Critical Thinking Skills For Young Adults
Author: RJ Barranco · Status: Coming Summer 2026
What this book is about
Critical thinking, written for the actual conditions teens read in — algorithmic feeds, AI-generated content, viral confidence, and a 24/7 incentive to react before reasoning. The book treats critical thinking as a skill stack, not a personality trait, and gives students explicit tools for spotting bias, fact-checking sources, asking better questions, recognizing manipulation, and changing their mind when the evidence asks them to.
Who it's for
Grades 9–12, college first-year, and adult learners building reasoning skills explicitly. Strong fit for ELA, advisory / SEL, AP courses, debate and forensics programs, journalism, civics, and CTE pathways that depend on careful reasoning under pressure.
What's inside
Sixteen chapters covering the most common reasoning failures (and how to catch them in yourself), a working framework for evaluating sources, scripts for productive disagreement, and a capstone synthesis that integrates every prior tool. Every chapter ends with practice questions students can use solo or with a class.
For educators
The free educator companion guide for this book — chapter-by-chapter teaching notes, sensitivity protocols, discussion questions, and standards-alignment documentation — lives at skillsforyoungadults.org and is freely usable in adopted classrooms and adjacent contexts. Adoption-ready alignment with Common Core ELA, CASEL SEL, AP-course extensions, and CTE workplace-readiness standards.
The full sixteen-chapter classroom toolkit — twelve files per chapter (lesson plans, anchor-read excerpts, worksheets, student-retained reference cards, project rubrics, Marp slide decks, quiz banks, standards-alignment crosswalks, differentiation protocols, teacher notes) — is available to schools, districts, and programs adopting the book for classroom use. To inquire about classroom adoption + toolkit access, contact skills@mojavepublishing.com.
Get the book
First seven titles in the series arrive Summer 2026. Sample chapters and direct-purchase links will be posted here as the book ships.
For press, school visits, librarian inquiries, or institutional licensing: skills@mojavepublishing.com.