1. Urban Myth Exercise CRTW 201 Dr. Fike

2. Please Select one person to give me the thumbs up if your group finishes a segment of this exercise before the allotted time is up.

3. Objectives First, you will enhance your understanding of the role of assumptions in our critical thinking process. Second, you will become more aware of how faulty assumptions lead to erroneous conclusions.

4. Todays Q@I Here is the question at issue: why do our assumptions make us vulnerable to fake presentations like urban myth? Write down your current answer to this question. Share it with the whole class.

5. WRITING IN CLASS (7 minutes) Identify, list, and write a brief analysis of the assumptions that you find in the kidney theft myth. First, list the assumptions. Pay particular attention to the difference between the assumptions that you bring to the text and those that are embedded in the text. What is built into the story may not be the same thing as what you bring to the act of reading. (You should create a T chart: your assumptions on one side, those in the text on the other.) Second, write a paragraph in which you analyze each assumption (i.e., explain why it is faulty).

6. SMALL-GROUP DISCUSSION (10 minutes) Discuss your T charts and analyses with your group members. Think in particular about the following questions: How does the story play on our fears? In particular, how does the myth play on our assumptions about the feminine, the city, and the heros journey? Decide which assumptions you want to share with the whole class.

7. LARGE-GROUP DISCUSSION (15 minutes) Share your discoveries about selected assumptions with the whole class. In particular, what do we assume about the city, the feminine, and the heros journey?

8. Question DID YOU NOTICE A RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN ASSUMPTIONS AND IMPEDIMENTS? WHAT IS THE NATURE OF THAT RELATIONSHIP? CAN YOU DRAW IT ON THE BOARD?

9. MORE LARGE-GROUP DISCUSSION (10 minutes) Take your analysis of the story a step further by answering the following questions. Is all-vs.-nothing thinking here? (Nosich, page 22) What shifts do we find in the tale? Who wrote itman or woman? Note difference between the persona and the author. Can you make an argument that a man or a woman is the author?

10. SMALL-GROUP DISCUSSION (10 minutes) Use the questions on pages 71-72 to analyze the urban myth. (Obviously, you do not need to include assumptions.) One person should be a scribe. Groups: If you finish your element(s), go on to others. – Quadrant 1: Qs 2 & 1 (do Q@I first) – Quadrant 2: Q 3 & 4 – Quadrant 3: Qs 5, 7 & 8 – Quadrant 4: Qs 9 & 10 – (See my article, page 127.)

11. Report to the Class (10 minutes) What is your analysis of the urban myth by the elements?

12. Final Question (10 minutes) Take two minutes to write down what you have learned about your thinking today. What have you learned, in particular, about the nature of assumptions? Here again is the question at issue: why do our assumptions make us vulnerable to fake news? Do you have any insights that you did not have at the beginning of this exercise? Share your answers with the whole class.

13. Further Possibilities Assumptions are linked to universal patterns called archetypes. Assumptions can be activated in the unconscious. Assumptions are part of our intuition; they are also linked to instinct; cf. Nosich, page 27: "decisions can be made below the level of our awareness." Assumptions relate to our impediments, background stories, and personal limitations.