Critical Thinking and American Government contains 41 critical thinking exercises that use a wide variety sources to actively engage students in understanding and thinking critically about American government and politics.  These sources include court decisions, the Federalist Papers, legislation, public opinion polls, elections results, apportionment and population tables, data on topics such as African-American representation in Congress, among many others.

The critical thinking exercises require students to interpret and analyze data, discover basic relationships among variables, read critically, summarize information accurately, and formulate generalizations and hypotheses.  The exercises are based on the scholarship of teaching and learning.  Each exercises contains clear and discrete student learning objectives which facilitate the measurement and assessment of student outcomes and learning.