed to Richard Arum and Josipa Roksa from Academically Adrift, describing how rigorous coursework correlates with stronger critical-thinking and writing outcomes.\"},{\"question\":\"How does the article explain why humanities teaching can foster deeper thinking?\",\"answer\":\"It argues that discussion-based pedagogy and Socratic methods treat each student as an individual contributor, enabling more creative and ultimately more critical engagement with ideas.\"}]","THE CEA FORUM - Winter/Spring 2013 - Step-Dame Study’s Purpose: Early Modern Literature and Critical Thinking - Why Humanities Matter | PDF",1792085288,71]