• Recognize the skills and practices that go into deciding whether to accept a claim.
• Understand the definition of "issue" and the role of issues in debates.

Understand the role of arguments in critical thinking.

• Learn the definitions of argument, premise, and conclusion.
• Recognize the difference between an argument and means of persuasion, or between an argument and an explanation.
• Become familiar with the linguistic cues that help to identify an argument and its parts.

Understand the nature and role of issues in critical thinking.

• Be able to identify the issue at stake in an argument.
• Understand the difference between a factual and a nonfactual issue.
• Realize that nonfactual issues must be approached differently from factual ones (but that they do not have to be given up on entirely).
• Understand the shortcomings of both relativism and subjectivism.

Begin to get familiar with critical thinking's attention to clarity and rationality.

• Acquire some sensitivity to the psychological impact of language in arguments and in the description of issues.
• Be prepared to use certain terms like "issue" and "truth" with greater specificity than one usually does in ordinary language.