Thinking Moves:

Essential Steps in Developing Deep Understanding

Thinking Moves

Observable
Thinking
Behaviours
Observing closely Notice parts and
and describing
features
whats there
Take detailed notes to
record observations
Describe parts and
features in detail

Actions that Demonstrate Deep Thinking

Snowden:
- Article much more strongly sees Snowden as a
whistleblower
List of offenses the US government has committed
How difficult it was for Snowden to possibly go back
or use the whistleblower system put in place
- Snowden put his own freedom and life at risk to reveal the
shocking abuses by the US intelligence agencies and his
actions seem like a selfless deed of a whistleblower having
asked for no money and disclosing all the confidential
information such as:
NSA seizing phone and text records of almost every
American citizen in the US and to quote House of
Cards character Zoe Barnes, These days, when
youre talking to one person, youre talking to a
thousand and while contextually that was not what
she meant, it has become the literal truth because
the NSA knows exactly what youre doing
Surveillance of at least 122 world leaders including
Merkel
Forced cooperation of US telecommunication
companies to turn over data on every US citizen
under programmes like PRISM
Programmes like XKeyscore to search "nearly
everything a user does on the Internet" through data
it intercepts across the world
The interception of millions of calls in foreign
countries, including every single call in places like
Afghanistan.
- The article largely fails to address how he is a traitor as
every evidence the author pulls out to support the claim is

put down with an almost sarcastic remark such as :

Responding to Clintons passive aggressive
statement, I was puzzled because we have all these
protections for whistleblowers. If he were concerned
and wanted to be part of the American debate, he
could have been, he said, Really, how? I
represented the prior whistleblower who first
revealed aspects of this programme years before
Snowden. As I have testified in Congress, the
whistleblower system referred to by Clinton is a
colossal joke.
The whistleblower laws for national security have
exceptions and Snowden could not use them
In addition, under the Congress supervision, Snowden
would definitely be arrested
Responding to John Kerrys macho advice, Man up
and come back to the United States, the author
retorted with, Kerry appears ready to give him an
"attaboy" on his way to solitary confinement to cut
off virtually any contact with the outside world
His final paragraph begins with take your pick, but
really, HES the one being passive aggressive and
implying that there really is no other option than to
admit he was a hero
Homosexual Rights:
- Tennessee store owner put up a sign saying No Gays
Allowed and its legal, causing controversy
- Most states, 31, do not have bans against discrimination
based on sexual orientation or gender identity
- Surveys show that most people think that there are laws
already put in place to prevent it and also a majority of
the population believe there should be equality for LGBTQ
- "When people already think these protections are in place,
it can be difficult to work up the motivation that's
necessary to push for them," Ian Thompson, LGBTQ
legislative director at the American Civil Liberties Union
- The same arguments have been used against black
people and for segregation prior to the Civil Rights

Movement, so it begs the question of whether or not it will

take the same struggle as the blacks did to gain their
freedom
- When Justice Kennedy supported the majority in the
recent Obergefell v. Hodges case he said, The nature of
injustice is that we may not always see it in our own
times and so the Supreme Courts decision became the
stepping stone into the future
- Until people begin to see the inequality, whether or not
they believe it has been resolved, they will not act
- Quote from Same Love by Macklemore and Ryan Lewis
Its the same hate thats caused wars from religion,
Gender to skin colour, the complexion of your pigment,
The same fight that led people to walk outs and sit ins, It's
human rights for everybody, there is no difference
Satanists:
- Surprisingly liberal but article is probably only showing
one side
- Anti-abortion laws and pro-LGBTQ rights
- The Satanic Temple: the nicest Satanic cult in the world
- They often resurface on the media shortly after a Supreme
Court decision has granted more liberty based on religious
freedom
Abortion:
- This article was very much one-sided against abortion
laws
- The author gave stories of how abortion laws endangered
the lives of both the mother and the baby, and in many
cases, crippling the mother herself both physically and in
the society (especially when they get thrown in jail for
alleged cases of murder)
Gun Violence:
- Offers statistics but from only one, albeit probably
accurate, source
How to refocus the tens of thousands of jobs that
would be lost by ending the gun industry? focus
question
- Here are some of the statistics given:

Gun violence costs more than 700$ per American a

year which adds up to around 229 billion that the US
government spends on, more than education
750,000 Americans injured by gunshots in the past
decade (around 75,000 each year) and 350,000 of
them were killed
- Each time someone is hit, expenses must be sent on
emergency services, police investigations, and long-term
medical and mental-health care, as well as court and
prison costs
- But much more importantly but not directly following the
attack is the indirect consequencescosting 221 of the
229 billion dollarsit has including: lost income, losses
to employers, and impact on quality of life
- Gun violence hasnt been researched on much and put out
for public awareness because a prime reason is that the
National Rifle Association and other influential gun rights
advocates have long pressured political leaders to shut
down research related to firearms.
- There are more money that cannot be calculated and
therefore isnt put into the accounted cost
Trauma and fear that stunt neighbourhood
development and prompt schools to deploy armed
guards
It stunts economic development and provokes major
spending on security and prevention
Black Rights:
- There are more African-Americans under correctional
control in prison or jail, on probation or parole than
were enslaved in 1850, a decade before the Civil War
began
- Once you incarcerate someone, its difficult for them to
once again be reinstituted into the society because
theyre branded felons for eternity and it appears on their
resumes and no one hires an ex-convict; thus, a better
system must be in place to not only lower the
incarceration rate but also help those within to be better
integrated into the outside world

State and local law enforcement agencies have been

rewarded in cash for the sheer numbers of people swept
into the system for drug offenses, thus giving law
enforcement agencies an incentive to go out and look for
the so-called 'low-hanging fruit': stopping, frisking,
searching as many people as possible, pulling over as
many cars as possible, in order to boost their numbers up
and ensure the funding stream will continue or increase
Its an incentive for cops to go out of their way to
incarcerate suspected people on drugs so they can
get more money and who do they go to first? Black
people.
Slightly doubtful of her claim that the War on Drugs was
part of a grand Republican Party strategy known as the
"Southern strategy" of using racially coded 'get-tough'
appeals on issues of crime and welfare to appeal to poor
and working-class whites, particularly in the South, who
were resentful of, anxious about and threatened by many
of the gains of African-Americans in the civil rights
movement."
Democrats havent made it a big point to try to stop
the War on Drugs, Obama has stated that he sees
it as largely unproductive, but he admitted he does
not believe any major national policy would be
created to change that, partly because he knows it
would not be passed with the Republican majority,
but also because Democrats know theyll be met with
fierce opposition if they did so
She compares the system of incarceration to the caste
system rather than a system to control and prevent crime
because the racial differences and profiling is obvious
Ta-Nehisi-Coates mocks the US incarceration system by
stating that it would be working fine if the government
believes prison is an effective means of jailing massive
numbers of people and is an effective means of dealing
with the myriad of social needs of the African American
community
There has been a long history of dealing with the

Making
connections

Connect new
information with
whats known

Identify patterns and

perspectives
Identify areas of
agreement and
disagreement
between sources

problems in the African American community through

criminal justice systems, criminalizing social problems in
ways [the government] doesnt do in other communities
(Latinos I would argue have also bore the brunt of the
sword)
60 to 70% of jails are suffering some kind of mental
problem
Over 50% dealing with some kind of chemical
dependency
Look at the massive number (one-third) of African
men who are unemployed and the almost identical
rate of the same group being in prison
The enduring view of African Americans in the
country is as abrasive people prone to criminality
(goes into the social perception of the race and much
less so on the legal system)
The US Government cannot limit liberty much because it
built its whole country around the philosophy and there
would be fierce opposition if they intended on doing so as
has happened in the past as early as the Adams
presidency with the Aliens and Sedition Act. Thus, it
entertains almost unlimited freedom of speech and
expression but keeps it under control with an over-arching
surveillance system known as the NSA
The NSA ensures almost everyone in the United States,
although this claim seems to be slightly exaggerated, is
under surveillance as to ensure no national threat is
provoked
Great example would be the incident with Michele
Catalano. It was four months after the bombing and
Michele was a Long Island resident looking for
pressure cookers online, her husband was looking for
backpacks and her son was researching on the
Boston Marathon. These links tied together led the
feds to their doorsteps and it just shows how much
surveillance there is on their part against their own
citizens.
But in the mean time, people are free to express their

Wondering and
Imagine possible
asking questions
connections and
implications

Relate ideas to
emotions and
values
Create questions to
propel further
inquiry
Building
Examine similarities
explanations and
and differences
interpretations
Hypothesize and test
ideas

Summarize the main

idea

Uncovering

Identify and reject

views as much as they want, evident with the Westboro

Baptist Church, and also acceptance of Satanists on the
governments part which is most countries in the world as
well as in almost ANY other part of history would have
been persecuted for believing
How do we reinstitute the 209,750 jobs that would be lost
by ending the gun industry?
Referring to the anti-gay article, people in the past have
used the same claims they have today against LGBTQ
rights to fight for segregation, including using their
religion as part of their arsenal, so what exactly is the
difference here? Will we see a recurrence of the Civil
Rights Movement but instead for LGBTQ community?
Is there a pattern in these different contentious issues that
show a trend of which religion or faction is supporting or
against each of the different situations?
The KKK used religious claims to support their violence
against black people claiming that God called on every
red-blooded white man to use any means to keep the
[insert: black people] away from the polls, declared by
their leader Theodore Bilbo, who was on the Senate
His racism WAS his religion as to him purity of race is a
gift of God And God, in his infinite wisdom, has so
ordained it that when man destroys his racial purity, it can
never be redeemed. Allowing the blood of the races to mix
was a direct attack on the Divine plan of God, as he
wrote himself
Thus, his claims were based on religion but ultimately his
cause lost to the Civil Rights Movement, thankfully
The same can be said about LGBTQ rights, the
government cannot intervene on your practice of
whatever religion you choose, but when it comes to an
extent when youre actively discriminating against other
people, it becomes a problem, they are very different
cases that people are often mixing together
Religious practice and religious discrimination is very
different things that should be made clear
Slightly doubtful of her claim that the War on Drugs was

complexity and
going below the
surface

simplistic
explanations
Search for alternative
evidence and
explanations
Examine all parts of
issues to explore
complexity
Search for deep
causes
-

part of a grand Republican Party strategy known as the

"Southern strategy" of using racially coded 'get-tough'
appeals on issues of crime and welfare to appeal to poor
and working-class whites, particularly in the South, who
were resentful of, anxious about and threatened by many
of the gains of African-Americans in the civil rights
movement."
Democrats havent made it a big point to try to stop
the War on Drugs, Obama has stated that he sees
it as largely unproductive, but he admitted he does
not believe any major national policy would be
created to change that, partly because he knows it
would not be passed with the Republican majority,
but also because Democrats know theyll be met with
fierce opposition if they did so
The abortion article was by far too one-sided in support of
legalizing abortion and very much against the Republican
stance
To begin with, yes there definitely has been an
increase in the amount of people whos arrests or
equivalent action has deprived them of their liberty
but both those numbers, 413 and 380, respectively,
are below 500 and FAR from representative of the
population
Much of the article is spent telling horror stories of
these terrible incidences and violation of what seems
like simple human morals but not on giving any
significant statistics
A good argument for the fight for legalizing abortion
would not be based on telling people about how
pregnant women are endangered from abortion laws,
but on much more convincing arguments such as:
Embryos and foetuses do not have the biological
capability of feeling pain when abortion is performed
and barely passes an actual living creature as its not
an independent or self-determining being
In addition, abortion is beneficial for young teenagers
who may have unwittingly gotten pregnant and the

Considering
different
viewpoints and
perspectives

Search for alternative

explanations
Evaluate the evidence
of opposing
perspectives
Self-assess and revise
own arguments in
light of alternative
viewpoints

birth of the baby would be bad for both the mother

and the child living in an unstable and an much more
economically disadvantageous family
Gun Violence:
- http://business.time.com/2012/12/18/americas-guneconomy-by-the-numbers/
- Article on Times actually shows the harm that could come
from even trying to end the firearms industry because of
the military-industrial complexin its simplest definition,
is the inseparable relationship that has been glued
together between military development and countless
multi-national industries/corporations that fund and help
manufacture the weaponry
That is why according to Times, 209,750 jobs in the
US alone is related to the firearms industry and they
earn 10 billion in revenue annually
From 2008 to 2011, there was a 30% increase in
employment in the industry
131,806 people are federally licensed dealers
The industry earns an estimated 6 billion in revenue
each year
5.5 million new firearms are created each year
5.1 billion dollars of estimated federal and state
taxes are generated by the industry
- While looking at the financial side, the amount of money
earned is dwarfed by the cost for the government, but
looking at sheer amount, the amount of people directly
affected, simply looking the jobs related to the industry
alone, disregarding all other factors, the numbers can go
match and may even exceed those impacted every year
from gun violence
- In addition, the American people do not know how much in
damages gun violence costs each year and its difficult for
them to visualize but knowing that their gun rights and
probably more importantly, jobs, are secured, is more
important to them because its part of their everyday lives
Black Rights:
- Because Jim Crow and discrimination laws no longer exist,

I would argue that this is much more a case of social

perception based on racial profiling than the legal system
itself
Yes, black people are much more easily convicted
than whites, but is this because the law has anything
against them? No, its because the people deciding
have a stronger bias against black people and much
more easily believes claims that they are guilty of
crime, lowering the bar of the evidence beyond
reasonable doubt.
Ties into Ta-Nehisi-Coatess point about the enduring view
on African Americans
Slightly Tangential: Prison inmates take care of shelter
dogs
2.7 million adoptable cats and dogs euthanized each
year, the incarcerated population is just short of
that, around 2.3 million so there are actually enough
of these animals to go around
Its mutually beneficial, in the prison its difficult for
inmates to harbour emotions for anyone else but
themselves because of how distant they are from the
real world and having them take care of animals is a
great way to build a bond; in a prison, you dont go
there to make friends, you try to keep yourself alive
and wait until youre let out again but those animals
can actually be your companion, they have no
preconceived judgment of the inmates
These programs have been conducted before such as
Arkansas Paws in Prison or the Puppies for Parole,
etc.
The dogs have a remarkable impact on offenders,
improving offender behaviour and giving offenders
incentive to maintain excellent conduct records, said
George A. Lombardi, director of the Missouri
Department of Corrections
Slightly Tangential: Extending Pell grants to prisoners
so that they have a better chance when they leave prison,
itll significantly decrease the return rate of the inmates

Higher Order Questions:

1) Should the US grant so many rights to people for freedom of speech, religion, expression, and right to
bear arms if they will simply have to resort to using nation-wide surveillance from the NSA? Or should
they limit peoples freedoms in the law and prevent from needing to use NSAs invasion of privacy on its
own people?
2) Is the high rate of incarceration of black people, significantly more so compared to the white population,
more due to the flawed legal system, or the perceptions of black people as a whole in society?