Critical Thinking Triangle applications--Kbutton, anyone...

[PeterPan]

So I'm pondering with my Mucinex-distorted brain, and I had this idea that we should be able to make a blank of the Critical Thinking Triangle (MW/SGM) and analyze something every day using it. And it seems to me it ought to apply to politics, literature, history, all sorts of things. Is that crazy?

[kbutton]

Not crazy. I'll have to come back to this later though, maybe tonight.

What books do you have? Do you have the CTT set? Do you have Making Connections? My books are with the tutor, but I can probably come up with some ideas. 

[PeterPan]

Yup, I have the 3 autism volumes. I didn't buy the CTT set. I was thinking of just doing it, like every day having a little model to analyze for the points, boom.

I also need to sort out the difference between a journalistic telling (who, what, when, where, why, how) and a 6 second story. I think we could do the 5Ws for a retelling of a news story each morning. 

I need things that engage him. Engagement was what the IS said was the winning formula here, the thing to make sure I'm nailing. So our team as we brainstormed were thinking news story every morning, hit a language goal. He also kind of enjoys politics and controversy, which is why I'm thinking (in this very political, controversial time, haha) that it wouldn't be hard to have a quite story every day to apply the CTT to. And you had said it was whizbang for your ds, opening his world...

[kbutton]

How does your DS do with emotion words and such? Is he conversant in those if you're just talking? I am not sure he needs to be, I am just trying to think through what parts of the product are in the CTT kit vs. Thememaker vs. Making Connections (which are the components we have) to know what you have to work with. 

It will likely be a difficult concept to pull together--does the Making Connections book, in general, seem like it will be a big hurdle, or does it look do-able? We started with the CTT set and Thememaker and had to add in Making Connections. The author didn't think we'd quite need Making Connections, and we almost didn't, but I'm thinking that nailing that book probably makes a difference in success with the CTT. 

But yes, I think it's worth a try! Will try to get back to you later. Just thinking on it in pieces.

[PeterPan]

Oh you're onto something there that I clearly hadn't thought through. Yes, emotions are super high on the priority list this year. Like almost tip top. They're sort of phase 2 of our interoception work too. He had done some emotion work with an OT a few years ago, but it wasn't functional, wasn't connecting. Now that we're trying to use emotion language in connected ways, he doesn't get it. He can't look at a comic and say the villian is frustrated, whatever. 

So you're right, if you need the emotional processing to go into CTT work, then working on the emotions will be pivotal to more than I realized. 

[Lecka]

Maybe a news story about why someone did something?  

https://www.npr.org/2019/08/01/747037627/this-remote-corner-of-nevada-is-one-of-the-darkest-places-in-the-world

I just skimmed some news sites, and for a lot of news stories I don’t see how they would work well, but this one seems like it would.

It’s set up told from a person’s perspective and explaining why that person thinks it is cool:  to have a designated dark area to be able to see the stars better.  

[Lecka]

The thing is — I think it goes with a narrative.  So I think it would work well with a narrative set up as a narrative in some way (a person does something) where there is some reason for why the person did that thing.  

There needs to be some reason why someone did something, I think.

I think for a political view, I can see that if a news story was explaining why someone adopted a political view, like if they had a personal narrative of some kind (a personal experience, a family story) then that could work. 

I don’t think it could work for just any news story, but it could work for a lot.  A lot of news stories are framed around an interview with someone or following a person, where there would be a narrative. 

Just my thoughts!  

[Lecka]

I think that is for more of a use of reading comprehension, making a summary using the CTT.  

If you wanted to use it to create a narrative in response to a political story, I think it would be possible.  But it would be more of making a narrative than making a summary, I think.  

But I think it would work for that too?  

Like — in the news article I linked, the child could say he would like to live there or not, or like to go there on vacation or not, and why or why not, and include interests or feelings about why (it would be boring or it would be interesting based on liking stars a lot or wishing there was more to do).  

[Lecka]

Politicians do often tie their political message to some personal narrative. Like — Pres. Trump saying he knows how rich people can manipulate the political system because he used to make political donations.  There is a personal narrative there.  I could say how I think that makes Pres. Trump feel about the influence of political contributions.  

But not all news stories will have that kind of personal explanation.  

But I just watched the Democratic debates, and there were definitely parts where they used a personal experience to explain why they held a certain position.  Like — there was a sick grandmother mentioned.  It is easy to infer feelings someone would have when they have a sick grandmother.  Someone else was raised in a family where there was a lot of stress and tension because of a lack of money.  Feelings were directly stated.  

But not every news story has that, I guess, I think it would work better with certain news stories than with just any news story.  

 

[PeterPan]

I think this video, of the CTT with pockets, was what I was remembering with this idea that you could use it to think through more complex situations like international politics, economic policy, etc. You could set up two of them and compete even to show the different viewpoints. I don't know, the whole idea may have been crazy. I think no matter what kbutton is right that first we have to nail this emotion stuff, the phase two of interoception. It's like now that he's feeling his BODY the words are disconnected from the process, out there, no meaning. So we have to reconnect them. 

 

[Lecka]

That looks cool!!!!!

[Lecka]

That Critical Thinking Triangle in Action book is more advanced than the Book 2 that comes with the autism collection.  

[kbutton]

That video is fantastic. I hadn't seen that, and I hadn't seen someone use it as a series of thoughts like that. So, from a personal standpoint, maybe using it as a demonstration to normalize the process of using the CTT set would be a good starting point to work on interoception and emotions. Like, maybe you could use it for things that happen in a very straight line--almost like antecedent, behavior, consequence, actually. So, maybe you could use it for making choices--you could choose between a brownie and an apple for a snack, but you'll chose the apple because you'd rather share the brownies together later as a family because it's more fun to eat them together.

I could see using the CTT demonstratively many time with social stories or to narrate something back that you'd like to reinforce. So, if your DS makes a great choice, you could talk about how in situation x, you noticed he felt stressed/happy/overstimulated, but then he used one of his strategies for a situation like that. It made you happy because he's been working so hard to remember his strategies. 

So, that's not at all what you asked in your original question, but that's what the video made me think about. 

[kbutton]

Mindwing put this on their FB today: https://www.jessiegrahamcoach.com/blog/2019/5/27/story-grammar-marker-is-trauma-informed?fbclid=IwAR3_a8V3v1aEjfB8xpOwjK4pkOJYU7OZUo2CvByXLEKFtrpF_2M0kKidDDg

This is maybe a place to aim for when we're talking about practical problem solving.

[kbutton]

17 hours ago, Lecka said:

The thing is — I think it goes with a narrative.  So I think it would work well with a narrative set up as a narrative in some way (a person does something) where there is some reason for why the person did that thing.  

There needs to be some reason why someone did something, I think.

 

17 hours ago, Lecka said:

I think that is for more of a use of reading comprehension, making a summary using the CTT.  

So, Mindwing's big point is that narrative precedes expository, right? So, you probably do need to nail narrative first, BUT, just as with all the expository stuff, it's like it's a parallel process. Could you, theoretically, use the CTT to do a science lesson. Yes? But at this point, you are likely going to need to use it as a demonstration.

The piece that was meaningful for my son is that the CTT gave him a system for prioritizing and seeing what is the main point. It helped him see all the separate facts as being related, and they are related by the Central Idea in the CTT. There are stories (and articles) that meander off topic all the time, and there are also subplots (not just embedded episodes). That was one thing that drove me nuts when the SLP started this. She was okay with just taking any storyline and using the tool. I kept noticing subplots, lol! When you look at the whole big picture, you can kind of try on and discard theories about which storyline (or main idea) is The Big One to keep in mind because it will be the one that most closely follows an entire episode and ALSO fulfills some kind of CTT sequence with the cohesive ties. But, I am someone who has to make things harder to make them easier, and so is my son, lol!

Regarding the expository part--you would be using the CTT as part of the Thememaker stuff (I don't know if expository is in the Story Grammar Marker books). You would be reusing the icons flexibly for abstract ideas. Then, you would be using academic vocabulary for the cohesive ties, some of which would be subject-specific. Obviously in elementary school, that's less abstract and less subject-specific, but over time, you can recycle that whole CTT for more complicated text.

In elementary, I bet you could use the triangle for answering fairly simple but open-ended questions, such as, "Why do you think that animal has an exo-skeleton?" In history, "So and so said they invented this thing because y," which is kind of the reverse, but you can then reason through the explanation. For something like an invention, it could be to solve a practical problem, but it can have a secondary answer about motivations ("My sister was sick a lot and had to have this procedure done often"). So, you might have to think through a pitfall or two first.

6 hours ago, PeterPan said:

I think this video, of the CTT with pockets, was what I was remembering with this idea that you could use it to think through more complex situations like international politics, economic policy, etc. You could set up two of them and compete even to show the different viewpoints. I don't know, the whole idea may have been crazy. I think no matter what kbutton is right that first we have to nail this emotion stuff, the phase two of interoception. It's like now that he's feeling his BODY the words are disconnected from the process, out there, no meaning. So we have to reconnect them. 

I love that idea. I think that you would have to back it way, way up to something more straightforward like "The sister wants to watch the show on Live TV and can't record it for later while the brother wants to watch a DVD. Why would it be nice to let the sister watch her show?" And honestly, that's probably not that straightforward--something more concrete would be better, but that's what came to mind.

5 hours ago, Lecka said:

That Critical Thinking Triangle in Action book is more advanced than the Book 2 that comes with the autism collection.  

I was wondering about that. Thank you for saying so. I don't have them in front of me, and won't until at least Monday. 

[kbutton]

https://mindwingconcepts.com/blogs/news/tech-tuesday-summer-study-series-because-and-so-science

Just quickly noticed this and didn't screen it really well, but this sounds relevant to the conversation.

[PeterPan]

11 minutes ago, kbutton said:

https://mindwingconcepts.com/blogs/news/tech-tuesday-summer-study-series-because-and-so-science

Just quickly noticed this and didn't screen it really well, but this sounds relevant to the conversation.

Ooo that's huge, good find! And you know, I'm wondering why the MW/SGM FB page doesn't feed me into their blog posts? I've seen their blog posts in the past but if they don't put it to FB I don't think to go look there.