Finding The “Write” Curriculum Designing prompts for critical

thinkingBy : Victoria Begg

Who Am I? • Victoria Begg • PDS English intern

through Penn State• State College Area High

School North Building

•11th Grade College Prep•12th Grade AP Literature•with Raeann Horgas

What’s the Big Idea?It all started with…. • Journaling, Into the Wild Unit

•Based in a study of Virginia’s Woolf’s To The Lighthouse

CONS:oShort answersoRepetition of in-class discussionoSummary

PROS:oInteracting with textoIndependent thinking

I want to know: How

can informal writing help develop student’s critical thinking skills? How does this help them become better learners?

I want to see: students engage in higher-order critical thinking skills.

What does that mean? Blooms Taxonomy

Prompt #1*Reflect on their own values*Based on their own experiences

How can a “mathematician’s symbols” or a “poet’s phrases” translate as “a love that never attempted to clutch it’s object;… but was meant to be spread over the world and become part of the human gain”? How are these examples similar of different from the love between a mother and child? A husband and a wife? In what ways do YOU contribute, or hope to contribute, to this sort of “human gain?”

Christenbury and KellyHow can a “mathematician’s symbols” or a “poet’s phrases” translate as “a love that never attempted to clutch it’s object;… but was meant to be spread over the world and become part of the human gain?” How are these examples similar of different from the love between a mother and child? A husband and a wife? In what ways do YOU contribute, or hope to contribute, to this sort of “human gain?”

Student Responses #1 TEXT

Understand: Explaining the character’s main conflict. Apply: Classifying the type of love that is expressed character’s art.

Student Responses #1

WORLD/ PERSONAL?

Evaluate: Deciding the consequences of “love”... human gain. Analyze: Identifying with ways they can connect with the concept.

(This type of love…)

Prompt #2 Goals: 1) Use student responses

2) Emphasize the personal component

3) Develop shaded questions

Are people more inclined to tell the truth to people they admire or people they dislike? Are people more inclined to see the truth about the people they admire or people they dislike? What other factors affect someone’s ability to be truthful? If the goal of art is to represent the purest form of truth, how might this affect an artist’s representation of someone/something?

“She had done the usual trick- been nice. She would never know him. He would never know her. Human relations were all like that, she thought, and the worst were between men and women.” (92)

Text

Self

World

Student Responses #2PESRONAL Life as a Student

Analyze: Explaining character’s issues with truthApply: Illustrating a situation from their life as a student.

Student Responses #2

WORLD/PERSONAL

Analyze: Examining something she doesn’t understand.Evaluate: Justifying the purpose of abstract art.

Metacognitive Thinking in Writing

“Critical thinking is one aspect of metacognition. Critical thinking is

evaluating ideas for their quality, especially judging whether or not they make sense.” (Martinez

697)Evaluate: Rating own writing as well as the function of abstract art in society.

Metacognitive Thinking in Writing

Evaluate: Assessing their own behavior, realizing it doesn’t always match up with her thoughts.

Prompt #3• Goals: 1) See if I could do it again

2) Focus more on Text

Think about Mrs. Ramsay, Lily and Mr. Ramsay, respectively. How do each of these characters attempt to “make life stand still”? How does this help them make ‘meaning of

life’? What does it reflect about their values? fears? goals? Why do you believe mankind

strives for order in chaos, permanence in an impermanent world?

Text

Self

World

Student Responses #3Analyze: Examining a specific characterAnalyze: Comparing and Contrasting him to two other charactersEvaluate: Assessing character values

TEXT

Student Responses #3Analyze: Categorizing the three parts of the textAnalyze: Examining the prompts question of “making life stand still”Evaluate: Justifying Woolf’s choices as an author and how they come together as a cohesive whole. TEXT

(Author)

ConclusionsBlend of higher and lower order thinking when asked about broad generalizations -(human gain/love)

Prompt #1:

WorldText

More higher order thinking when asked about personal connections to the larger world. -(truth and art)

Prompt #2:WorldSelf

After setting a foundation of personal and worldly connections students were more able to critically think about the text and engage with its themes. -(character and creating order)

Prompt #3:

Text World

Themes

Details

Further Questions:• How does my interpretation of student work match

up with the actual thinking my students are doing? • How do we grade critical thinking in writing?• How does pre-discussion writing aid students in

articulating their critical thoughts during discussion?

• How do we help our students understand the purpose of analytical thinking in the larger world? How can I be more explicit about my purpose?

• How do we prove to them this is a worthwhile skill to have?

Works Cited • Christenbury, Leila, and Patricia Kelly. Questioning:

A Path to Critical Thinking. Urbana, IL: National Council of Teachers of English, 1983. Print.

• Martinez, Michael E. "What is Metacognition." Phi Delta Kappan: 696-99. Print.

• Varma, Ravi. "Bloom's Revised Taxonomy." Bloom's Revised Taxonomy. More Than English: Teaching Language and Content, n.d. Web. 26 Apr. 2013. <http://morethanenglish.edublogs.org/for-teachers/blooms-revised-taxonomy/>.