What's in LaunchPad for Current Issues and Enduring Questions?
Setting Up and Customizing Your LaunchPad Course
Types of Diagnostic and Summative Assessment Available in LaunchPad for Current Issues and Enduring Questions
Creating and Using Video Assignments
Creating and Using Other LaunchPad Assignment Types
PART ONE Critical Thinking and Reading
Thinking through an Issue: Gay Marriage Licenses
On Flying Spaghetti Monsters: Analyzing and Evaluating from Multiple Perspectives
Stirred and Strained: Pastafarians Should Be Allowed to Practice in Prison (Student Essay)
Generating Ideas: Writing as a Way of Thinking
Nina Fedoroff, The Genetically Engineered Salmon Is a Boon for Consumers and Sustainability
A Short Essay Calling for Critical Thinking
Lynn Stuart Parramore, Fitbits for Bosses
Examining Assumptions
Jena McGregor, Military Women in Combat: Why Making It Official Matters
Thinking Critically: Generating Topics (Chapter 1)
Active Reading
Sanjay Gupta, Why I Changed My Mind on Weed
Summarizing and Paraphrasing
Paraphrase, Patchwriting, and Plagiarism
Susan Jacoby, A First Amendment Junkie
Zachary Shemtob and David Lat, Executions Should Be Televised
Gwen Wilde, Why the Pledge of Allegiance Should Be Revised (Student Essay)
Susan Brownmiller, Let's Put Pornography Back in the Closet
Charles R. Lawrence III, On Racist Speech
Derek Bok, Protecting Freedom of Expression on the Campus
Thinking Critically: Previewing (Chapter 2)
Thinking Critically: Defining Terms and Concepts (Chapter 2)
Persuasion, Argument, Dispute
Reason versus Rationalization
Some Procedures in Argument
Nonrational Appeals
Does All Writing Contain Arguments?
George F. Will, Being Green at Ben and Jerry's
Stanley Fish, When "Identity Politics" Is Rational
Gloria Jiménez, Against the Odds, and against the Common Good (Student Essay)
Anna Lisa Raya, It's Hard Enough Being Me (Student Essay)
Ronald Takaki, The Harmful Myth of Asian Superiority
James Q. Wilson, Just Take Away Their Guns
Kayla Webley, Is Forgiving Student Loan Debt a Good Idea?
Alfred Edmond Jr., Why Asking for a Job Applicant's Facebook Password Is Fair Game
Sherry Turkle, The Flight from Conversation
Thinking Critically: Establishing Trustworthiness and Credibility (Chapter 3)
Thinking Critically: Giving Definitions (Chapter 3)
Uses of Visual Images
Seeing versus Looking: Reading Advertisements
Other Aspects of Visual Appeals
Accommodating, Resisting, and Negotiating the Meaning of Images
Are Some Images Not Fit to Be Shown?
Writing about a Political Cartoon
Jackson Smith, Pledging Nothing? (Student Essay)
Visuals as Aids to Clarity: Maps, Graphs, and Pie Charts
Using Visuals in Your Own Paper
Additional Images for Analysis
Nora Ephron, The Boston Photographs
Thinking Critically: Analysis of a Political Cartoon (Chapter 4)
PART TWO Critical Writing
Analyzing an Argument
Nicholas D. Kristof, For Environmental Balance, Pick Up a Rifle
Betsy Swinton, Tracking Kristof (Student Essay)
Jeff Jacoby, Bring Back Flogging
Gerard Jones, Violent Media Is Good for Kids
Justin Cronin, Confessions of a Liberal Gun Owner
Peter Singer, Animal Liberation
Jonathan Safran Foer, Let Them Eat Dog: A Modest Proposal for Tossing Fido in the Oven
Thinking Critically: Drawing Conclusions and Implying Proof (Chapter 5)
Planning, Drafting, and Revising an Argument
Peer Review
A Student's Essay, from Rough Notes to Final Version
Emily Andrews, Why I Don't Spare "Spare Change" (Student Essay)
Thinking Critically: “Walking the Tightrope” (Chapter 6)
Thinking Critically: Using Transitions in Argument (Chapter 6)
Thinking Critically: Varying Tone (Chapter 6)
Thinking Critically: Eliminating We, One, and I (Chapter 6)
Why Use Sources?
Choosing A Topic
Finding Material
Interviewing Peers and Local Authorities
Evaluating Your Sources
Taking Notes
A Note on Plagiarizing, Paraphrasing, and Using Common Knowledge
Compiling an Annotated Bibliography
Writing the Paper
Quoting from Sources
Documentation
An Annotated Student Research Paper in MLA Format
An Annotated Student Research Paper in APA Format
Thinking Critically: Using Signal Phrases (Chapter 7)
PART THREE Further Views on Argument
The Claim
Grounds
Warrants
Backing
Modal Qualifiers
Rebuttals
James E. McWilliams, The Locavore Myth: Why Buying from Nearby Farmers Won't Save the Planet
Thinking with Toulmin's Method
Thinking Critically: Constructing a Toulmin Argument (Chapter 8)
Deduction
Induction
Fallacies
Max Shulman, Love Is a Fallacy
Rogerian Argument: An Introduction
Carl R. Rogers, Communication: Its Blocking and Its Facilitation
Edward O. Wilson, Letter to a Southern Baptist Minister
Interpreting
Judging (or Evaluating)
Theorizing
Robert Frost, Mending Wall
Andrew Marvell, To His Coy Mistress
Kate Chopin, The Story of an Hour
Thinking about the Effects of Literature
Plato, "The Greater Part of the Stories Current Today We Shall Have to Reject"
Thinking about Government Funding for the Arts
Individual Oral Presentations
The Audience
Delivery
The Talk
Formal Debates
PART Four Current Issues: Occasions for Debate
Robert Applebaum, Debate on Student Loan Debt Doesn’t Go Far Enough
Analyzing a Visual: Student Loan Debt
Justin Wolfers, Forgive Student Loans? Worst Idea Ever
Sig Behrens, The Education-Technology Revolution Is Coming
Analyzing a Visual: Technology in Classrooms
Ruth Starkman, Cyberslacking in Shanghai: What My Students Taught Me
Stephen Budiaksnky, Math Lessons for Locavores
Analyzing a Visual: Local Farming
Kerry Trueman, The Myth of the Rabid Locavore
Nick Gillespie, Millennials Are Selfish and Entitled, and Helicopter Parents Are to Blame
Analyzing a Visual: Overparenting
Alfie Kohn,The One-Sided Culture War Against Children
Ronald M. Green, Building Baby from the Genes Up
Analyzing a Visual: Genetic Modification of Human Beings
Richard Hayes, Genetically Modified Humans? No Thanks
Charles Rangel, The Draft Would Compel Us to Share the Sacrifice
Analyzing a Visual: Military Recruiting
James Lacey, We Need Trained Soldiers, Not a Horde of Draftees
PART FIVE Current Issues: Casebooks
A College Education: What Is Its Purpose?
Carlo Rotella, No, It Doesn't Matter What You Majored In
Ed Conard, We Don't Need More Humanities Majors
Christian Madsbjerg and Mikkel B. Rasmussen, We Need More Humanities Majors
Scott Samuelson, Why I Teach Plato to Plumbers
Mark Slouka, Mathandscience
David Foster Wallace, Commencement Address, Kenyon College
Gene Demby, The Birth of a New Civil Rights Movement
Heather Mac Donald, The New Nationwide Crime Wave
Baltimore Sun Editorial Board, No "Ferguson Effect"
Steve Chapman, Are Blacks to Blame for Cops' Actions?
David H. Bayley, Michael A. Davis, and Ronald L. Davis, Race and Policing: An Agenda for Action
Anonymous Editorial, New York Times, A Ban Too Far
Analyzing a Visual: The Nanny State
Daniel E. Lieberman, Evolution's Sweet Tooth
Donald Marron, Should Governments Tax Unhealthy Foods and Drinks?
Letters of Response by Fizer et al.
Jules Evans, Are We Slaves to Our Online Selves?
Navneet Alang, Eat, Pray, Post
Tim Krieder, I Know What You Think of Me
Charles Seife, This Is Your Brain . . .
Stephen Marche, Is Facebook Making Us Lonely?
Josh Rose, How Social Media Is Having a Positive Impact on Our Culture
David Cole, Five Myths about Immigration
Barry R. Chiswick, The Worker Next Door
John Tierney, Ángels in America
Victor David Hanson, Our Brave New World of Immigration
Analyzing Visuals: Immigration Then and Now
Adam Gopnik, The Carceral State: Why Are So Many Americans in Jail?
Heather Ann Thompson, How Prisons Change the Balance of Power in America
Marian Wright Edelman, The Cradle to Prison Pipeline
Jed S. Rakoff, Mass Incarceration: The Silence of the Judges
Peter Wagner and Bernadette Rabuy, Mass Incarceration: The Whole Pie
Conor Friedersdorf, Breaking Bad: America Has Used Walter White Logic since 9/11
Steven M. Walt, The Myth of American Exceptionalism
Herman Cain, In Defense of American Exceptionalism
Clifford D. May, In Defense of American Exceptionalism
David Bromwich, It's Time to Rethink American Exceptionalism
Ellen Bresler Rockmore, How Texas Teaches History
PART SIX Enduring Questions: Essays, a Story, Poems, and a Play
Thomas More, From Utopia
Niccolò Machiavelli, From The Prince
Thomas Jefferson, The Declaration of Independence
Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions
Martin Luther King Jr., I Have a Dream
W. H. Auden, The Unknown Citizen
Emma Lazarus, The New Colossus
Walt Whitman, One Song, America, Before I Go
Ursula K. Le Guin, The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas
Thoughts about Free Will
Plato, Crito
George Orwell, Shooting an Elephant
Walter T. Stace, Is Determinism Inconsistent with Free Will?
Martin Luther King Jr., Letter from Birmingham Jail
Peter Cave, Man or Sheep?
Thomas Hardy, The Man He Killed
T. S. Eliot, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
Susan Glaspell, Trifles
Mitsuye Yamada, To the Lady
Thoughts about Happiness, Ancient and Modern
Daniel Gilbert, Does Fatherhood Make You Happy?
Henry David Thoreau, Selections from Walden
Darrin M. McMahon, In Pursuit of Unhappiness
Epictetus, From The Handbook
Bertrand Russell, The Happy Life
The Dalai Lama and Howard C. Cutler, Inner Contentment
C. S. Lewis, We Have No "Right to Happiness"
Judy Brady, I Want a Wife