Every student should develop critical thinking skills with real life applications. This course develops those skills by studying propositional logic in a condensed fashion using the book Introductory Logic by Nance. Logic is the art (and science) of reasoning well and this class trains students in the crucial skills of defining terms, recognizing basic types of statements, arguing with syllogisms, arguing in ordinary language, and identifying informal fallacies. Students will complete practice exercises for each lesson, take several tests and write one persuasive essay. Students should also plan to participate actively in class discussions, to develop their ability to articulate and critique logical statements. In this class, students have permission to argue (as long as your argument is thoughtful and polite) and will receive extra credit for finding “logic”, arguments and syllogisms outside of class.