Critical thinking: Integration into the middle school literature classroom

• Main Author: Mook, Julia Denise
• Format: Others
• Published: CSUSB ScholarWorks 2000
• Subjects: Middle school teaching; Literature > Study and teaching (Middle school); Literature > Curricula; Critical thinking in children; Curriculum and Instruction
• Online Access: https://scholarworks.lib.csusb.edu/etd-project/1676; https://scholarworks.lib.csusb.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2676&context=etd-project

The pendulum of educators' interests often swings back and forth. In the current climate of high stakes assessment, there appears to be a greater emphasis placed on literal recall of information when reading. While in the short term, this may benefit score reports, there is a concern that higher order thinking skills, such as analysis, will fall by the wayside. In so doing, there may be long term effects on the citizenry of this country. A lack of shared experiences, paired with little or no opportunity to discuss and discern, could lead to an inability to participate in and manage a complex form of government, such as a democracy. In today's middle school literature classrooms, however, there is room for all types of thinking: from the simple to the complex. Teachers who desire to create an atmosphere that values the application of a variety of thinking can make their classrooms into communites that offer students the opportunity to think in a myriad of ways. These opportunities may be explicitly modeled by the educator and take the form of whole and small group discussion, developing questioning skills and using journal writing as a tool to develop meta-cognition.