What are you using for teaching Logic (as a subject)

[Sebastian (a lady)]

I have one logic curriculum, but everytime I open it, I start talking back to the text. The first couple of lessons seem to have examples/problems that aren't following the logic being taught.

 

What are you using that you or your kids like and are finding profitable?

[Kates]

I'll be using the Classical Academic Press resources, but we're not starting till next summer. I've looked through them and like what I see, and ds has responded well to pretty much everything of theirs so far.

[FloridaLisa]

Traditional Logic I and II. My oldest three used Intro to Logic, but I wanted a word-driven curriculum, rather than symbolic.

 

HTH,

Lisa

[Caitilin]

I am using Critical Thinking 1 with my dds and their friends. So far, I am very happy. It's inspiring a lot of discussion and friendly arguments, and I am quite pleased with their understanding. :)

[johnandtinagilbert]

6th Critical Thinking games on CD

7th Fallacy Detective

8th Art of Argument

[Wendy in ME]

Here is what we have done or are doing so far:

 

7th: The Fallacy Detective

8th: Traditional Logic I

9th: Traditional Logic II and Material Logic (These are considered semester courses for high school.)

10th: Rhetoric With Aristotle

[TanuvasaMama]

I don't want to hijack this thread, but this is the first I've heard of logic. What is it and at what age do you teach it??

[Quiver0f10]

7th grader Fallacy Detective/The Thinking Toolbox

9th and 10th graders: Trad. Logic 1 & 2

[mcconnellboys]

I'm using Introductory Logic this year. I'm using the updated text and I must say that I did not care at all for the first unit, which has been added to the old text. I found it somewhat worthless, as a matter of fact. We are now on Unit Two and it covers the material that used to start the book. I am happier with it.

 

I have yet to find a sound, secular text that I like for logic. I've been stuck with attempting to choose the lesser of all evils each year....

[Brenda in FL]

5th grade - Mindbenders Warmup, Building Thinking Skills 2 cd-rom, Mindbenders A and B on cd-rom/

 

6th grade - Critical Thinking Books 1 and 2

 

7th grade = Traditional Logic 1

 

That's as far as our experience goes. And we haven't started Traditional Logic I yet, we are finishing up Critical Thinking Book 2

[2cents]

We're looking at this text for logic later this year:

Socratic Logic (2nd edition)

A Logic Text Using Socratic Method, Platonic Questions, and Aristotelian Principles

Peter Kreeft (Boston College)

[Sebastian (a lady)]

I don't want to hijack this thread, but this is the first I've heard of logic. What is it and at what age do you teach it??

 

Logic is the formal art of reasoning and argument. SWB has a whole chapter in WTM about why it is worthy of study. But basically it helps a student to find fallacies in reasoning that they are then able to apply to things like political discussions, advertising, etc. She recommends it for the logic stage (generally 5th-8th grade) when students have mastered the basics of reading and writing and are pretty argumentative anyway.

 

My goal is that my kids will be able to see when someone else is using unsound reasoning, appealing to emotion, using flowery rhetoric rather than sound arguments, etc.

[Sebastian (a lady)]

I'm using Introductory Logic this year. I'm using the updated text and I must say that I did not care at all for the first unit, which has been added to the old text. I found it somewhat worthless, as a matter of fact. We are now on Unit Two and it covers the material that used to start the book. I am happier with it.

 

I have yet to find a sound, secular text that I like for logic. I've been stuck with attempting to choose the lesser of all evils each year....

 

Funny, it is the first lesson of the old Introductory Logic that is frustrating me. To my reading of it, they are marking some statements in the first lesson as true statements that ought to be considered supported statements (and not judged as true or false without seeing the support).

 

But I may end up using it, since I do have it, at least to teach the basic terms. But it sure seems dry.

[mcconnellboys]

Dry it certainly is, LOL.....

[Sebastian (a lady)]

I have one logic curriculum, but everytime I open it, I start talking back to the text. The first couple of lessons seem to have examples/problems that aren't following the logic being taught.

 

What are you using that you or your kids like and are finding profitable?

 

I wanted to add that I found several interesting resources for logic as lectures on iTunes.

 

There is a Lewis Carroll Symbolic Logic course there as an audiobook.

There is also a Critical Reasoning seminar series from Oxford that caught my eye.

[Marie in Oh]

and really enjoying The Art of Argument. I plan for him to use it for 7th and 8th grade and then use the next one (I can't remember the name) from Classical Academic Press for 9th.

[Aoife]

I have amassing a collection of logic books for a couple years now.

 

Philosophy For Young Thinkers Program from RFWP We will start this next year in K

http://www.rfwp.com/series44.htm

 

Philosophy for kids

Art of the argument

Socratic circles

critical thinking company workbooks (may switch to software though)

Maybe Yes, Maybe No: A Guide for Young Skeptics

[creekmom]

I'm using the Orbiting with Logic series with my 6th grader this year.

 

http://www.amazon.com/Logic-Liftoff-Bonnie-Risby/dp/1593630883/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1288023268&sr=8-2

[FloridaLisa]

Funny, it is the first lesson of the old Introductory Logic that is frustrating me. To my reading of it, they are marking some statements in the first lesson as true statements that ought to be considered supported statements (and not judged as true or false without seeing the support).

 

But I may end up using it, since I do have it, at least to teach the basic terms. But it sure seems dry.

 

Sebastian (a lady) (I always liked that handle!),

 

Is the problem that perhaps you are getting ahead of yourself by reading too much into those Intro to Logic lessons? Intro to Logic looks at the logical construct, the form, of logic; not the intrinsic truth of the statements themselves. The latter is material logic, in my understanding (we're not quite there yet). So in looking at a group of three statements, you just assume that the first two are true -- they're the givens. From those two statements, the student must determine whether the conclusion (or what conclusion) follows.

 

Does that help at all?

 

Lisa

[ladydusk]

But it sure seems dry.

 

Dry it certainly is, LOL.....

 

Isn't this the curriculum that SWB's kids called the video "The guy in the tie?" :lol:

 

We're doing Mindbenders Warmups (M-girl just finished, N-boy just started), Logix puzzles (from Rainbow Resources), Critical Thinking Activities (K-3 book), and I have the Lollipop Logic books for after that.

 

Of course, that doesn't help with your olders, but I thought I'd post some ideas for those with younger students :)

[mcconnellboys]

I've heard about the Lewis Carroll course and it's supposed to be good!

[Sebastian (a lady)]

Sebastian (a lady) (I always liked that handle!),

 

Is the problem that perhaps you are getting ahead of yourself by reading too much into those Intro to Logic lessons? Intro to Logic looks at the logical construct, the form, of logic; not the intrinsic truth of the statements themselves. The latter is material logic, in my understanding (we're not quite there yet). So in looking at a group of three statements, you just assume that the first two are true -- they're the givens. From those two statements, the student must determine whether the conclusion (or what conclusion) follows.

 

Does that help at all?

 

Lisa

 

I think I agree with you that this is where you should start with logic. I got annoyed because the exercise for the first lesson (which introduced statement, command, nonsense and question) asked students to mark practice sentences as command, question, nonsense true statement or false statement and then used sentences that in I think are true, but that others might well believe are false. I thought it jumped a step with asking them to mark true and false statements and then used poor sentences as illustrations.

 

The sentences I thought were odd included:

Jesus healed blind men. Answer: True statement

The Bible is the Word of God Answer: True statement

God does not exist Answer: False or Nonsense. If reason exists, then God must because reason springs from God. I think this jumps more than one or two steps of logic and is based on a number of presumptions about the nature of God. [NB: And I say that as a Christian who normally enjoys reading Doug Wilson, but finds this annoying in a logic text. I wouldn't mind if the text ended up with this conclusion, but I find it frustrating that it starts with this presumption. I think that this potentially creates a logical weak spot for my children that they won't even know is there.]

 

But I just thought that it was strange to have an exercise that asked you to identify true statements before the concept of true and false statements had been introduced.

 

I have read the rest of the book and it seems pretty straightforward. So I will probably still use it. I'll just cross out the true and false from that set of directions and consider it an error. But I feel like I have to watch the course more closely for presumptions than I expected to.

 

I really wanted to like this text, in part because I have enjoyed Wilson's writing over the years. I've even attended small conferences with him going back over 20 years to my college days. But I find this first chapter annoying, frustrating and something that will prevent me from using it as a grab and go logic text.

[RamonaQ]

Critical Thinking I with my 6th grader. We just started, but I decided I needed the TM ;-) to add in another opinion. I can see this would be a much more fun thing to do with a group.