Bloom's taxonomy domains
Introduction:
Benjamin Bloom's Taxonomy of Learning Domains - Cognitive, Affective, Psychomotor Domains - design and evaluation toolkit for training and learning
Bloom's Taxonomy, was initially published in 1956 under the leadership of American academic and educational expert Dr Benjamin S Bloom. 'Bloom's Taxonomy' was originally created in and for an academic context, when Benjamin Bloom chaired a committee of educational psychologists, based in American education, whose aim was to develop a system of categories of learning behavior to assist in the design and assessment of educational learning. Bloom's Taxonomy model has mainly three domains which are as follow:
• Cognitive domain 
• Affective domain 
• Psychomotor domain 
1. Cognitive domain - (intellect - knowledge - 'think')
Bloom's Taxonomy 1956 Cognitive Domain is as follows. An adjusted model was produced by Anderson and Krathwhol in 2001 in which the levels five and six (synthesis and evaluation) were inverted. This is why you will see different versions of this Cognitive Domain model. Debate continues as to the order of levels five and six, which is interesting given that Bloom's Taxonomy states that the levels must be mastered in order.
2. Affective domain - (feeling, emotions - attitude - 'feel')
Bloom's Taxonomy second domain, the Affective Domain, was detailed by Bloom, Krathwhol and Masia in 1964. Bloom's theory advocates this structure and sequence for developing attitude - also now commonly expressed in the modern field of personal development as 'beliefs'. Again, as with the other domains, the Affective Domain detail provides a framework for teaching, training, assessing and evaluating the effectiveness of training and lesson design and delivery, and also the retention by and affect upon the learner or trainee.
3. Psychomotor domain - (physical - skills - 'do')
The Psychomotor Domain was ostensibly established to address skills development relating to manual tasks and physical movement, however it also concerns and covers modern day business and social skills such as communications and operation IT equipment, for example telephone and keyboard skills, or public speaking. Thus, 'motor' skills extend beyond the originally traditionally imagined manual and physical skills, so always consider using this domain, even if you think your environment is covered adequately by the Cognitive and Affective Domains. Whatever the training situation, it is likely that the Psychomotor Domain is significant. 

Revised Bloom Taxonomy:
The Bloom Taxonomy of Educational Objectives was revised in Spring 2001. This note describes the revisions that were recently made to the taxonomy reported in your textbook. It is easier to understand and use in many ways, so you may use either one you wish in doing your test construction project.
Review of the changes
First, the revised Bloom taxonomy gives slightly different names to the 6 levels of the hierarchy:
• remember (was knowledge)
• understand (was comprehension)
• apply (was application)
• analyze (was analysis)
• evaluate (was evaluation)
• create (was synthesis)
Conclusion:
Bloom's Taxonomy is a wonderful reference model for all involved in teaching, training, learning, coaching - in the design, delivery and evaluation of these development methods. At its basic level, the Taxonomy provides a simple, quick and easy checklist to start to plan any type of personal development. It helps to open up possibilities for all aspects of the subject or need concerned, and suggests a variety of the methods available for delivery of teaching and learning. As with any checklist, it also helps to reduce the risks of overlooking some vital aspects of the development required.

Original Text:
Linda Elder with Richard Paul
Though most teachers aspire to make critical thinking a primary objective of their instruction, most also do not realize that, to develop as thinkers, students must pass through stages of development in critical thinking. That is, most teachers are unaware of the levels of intellectual development that people go through as they improve as thinkers. We believe that significant gains in the intellectual quality of student work will not be achieved except to the degree that teachers recognize that skilled critical thinking develops, only when properly cultivated, and only through predictable stages.

My paraphrase:
Despite the fact that majority of the teachers could not realise that to become an effective critical thinker students must be gone through its various development stages, they aspire to make critical thinking as a primary objective of their instruction. Which means teachers are not aware of the gradual development of people's intellect that occurs at the stage as improvement in thinkers. Its believed that students wont achieve the indicative merits in the intellectual quality of their work except to the degree that teachers recognize that skilled critical thinking develops. It can only happen when teacher properly develops it with the help of excepted and simple stages.

My personal response to this paragraph:
This passage improves my understanding about critical thinking that there are some essential stages that each one of us should pass through if we want to become an effective critical thinkers. And most importantly teacher has to understand those properly, so that s/he can teach his/her students how they can think critically.

Summary of article-1 Foundation for Critical Thinking
This article gives you a brief history of the ideas of critical thinking. The intellectual roots of critical thinking are as ancient as its etymology. Aristotle established the importance of asking deep questions which are now known as " Socratic Questioning ". Socrates' practice was followed by the critical thinking of Plato. Development in the critical thinking was gradually done through many ages by scholars. In the middle ages, Aquinas heightened our awareness not only of the potential power of reasoning but also of the need for reasoning to be systematically cultivated and "cross- examined". In 15th and 16th centuries Francis Bacon, in England recognized explicitly that the mind cannot safely be left to its natural tendencies. Some fifty years later in France, Descartes developed a method of critical thought based on the principle of systematic doubt. In the same time period, sir Thomas Moore developed a mode of a new social order. Hobbes adopted and reasoning in 16th and 17th century England. Eighteenth Century thinkers developed our senses of the power of critical thought and of its tools. The domain of human social life was extended further by Comte and Spencer in the 19th century. In 1906, William Graham Summer published a land-breaking study of the foundations of sociology and anthropology. According to Summer, "The critical faculty is a product of education and training. Education is good just so far as it produces well-developed critical faculty. Education in the critical faculty is the only education of which it can be said that it makes good citizens"(pp. 632,633). The students should be taught at least minimal critical thinking moves within any subject field so that students can learn to think historically and develop skills and abilities essential to historical thought.

Article-2 What is thinking
This article mainly focuses on the concept of thinking and its various perspectives. Dewey in 1933 gave the classic introduction to "How We Think" which offers an overview of some of the different senses in which the term thinking is used. In educational context the word "thinking" is usually used to mean goal-directed process. Contemporary work in psychology of education has identified the role of meta cognition and self-regulation as of crucial importance. Thinking contains three perspectives namely Psychological perspectives, Sociological perspectives and Philosophical perspectives. Psychological perspective is related with the cognition of mind whereas in sociological perspectives social context becomes more important and philosophical perspective deals with the philosophy of mind, the philosophy of language and related theories of meaning.

Summary of What's the BIG IDEA?

Dee Broughton in the article ‘what’s the BIG IDEA?’ mainly talks about how academic writing becomes academic discourse. New ideas must be presented according to the principles of rational academic argument. To support this idea academic genres like summary, synthesis, evaluation and analysis are used. Evidences are required to connect these ideas. Students learn these techniques to become respected, contributing members of the academic community in the field of their choice.