Question details:
About the Reading Analysis of “Where Have All the Criminals Gone?”
from Leavitt and Dubner’s Freakonomics

Purpose:

The purpose of this assignment is to introduce you to Wolcott’s “Steps for Better Thinking” model by applying it to Stephen Leavitt and Steven Dubner’s critical thinking / problem solving process in Chapter 4 of their book Freakonomics.

“Critical thinking” is a phrase that might have slightly different ‘definitions’ for everyone who uses it, so we will be using Wolcott’s model to give us a common set of terms and steps for talking and thinking about, and practicing this abstract concept. Wolcott’s model itself will likely make the most sense when put into applied practice. Leavitt and Dubner’s “thinking on the page” overall in Freakonomics, and especially in their “Where Have All the Criminals Gone?” chapter, offers an unusually explicit performance of Wolcott’s model, as they go about solving their “open ended problems.” (Plus I hope you find what you read from Freakonomics to be as interesting and thought-provoking as I do — maybe you’ll even want to go out and buy the whole book ??