Developing Formal Reasoning through the Study of English

Although hardly immune to criticism, Piaget\u27s concept of sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete, and formal operational stages of thought has considerable face validity. In view of the accumulated Piagetian observations that critical reasoning skills develop in a generally sequential order, the finding that a substantial proportion of adolescents and adults demonstrate very little competency with formal reasoning skills poses a serious educational concern. The purpose of this article is to present ten practical teaching procedures to encourage students to develop formal reasoning skills. A 12th-grade English course will be used as an example