50 Thinking Critically

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439
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Thinking Critically Opening Page

Start-Up Activity

To activate your students’ critical thinking, have them debate a proposed change to something at your school. An example debate question could be Should school start time be moved back by one hour? Divide your students into two teams. Have one team argue for the proposal and another team argue against it. After your debate ends, discuss the types of thinking the teams carried out.

Think About It

“Clear thinking becomes clear writing; one can't exist without the other.” 

—William Zinsser

Page 440 from Write on Course 20-20

Becoming a Critical Thinker

Define critical thinking: being able to think clearly and logically about all the information you encounter. Then review the ways to establish a critical state of mind.

Afterward, lead a discussion of students' thinking:

  • Which critical thinking skills do you naturally have? (focus, patience, thoroughness, flexibility, connection, criticism)
  • Which skills do you need to learn? (focus, patience, thoroughness, flexibility, connection, criticism)
  • What specific actions can you take to learn these thinking skills?

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Page 441 from Write on Course 20-20

Basic Thinking Moves

Review with students the different types of thinking. Explain that the thinking skills get more complex proceeding down the list.

Point out that the levels of thinking build upon one another. For example, to properly evaluate a source of information, students would first need to analyze its parts, such as the sender, message, medium, receiver, and context.

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Page 442 from Write on Course 20-20

Remembering

Discuss what it means to remember information. Point out how the example questions test this thinking skill.

At the bottom of the page, review the strategies for remembering. Highlight the usefulness of note-taking, graphic organizers, and memory aids. These strategies will help your students remember new information in and out of school.

Assign this remembering practice activity to help your students test their memories:

Identify a person, a place, and a thing that you are studying and provide the information that you can remember. Afterward, perform research to fill in the information you did not remember.

Person

  • Name:
  • Life span:
  • Nationality:
  • Occupation:
  • Accomplishments:

Place

  • Name:
  • Location:
  • Importance:
  • Description:

Thing

  • Name:
  • Color:
  • Shape:
  • Size:
  • Material:
  • Use:

 

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Page 443 from Write on Course 20-20

Understanding

Review the tips for understanding information. To test students’ understanding, ask them to summarize the page using their own words. For a quick review of summarizing, see the related minilesson. 

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Page 444 from Write on Course 20-20

Applying

Help students understand what it means to apply information. (Applying means "using information in a new setting.") After reviewing the page, ask students to write a journal entry about a time when they applied classroom learning to a situation at home or in their community. 

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Page 445 from Write on Course 20-20

Analyzing

Discuss what it means to analyze information and lead students through the different ways to do it: 

  • Identify the parts of something.
  • Tell which parts are most important.
  • Examine how things are alike or different.
  • Divide things into different groups.

Then review the strategies for analyzing. To practice these strategies, present any of the related minilessons.

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Page 446 from Write on Course 20-20

Evaluating

Discuss what it means to evaluate information—to judge the value or worth of something. Writers evaluate their work during the revision process. Ask students to think of examples of ways people evaluate things. For example, you might evaluate a restaurant on the taste of the food or the quality of service.

Make sure that students know that before they can properly evaluate a topic, they must understand and analyze its parts. As practice, present one or more of the minilessons.

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Page 447 from Write on Course 20-20

Creating

Creating requires the deepest level of thought. To create something new, students will need to use all the thinking skills: remembering, understanding, applying, analyzing, and evaluating. Ask students to share some of their favorite creations. Challenge the responders to identify how they utilized each thinking skill to create the new thing. 

 

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Page 448 from Write on Course 20-20

Avoiding Fuzzy Thinking

The next two pages share ways students can avoid unclear thinking in their writing. Discuss the importance of thinking clearly, writing clearly, and sticking to the facts. Bending the truth or intentionally misleading readers is never a good idea.

Review the examples of unclear thinking on page 448. Ask students if they have ever encountered similar statements. Provide additional examples if necessary. (Political and product advertisements often contain such fuzzy thinking.) For further practice, assign the following activity:

Watch a commercial break during a favorite show. Each time you hear an exaggeration, write it down. How many did you find during one commercial break? How many during the breaks in a half-hour show? How many during an hour show?

LAFS Standard:

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Page 449 from Write on Course 20-20

Avoiding Fuzzy Thinking (Continued)

Review the remaining examples of fuzzy thinking. Then have students complete this activity:

Reread the “Avoid” statements on pages 448–449. Then rewrite each of the fuzzy examples so that they are clear. Compare your examples with the examples written by your classmates.

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Page 450 from Write on Course 20-20

Checking Your Critical Thinking

Have students use the critical-thinking checklist to evaluate their own thinking. Afterward, challenge them to identify at least two strategies they can use to improve.

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