Can someone educate me on Logic?

[SheriGene]

I am logic-challenged, but would love to learn. My dd will be in 7th grade next year and I want to start logic with her. I talked to Martin Cothran (Memoria Press) at a homeschool fair and, of course, he suggested his courses. I have read from many that his courses are very difficult, especially for those not yet in high school, but I don't want to wait that long to do logic. After all, shouldn't we study logic in the logic stage? Could some of you "veterans" give me some advice?

[Lori D.]

Certainly no Logic expert here, so take what I say with a grain of salt... The following is JMO. ;)

 

Personally, I think 7th-8th grade is young for the average student to tackle a formal Logic program -- esp. without much prior learning or practice of logic. Also, the logic and abstract thinking portions of the brain don't tend to start maturing until age 13-14, which is why a lot of students struggle with Algebra (which is largely abstract math concepts). You *can* do it, but it's asking your student to do so before they really have fully developed the tools that make it easier for them to do so. Just my personal little aside/rant. (lol)

 

Things I'd suggest doing first in 7th/8th grades, esp. if you haven't done Logic and critical thinking types of activities previously -- maybe rotate through these, doing a page or two a day for 10 minutes each morning as part of a "brain warm up":

 

1. Logic Liftoff, and then Orbiting with Logic (don't worry about the grade levels; if you have no familiarity with logic, then you'll move quickly through Liftoff, but these give you *great* foundational and introductory info on Logic topics)

 

2. Mindbenders (or similar, less expensive versions, like Perplexors, Grid Perplexors, or free online grid logic puzzles)

 

3. critical thinking puzzles: Critical Thinking Activities in Pattern, Image, Logic by Seymour (either start with the gr. 4-6 book, or try the gr. 7-12 book) Dr. Funster's Think-A-Minutes; Dr. Funster's Creative Thinking Puzzlers (and also, see more ideas below)

 

4. regularly play games that encourage critical thinking, strategy, and logic skills (see ideas below)

 

5. regularly do puzzle pages or solo logic activities of various types (see ideas below)

 

Finally, once you've gone through the Logic Liftoff and Orbiting with Logic, and feel like your student is starting to develop some Logic and Critical Thinking skills, try one of these middle school level logic programs, that focus on fallacies:

- Art of Argument (Larson/Hodge)

- Fallacy Detective Bluedorn)

- Thinking Toolbox (Bluedorn)

 

Once your student has gone through a variety of these resources and has developed more practice and maturity with the critical thinking, logic, and abstract reasoning, THEN I'd say go ahead with a formal Logic program (like, about 9th-10th grade; *maybe* in 8th if the student is READY), such as Cothran's, or the other one very popular with homeschoolers by Nance & Wilson. There are a few other formal Logic programs at Rainbow Resource, as well.

 

BTW -- an activity that nicely dovetails with Logic is Speech/Debate. BEST of luck in your Logic journey! Warmest regards, Lori D.

 

 

More Critical Thinking Puzzles:

- Think-A-Grams; Word Winks; More Word Winks; Plexers, More Plexers

- Critical Thinking Activities in Pattern, Image, Logic(gr. 7-12) -- by Seymour

- 10-Minute Critical-Thinking Activities for English (gr. 6-12) -- by Eaton; Walch Pub. -- the cover says. gr. 10-12, but it is really for middle school/high school

- 10-Minute Critical-Thinking Activities for Math (gr. 9-12) -- by Martin; Walch Pub. -- due to the algebra, for grades 8+

 

solo logic activities:

- Logix

- Scramble Squares

- Tangrams

- Rush Hour Junior

 

games to encourage critical thinking:

- Set

- Mastermind

- Amazing Labrynth

- 221 B. Baker Street

- Checkers

- Chess

- Boggle

- Scrabble

- Quarto

- Tetrus

- Risk

- other strategy computer/board games

 

puzzle pages

- mazes

- word searches

- crosswords, word jumbles, anagrams

- codes, cryptograms

- sudoku puzzles

- ken-ken puzzles

 

books (solving "whodunnits")

- Encyclopedia Brown series (Sobol)

- minute mystery books by Sobol, Conrad, Sukach, Weber, and others

 

 

 

ETA:

And if you want to branch out into some philosophy or ethics, here are some interesting titles to explore. Cheers! Lori

 

- "Harry Stottlemeier's Discovery" ( mix of logic and philosophy at a middle school level) Read more about it in this past thread: "We're only on chapter 2 but..."

- The Pig That Wants to Be Eaten and The Philosopher's Toolkit, both by Baggini -- grade 8+

- Philosophy For Kids and Advanced Philosophy for Kids: The Examined Life (White) -- middle school level

- The Snake and the Fox (Haight) -- high school level

- Nonsense: Red Herrings, Straw Men and Sacred Cows: How We Abuse Logic in Our Everyday Language (Gula) -- high school level

[Mom in High Heels]

I agree with what Lori D said. We are using Building Thinking Skills for logic. It's full of puzzles that are sometimes quite difficult. Usually Indy can do them on his own, but there are some that are really tough and he needs my input (and sometimes I need the input of the answers!). We also do Philosophy for Kids once a week. We both really enjoy that book because it challenges the way the we think about things. Of course it also makes us feel like our brains are going to explode. :)

[jeninok]

Not to hijack!

 

But, do most of the workbooks everyone usually suggests involve doing those logic puzzles with the grid and names/choices across the top and bottom?

 

DH does them for fun, I can't solve the ones made for young children, and DS will run out of the room screaming if we bring one out.

 

That being said, if he is going to argue with the entire world about everything, he might as well learn to do it well and properly!

[RootAnn]

While Martin Cothran completely disagrees, we started with fallacies (Fallacy Detective). I hope to have a few local students join my oldest for Art of Argument next year, which is also a fallacy program. My oldest LOVES FD. It is her favorite subject this year. I'm hoping AoA will be as big of a hit.

 

Anyway, I don't have any long-term BTDT advice.

 

... And if you do pick up MP's Logic program at some point, I think I read that the first chapter is a bugger. Some skim/skip it & the rest of the book goes swimmingly.

[~Anna~]

Not to hijack!

 

But, do most of the workbooks everyone usually suggests involve doing those logic puzzles with the grid and names/choices across the top and bottom?

 

DH does them for fun, I can't solve the ones made for young children, and DS will run out of the room screaming if we bring one out.

 

That being said, if he is going to argue with the entire world about everything, he might as well learn to do it well and properly!

 

Perplexors is set up in columns instead of a grid. My DD loves them! She also does the Math Perplexors which are set up the same way. For Christmas I got her Grid Perplexors, which is set up similar to the traditional grid logic problems. She likes those too, but prefers the regular Perplexors.

[elegantlion]

We started with the Logic Liftoff books in 5th and 6th. Those were good exposure into critical thinking.

 

In 7th we used Art of Argument, which is INformal logic. I think it makes sense to start with informal logic. Art of Argument uses advertisements, which most kids will relate to as being easy to spot the fallacies.

 

In 8th we used Discovery of Deduction (formal logic). I read through the entire teacher's book the summer before. I thought ds would have a hard time, but he gobbled it up.

 

We've moved into philosophy and touching on rhetoric, so this is part of ds' interests and personality is bent that way anyway.

 

I looked at Traditional Logic before using the other products. It felt dry and boring to me. Ds would not have responded well to it. Dod was more "fun", but wordy. Some people don't respond well to it either. TL and DoD are comparable products because they both are FORMAL logic.

 

Art of Argument is comparable to Fallacy Detective and Thinking Toolbox, they are INFORMAL logic.

 

my opinion:

 

I don't think logic informal and especially formal are subjects that should be studied independently. Informal logic is just fun to discuss, ds and I only watch commercials now to critique them.

 

Formal logic really needs a discussion partner. In Dod if they get confused on some of the topics in the early chapters, it can be very hard to understand the later concepts. DoD has a great teacher's guide that is an actual copy of the student text with answers. Traditional Logic has DVDs

 

Another book that is fun for discussions is Philosophy for Kids. Lots of questions to make kids think.

[Lori D.]

But, do most of the workbooks everyone usually suggests involve doing those logic puzzles with the grid and names/choices across the top and bottom?

 

 

 

 

Except for the Mindbenders and Perplexors, all of these workbooks in logic/critical thinking from my post above are NOT grid logic puzzles, but are a wide variety of puzzle types. I personally feel you need to do a range of puzzles to develop different mental skills which all contribute towards logic. JMO! :)

 

For ease, I am cut and pasting the NON grid logic puzzle workbooks here, plus adding a few more for younger grades. Cheers! Lori D.

 

 

 

- workbooks by Prufrock Publishers

- Gifted and Talented series (K-gr. 4) -- by Amerikander or others

- Puzzlemania series (gr. 1-5) -- best of Highlights magazine, the variety of puzzles one, not the maze-only ones

- Super Colossal Hidden Picturepuzzle books -- collections from Highlights magazine

- Lollipop Logic (gr. 2-4)

- Primarily Logic (gr. 2-4)

- Connections series (by grade level)

- Logic Countdown (gr. 3-5), Logic Liftoff (gr. 4-6), Orbiting with Logic (gr. 5-7)

- Logic Safari (much like Logic Countdown series) -- Prufrock Publishers

- Critical Thinking Activities in Pattern, Image, Logic by Seymour (gr. 1-3)(gr. 4-6)(gr.7-12)

- Dr. Funster's Think-A-Minutes (gr. 3-6)

- Dr. Funster's Creative Thinking Puzzlers (gr. 3-6)

- Think-A-Grams; Word Winks; More Word Winks; Plexers, More Plexers (gr. 7-12)

- 10-Minute Critical-Thinking Activities for English (gr. 6-12) -- by Eaton; Walch Pub.

- 10-Minute Critical-Thinking Activities for Math (gr. 9-12) -- by Martin; Walch Pub.

[redsquirrel]

We spend a couple years on informal logic studies, puzzles, analogies, Venn diagrams etc. Now in 7th grade we are using Critical Thinking by Harnadek. We will use Critical Thinking 2 in 8th grade and (I think) call it done. I hate formal logic studies. I had to take a couple semesters of it in college and it was tortuous. Yuck. I will let him explore that in college with a more enthusiastic teacher than I will ever be. I swore I would never have anything to do with modus ponens and modus tollens ever again, and I mean to keep that promise.

[Catherine]

I want to insert a small observation here that helped me to understand the difference between informal (inductive) and formal (deductive) logic. Just to be clear, I have taught the Harnadek Critical Reasoning books twice through already and will start them again next fall with my youngest. I noticed when I taught those books that there are a couple of chapters that focus on "if-then" statements, the converse, etc. They were very difficult for me to grasp initially and particularly, the statements that are patently not true, but are logically valid. After listening to part of a teaching company course on logic, and learning a bit of history, the difficulty was more clear to me.

 

What many logic books fail to make clear to the student is that the factual truth of the premises is critically important to their meaning TO US, but *irrelevant to the validity of the argument being made.* Formal logic is, in a nutshell, about the validity of arguments. Formal logic is not about the truth of arguments, but their validity. Understanding that basic fact helped me greatly in my progress as a student and teacher of logic.

 

In our home school, we have spent much more time on informal logic than on formal logic. To me, it seems more applicable and relevant to our everyday lives. I realize that persuasive arguments are very important to advanced writing, so we may cycle back to it when my son is older. For middle schoolers, informal logic is far more relevant IMO.

 

As far as resources, for middle schoolers we used first the Orbiting with Logic books, then the Harnadek books. When we finished those, my middle ds read Thank You for Arguing, which is actually more about rhetoric, but he enjoyed this greatly.

[SheriGene]

Wow! Thanks so much! I have a lot to research! According to WTM book, we should be done with logic by 9th grade to free up time for rhetoric. If middle schoolers can't really grasp logic so young and have to do it later, am I wrong to assume, you would then not have enough time to take rhetoric and then use it in the junior and senior years?

[Lori D.]

...According to WTM book, we should be done with logic by 9th grade to free up time for rhetoric. If middle schoolers can't really grasp logic so young and have to do it later, am I wrong to assume, you would then not have enough time to take rhetoric and then use it in the junior and senior years?

 

 

 

Perhaps I misunderstood your statement? Are you meaning Rhetoric as a specific subject or class (focus on communication, public speaking, formal writing)? I am thinking of Rhetoric in the general WTM sense -- Rhetoric is the final stage of development (with each student having a unique timetable of maturing) in which the student begins to put into practice, and slowly becomes more fluent in, communicating ideas through reading, thinking about/analyzing what was read, discussing / analyzing with others, and writing about what was learned and their ideas generated from the reading.

 

In that sense, there's no conflict in taking a specific Formal Logic course in high school, while simultaneously also taking a Composition course to learn how to write (Rhetoric skill) and a Literature and/or Humanities class in which the student reads, analyzes and discusses the works read (more Rhetoric skills)...

 

 

Remember: the WTM was written as a general, overall *guideline*, and does not mean to imply that students exit and enter the different stages on a rigid timetable: "exit Logic stage grade 8... enter Rhetoric stage grade 9". With each stage, the student EASES into the area that is maturing and ready for developing when the student is ready. You gain traction and work more heavily with it in the following years, and gain mastery -- while at the same time other areas of the brain are maturing and you begin easing into developing those new areas... :)

 

At least for us, the reality of Logic and Rhetoric stages was that we overlapped throughout middle/high school. In grades 7 and 8, we were doing many of the resources I suggested to you in my post for Logic; we also did lots of investigating and question-asking for Science, History, etc. (general logic stage skills/development). But we also started very gentle rhetoric stage skills -- doing some Writing programs to work towards solid statement of your thesis or contention, and backing it up with support. Also, discussions on the Literature and Social Studies -- most were me asking very guided questions, and DSs responding with monosyllabic answers. ;)

 

Moving into high school: the first 2 years of high school, DSs did a Formal Logic course led by DH. They were still asking a lot of questions (logic stage skills), but also beginning to sometimes follow through with answers (thinking/commuicating skills of rhetoric stage), or at least outlining how they could go about answering their questions. For example: how they might set up an experiment to answer a science question. We also continued to develop rhetoric skills -- more and longer Writing, with support for their ideas (timed persuasive essays from past SAT prompts, for example). And more involved discussion (often a 1-2 sentence answer! LOL!) and analysis of the Literature and Social Studies.

 

By the last 2 years of high school: Now the rhetoric skills were really developing and being put into full use -- research, longer papers, persuasive essays, debates as part of the mock legislative program they were involved in, Worldviews coursework for analyzing different religions and philosophies, actually volunteering insights and supporting opinions and thoughts as we read the Literature and History...

 

 

Hope that helps give you a clearer picture of what the process might look like in real life! Please disregard if that was completely off-topic (lol). :leaving:

 

BEST of luck in your Logic-transition-into-Rhetoric Journey! Warmest regards, Lori D.

[Catherine]

 

Also, discussions on the Literature and Social Studies -- most were me asking very guided questions, and DSs responding with monosyllabic answers. ;)

 

 

 

 

 

OK, this is very familiar and made me LOL.

 

Catherine

[fluffybunny]

The year before I started homeschooling I trained myself in logic. I completed no less than 13 books and workbooks on logic ... it became an addiction! LOL! My own training has been of immense benefit to my ds, now 12, to have a good background in logic while I teach him, as I know where I got stuck and can help him.

 

I found the Nance Intro to Logic the best to learn Formal Logic from. I didn't like his Intermediate Logic, but I really like the 2nd book of Cothran's (while not so much the first). The Nance workbook is excellent, as the reader has to practice each new skill they learn, and each lesson is short and sweet.

 

Agreeing with others, the Fallacy Detecitve is a great intro. I know Martin Cothan suggests formal logic first. But my ds really enjoyed the FD and - most importantly - it made him much happier to learn "more logic" via the more abstract formal logic books.

[SheriGene]

Lori D. Well, i guess I meant formal Rhetoric classes like persuasive writing and speaking. This is one thing (of many) I missed in school. I was taught to do a research paper, but not a persuasive essay or paper. The same with speech. I need to learn this along side my dd. With these skills then I see her using it with her more advanced learning the last year or two of high school and so on. With that said, it is true that you can't force logical thinking too early if the aptitude is not yet there. I appreciate your thorough post. It gives me much to consider.

 

Sheri