Guide for Leading Discussions Using Touchstones

9781878461001

1878461001

Touchstones Volumes I and II equip both college and career bound students with the skills necessary to thrive in a world in which communication, cooperation, and critical thinking are essential to their success. Touchstones discussions can fit into most English or social studies curricula and are designed specifically to encourage active listening, reasoning, reading comprehension, and individual and group responsibility. Students learn to formulate their own opening questions, attend to classroom dynamics, and eventually lead their own discussions. Students who intend to work after high school will find that the skills in collaboration, communication, and listening built in Touchstones are invaluable in the workplace. College-bound students will feel more comfortable in seminar classes and confident while reading and discussing the works of the great thinkers. They will also take their attitude of independent inquiry and thinking into the lecture hall, making these more traditional forms of teaching both more accessible and relevant. Touchstones Volumes I and II contain readings from: The Physics, Metaphysics, and Ethics, Aristotle The Iliad and Odyssey, Homer Cassandra, Florence Nightengale Discourse on Method, Rene Descartes The Confessions, Saint Augustine What is a Man?, Mark Twain The Origin of Species, Charles Darwin Metaphysics of Morals, Immanuel Kant Is Government by the Majority Right?, Frederick Douglass The Republic, Plato Doctrine of the Middle Way, Chung Yung