Critical Thinking: A Mythological Creature

Next to the Chupacabra and the Yeti, critical thinking has always been an illusive creature in my classroom. And this blog post will turn this abstract idea into a more tangible one.

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The Definition

Last year it was my mission to research critical thinking. I ordered books, collected sources, and of course, scoured Teachers Pay Teachers. I was seeking out methods and resources to create experiences where students explore and practice critical thinking. According to The Foundation for Critical Thinking it can be defined as an attempt "...reason at the highest level of quality in a fair minded way." But the traits it lists are far more concrete. Critical Thinkers:

- raise vital questions and problems

- gather and assess relevant information

- think open-mindedly

- communicate effectively

But the question still remains: What does this specifically look like in a classroom?

Inferencing and Conclusions

According the California Common Core the first Anchor Standard is reading text to "...make logical inferences" citing specific evidence and drawing conclusions. This is essentially the foundation for critical thinking. Besides an essay how can we practice or even introduce the act of critical thinking?

Two words. Murder Mystery. My students absolutely loved solving a crime. which intuitively used critical thinking skills. It was an ideal way to introduce this skill and it completely translates to analyzing literature, text, art and so much more. We started by analyzing clues and sorting them by relevance. At the end, working collaboratively students had to solve the mystery, presenting some open ended solutions.

Inductive Deductive Reasoning

In my pilgrimage to finding the critical thinking holy grail, the term Inductive (claims then evidence) and Deductive Reasoning (evidence then conclusion) kept appearing. And though it isn't mentioned in the standards, it is absolutely a form of critical thinking as well as a format for how text is structured. By teaching my students to analyze this text structure, we practiced the skill of analyzing how authors craft claims and evidence and we "rated" the facts. This rocked their world because sometimes finding the main idea isn't always so cut and dry and based on the author's purpose, s/he might choose to deduce the facts down to the claim.

Logic

The other integral piece to this labyrinth of a puzzle is employing logic. A vehicle and a lens, logic helps the thinker measure the evidence. Using logic puts the critic in critical thinking. Essentially the learner scrutinizes by questioning, checking the validity, consistency, and flaws in the facts that are presented. Think of it as built in quality control. One way to start is to provide students with a test, check list, or menu of choices to analyze text. Then discuss how the source fared.

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A Conclusion

Going down the rabbit hole of critical thinking is deep as it is wide. There are so many ways to employ this skill and so many reasons to practice. I have only yet to scratch the surface.

Resources

PBS NOVA

Guide to Inductive Reasoning

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