CRITICAL THINKING IN THE SECONDARY LANGUAGE ARTS CLASSROOM

A Thesis

Presented to the Faculty of

Pacific Lutheran University

In Partial Fulfillment

Of the Requirements for the Degree

Master of Arts in Education

By

Henry Albert Smith

August, 2009

UMI Number: 1471688

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I would like to thank my family who has pushed me, challenged me, and

supported me throughout all of the endeavors I have set out to achieve in my life.

Much of the work done in this thesis has been influenced by suggestions and

advice offered from peers, colleagues, and professors from Pacific Lutheran University.

Their support and insight has been invaluable to the creation of this thesis and the work

implemented to complete it. I offer a Special thanks to Jennifer Scott, Paul Nelson, and

Robert Straight.

111

CRITICAL THINKING IN THE SECONDARY LANGUAGE ARTS CLASSROOM

AN ABSTRACT

by

Henry A. Smith, Master of Education

Pacific Lutheran University, August 2009

Thesis Advisor: Paul Nelson

This thesis was designed to look at the specific workings of critical thinking. The

chapters of this work discuss different models for teaching and assessing critical thinking

as well as defining it. The research for this thesis indicated that critical thinking must be

taught as a mode of thought, and not a skill set. With that assumption, a study was done

in two Freshman level Language Arts classrooms to examine how well students could

exhibit critical thinking after undergoing lessons and units adapted for critical thinking

enhancement based on the suggestions of the literature.

A rubric (designed and based off of the literature on assessment) used to measure critical

thinking was divided into two criterion: (a) recognizing and validating other points of

view and (b) using valid, justifiable evidence to bolster claims. The study concluded that

students demonstrate higher critical thinking in criterion a.

IV

TABLE OF CONTENTS Page

ACCEPTANCES ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS iii ABSTRACT iv

CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION 1

Setting 4 Participants of Study 5

Range of abilities 6 Range of socio-economic backgrounds 6 Racial/ethnic composition of the classroom 7

Focus of the Research and Experimentation 7

2. REVIEW OF LITERATURE 10 Why Critical Thinking is an Important Issue Today 10 Definitions of Critical Thinking 13 Building Knowledge for Critical Thinking 15 Models of Critical Thinking and Levels of Ability 18 Teaching Critical Thinking 21 Assessing Critical Thinking 28 Summary of Literature 34

Thinking critically requires scaffolding of knowledge 34 Critical thinking has many definitions and is difficult to assess 34 Critical thinking is a mode of thought that requires practice to master 34

Methodology of Assessment for the Purposes of this Study 35

3. METHODOLOGY 38 Overview 38 Implementation of Research 38 Short-Answer Response Questions 40 Essays 41 Interviews 43 Using the Rubric 43

4. DATA ANALYSIS 45 Difficulties with Data Collection 45 Reflections on Methods 46 Essay Data 47

v

Short Answer Questions Data 50 Interview Data 55

5. CONCLUSIONS 59 Brief Review of Data 59 Enduring Understandings 60 Implications for Practice 62 Questions for Future Examination 66 Closing Remarks 67

REFERENCES 69

VI

1

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

Language arts teachers all over the United States have seen the "critical thinking"

questions in the back of their textbooks. Many have attended conferences and completed

professional development projects pertaining to the elusive term: "critical thinking." To

be sure, even in the early stages of my career, I have become keenly aware that there

seems to lack more than a few fundamental thinking skills in secondary students. While it

is developmentally acceptable for students in their teenage years to be somewhat

egocentric in their thinking, I have been shocked to see that there seems to be an

abundance of students who are either unable or refusing to think in a critical manner. For

example, I remember when I asked Michael (a junior in my English class) to tell me what

his thoughts were on Holden Caulfield in The Catcher in the Rye, and he responded,

"Holden is an idiot." When I asked him to elaborate and tell me what it was exactly that

made him more idiotic than any other person, his face turned to a puzzled expression, and

he responded, "He just is." I then told him that some people do not think that he is an

idiot, and I asked him what he would say to those people. He responded, "They're

dumb." That was all I could get out of him on the topic.

I also remember when James threw a pencil into the ceiling and I caught him. I

told him that I would have to write him a detention for his action, and he begged me not

to because he was one detention away from getting suspended. I asked him why he threw

the pencil into the ceiling right in front of me if he knew that he could get suspended for

2

it, and he responded, "I don't know." I then asked him how he would feel if I went to his

house and threw pencils into his ceiling or damaged his things. He responded, "That

wouldn't happen." I asked him to think about how he would feel if it did happen, and he

sat blankly for a moment, "It never would, though," was the only response I got out of

him.

Similarly, I asked one of my classes to practice Rogerian persuasion technique

(requires the arguer to summarize and validate the opposing viewpoints in the manner by

which the opposition would state them). We went over this for about two solid weeks

before I assigned the final paper, and about a third of them immediately started off their

arguments in a fashion similar to the following: "Anyone who believes in abortion is a

murderer," "School uniforms are stupid, and anyone who thinks they should be used in

schools is an idiot," and "Gay marriage should be outlawed because it is evil, and it goes

against my belief system." These are only several of countless examples I have run into

thus far. The aforementioned behaviors and the mentioned "countless" others all seem to

represent two fundamental flaws in mature, critical thinking: failure to support opinions

and failure to evaluate situations and actions from a different perspective.

This has become a concern to me for a number of reasons. First of all, as an

educator, it is my job to educate the whole child—if there were some way to lead students

out of this kind of thinking and behavior, then I would be doing them a disservice by not

attempting to find it. Secondly, the lack of attempting to perceive things from outside of

the experiences and wants of the self (egocentric thought) is something that I feel needs

to be ameliorated long before a student leaves high school. What if James never learns to

think critically? Can throwing pencils into the ceiling and misbehaving on a constant

3

basis in high school be a precursor to serious crimes later on in his life? What about

Michael? Will anyone ever be able to take him seriously if the extent of his thoughts

consist of "that's dumb," "He's an idiot," and "That's awesome?" Finally, how will

adults who cannot think critically be able to work together in a professional setting? If

these students are incapable of articulating their thoughts or disagreements for a grade

necessary to pass school, then I wonder how they will gain success in teamwork settings

later on in life.

Are these types of behaviors merely the representation of a developmental level

that is simply at an early stage? Or are they the manifestation of some kind of epidemic? I

explored the reasoning for putting all of those "critical thinking" questions in textbooks—

is the idea of teaching critical thinking an educational fad, or is it backed extensively by

credible researchers and theorists? What are the implications of teaching critical

thinking? What if we do not teach it? Is it responsible to simply assume that students will

just "grow" out of it? I explored exactly what is at stake with critical thinking for the

student and for our society on a whole. I have read and heard that teaching students to

think on higher levels than "fill in the blank" and "bubble in the correct answer" is going

to be an essential pedagogical adaptation to a world that is growing in capriciousness—

technologically, culturally, and economically. Is it really?

Assuming that teaching students to think critically holds grandiose importance for

our society at large, I strived to find out if several selected methods are truly effective for

teaching critical thinking skills. First of all, this paper will outline a very specific list of

criteria for measuring critical thinking in writing (chapter 2). Also, I designed units that

follow a framework for teaching critical thinking based on current research from

4

accredited theorists. I looked for evidence of critical thinking primarily in the writing

assignments of my Freshman English students, and a little bit in their speaking and

behavioral skills. I paid attention to evidence that the student "thinks logically from a

perspective other than that of his or her own" and that the student "demonstrates

understanding of the importance of supporting his or her opinions for an audience or

readership." Again, in order to operationalize those two rather vague statements, I used a

very specific assessment tool that will be outlined in chapter two.

Setting

The setting for this study is Black Lake High School located in Huckleberry,

Washington. Although the racial diversity is quite narrow (roughly 90% white. Other

components of the group make up considerable diversity (more on this later). The

community is rural and logging companies dot the interior the city. Along the outskirts of

Huckleberry, there are low-income trailer communities. Many of my students come from

these areas of Huckleberry. Heading East of the school, one can find the downtown

business district of Huckleberry. Hardly a booming metropolis like Seattle, the town is

quaint and quiet. There are very few places for teenagers in the town, and many students

call it "boring."

Black Lake high school is a new establishment, but I have heard from many

teachers that the "newness" of the building has caused the students to demonstrate very

little pride in the school. The pep assemblies are generally very quiet, and less than 25%

of the seniors attended the prom this year. Also, while there are computer areas in every

wing of the school, the majority of them do not function either due to vandalism or

wiring issues present since the school was built. Due to multiple budget cuts, access to

5

books and other supplemental learning materials is very limited. For example, when I did

a unit for Catcher in the Rye this semester, I was challenged with the fact that only 20 of

my 31 juniors could get a copy.

The classroom in which the study will take place was arranged in the "traditional"

row fashion. I have found that minimizing the amount of instructional time that students

spend facing each other seems to make them more inclined to participate and engage in

lessons.

Despite some of the problems with the school itself, the staff is energetic and

personable. Every day, teachers can be found at the end of the school day working with

students. The administration is made up of young, energetic individuals who offer

substantial support to teachers and students alike. Every department holds professional

learning community meetings (PLCs) on Mondays. These are geared to optimize

curriculum to best benefit the students as well as to synchronize the activities of

classrooms. Because of this and other efforts, the teachers at BLHS are able to

communicate with and support one another.

Participants of Study

The participants of this study were 64 students taking Freshman English. Roughly

half of these students were repeating the course. BLHS offers Honors, Running Start, and

Advanced Placement programs for English, and the students I teach were the ones who

did not participate in any of those. Because of this, many of them were simply in the class

for the sake of getting a credit, and "buy-in" was very difficult to achieve. The following

is a more detailed explanation of the students who will be a part of the study for this

paper.

6

Range of abilities. Based on my current sense of the range of abilities, I would say

that there is a quite varied array of skill levels in this classroom. For instance, my fourth-

period class has 9 students who are currently in the A-B range in terms of their grades, 10

students in the C-D range, and 10 in the F range. Ironically, the several of my students

who are currently flunking the course often demonstrate the highest levels of mastery in

the subject. Last week, James (a boy flunking my fourth-period class) recalled a part of

the book, Night that we had been reading and discussing in class. I had never once seen

him come to school with his book. We were talking about a symbolic part of the novel

(Ninth graders tend to struggle with the concept of symbolism), and I asked the students,

"What do you think Elie meant when he said that his soup tasted of corpses?"

Several of the students write very eloquently. A handful of the students already

demonstrate a high level of critical thinking in their writing (based on the rubric

previously outlined). The students who have shown strong writing skills seem to be able

to identify and write to target a very specific audience. They also have a strong awareness

of the need to justify claims and build sentences that flow and are engaging. Chapter four

will provide more specific examples of students' writing as well as assessment on their

work.

Range of socio-economic backgrounds. I am aware that this range is pretty wide.

24.0% of the students at BRHS are on a free or reduced lunch program. This is 1% below

the state average. One of the trends at BRHS is to wear heavily worn work clothes

(usually with pants that are torn short above the ankle) that are dirty. This has to do with

the fact that the town is a logging community, and I sense that the students take some

pride in that. Overall, I have not noticed significant problems with students based on

socio-economic backgrounds, and I have found it very difficult to categorize students in

this way.

7

Racial/ethnic composition of the classroom. My classes are all white except for

three Hispanics (two male, one female), one girl who is half Philipino, one Native

American boy, and two black students (one male, and one female). The vast majority of

my classroom management struggles come from the two Hispanic boys. These two

display some of the highest ability levels out of my classes, but their extreme behavior

often gets them suspended, and this causes them to miss a great deal of school. My one

black male student displays extremely high critical thinking skills in his speech and

interactions with me, however, he does very little to no work whatsoever in the class.

Focus of the Research and Experimentation

To narrow down the goals of this paper and project, I focused on a several key

points from the literature and used those points to guide my teaching. Again, the purpose

of this paper and project were to give me a better overall sense as to how critical thinking

works and what encourages it. In the research portion of this paper, I looked to find out

firstly exactly what critical thinking is. The research I have done has suggested that

different theories exist in terms of the actual definition of critical thinking. The term has

been so loosely used that it has almost become cliche. To be sure, it seems exercises and

questions that are not limited to "fill in the blank" or "true/false" have been deemed

"critical thinking" questions. Once I got a better feel for what critical thinking is, I

outlined multiple models that are generally used to define the concept. Once this

groundwork was laid out, I proceeded to explore exactly which methods are optimal for

teaching it. I used the explanations and models from the literature to design lesson plans

and assessments to encourage and gauge critical thinking. Once I conducted the

experimentation, I came to many conclusions (in chapter 5) about the data.

Despite the thoroughness and professionalism with which I pursued this project, I

understand that making a definitive assumption about encouraging critical thinking in the

secondary language arts classroom is still far from reach. The point of this project was to

get a sense for how teaching students to think critically works. That is, it is assumed that

we learn to think critically, but whether we can be taught to think critically opens a

universe of questions for which there is not enough time in a lifespan to answer. This

paper, while valid to the development of my career will provide only a brief overview of

these questions, and I consider that to be a success. To further complicate matters, the

concept of critical thinking becomes even more ambiguous when cross-cultural factors

are taken into consideration. While I understand that the explanation for critical thinking

becomes muddied when culture gets infused into the mix, I will not be exploring culture

for this thesis. For the purposes of this paper, the definition of critical thinking will be

examined through a western epistemological lens. The definition of critical thinking that I

will use for the remainder of this thesis can be found in chapter two.

Because of the inherent subjectivity of the concept, it was imperative to design a

tool that I could use to assess it. Even with a concrete definition and systematic

assessment tool, the subject of critical thinking is difficult to judge. Because the next

chapter will put the problems and questions posed in this chapter in a more theoretical

perspective, that is where I will flesh out the specifics of the assessment tool. To be sure,

it required exploration of the research and analysis of the findings of several main

theorists to build this tool and to apply it to the data that I collected. This tool will exist in

the form of a rubric.

9

I also laid out the specifics of each instructional method that the research

indicated is plausible and effective in the secondary school setting. Chapter two will

highlight the exact methods I implemented in my classes. Throughout the remainder of

this paper, each method's critical attributes will be discussed as well as the merits of each

one based on the literature and my own data collection and assessment. For the sake of

time, I will pick and choose bits and pieces from various methods available in the

literature thus creating a kind of hybrid method by which to teach critical thinking skills

integrated into the existing curriculum. This paper will not explore the idea of explicitly

teaching critical thinking—that is, there will be no "critical thinking" unit for the

students. While this would prove to be most fascinating, it would not be feasible with my

time constraints.

Ultimately, this paper will represent only a small selection of students in a rather

secluded rural school located in Washington State. However, I hope that educators who

are new to the field will be able to use the information and research explained in the

succeeding chapters to adapt and evaluate their pedagogical methodologies to better teach

critical thinking skills. Finally, 1 hope that this project will help point others and me in the

right direction of inquiry for furthering the knowledge of education. To be sure, half of

the battle is knowing which questions to ask, and this thesis should help to find some of

those answers and bring up new questions.

10

CHAPTER TWO

REVIEW OF LITERATURE

The literature on the subject of critical thinking is vast in depth and breadth. The

following is designed to give a relative overview of what the literature has to offer within

various concepts related to the subject. Please keep in mind that this project is designed

primarily to explore some of the attributes and characteristics of critical thinking as well

as the optimal practices by which to teach students to think critically. As stated earlier,

this project was executed in two freshman language arts classes, and therefore, I have

collected the literature that is most closely suited for that field.

Why Critical Thinking is an Important Issue in Education Today

According to Richard Paul (1995), the ability to think critically is absolutely

imperative for students who are to become participants in tomorrow's society. The ability

to think critically has to do with the disposition for a person to consider multiple

perspectives, anticipate opposing viewpoints, validate cross-cultural differences, and to

make dialectic decisions. Though this cognitive ability may seem like a second nature to

many thinkers, it actually is not. According to Paul (1995), ".The mind is instinctively

designed for habit, associating 'peace of mind' with routine. The mind's natural

inclination is to reduce the new to the old, the complex to the simple, and everything as

much as possible, to familiar, well grooved patterns and habits" (p. xi). To be sure, this

poses an inherent problem when it comes to teaching students to think critically because

it requires students to think in a way that is unnatural and unfamiliar to them.

11

The literature pointed to an alarming and immediate need to teach students to

think critically, not because it will help them to get higher grades in school, but because

the ability to think critically is essential to functioning in a world that is rapidly changing

and whose complexity is becoming more pronounced. For instance, Paul (1995)

suggested that the question, "What do you want to be when you grow up?" is no longer

relevant for students in today's world because of technological advances. In other words,

it is no longer possible for anyone to know what kinds of jobs will be available in the

future much less what skills they will entail because technology and market demands are

in a constant whirlwind of change. Students will have to think critically about their career

choices because the comfortable and rote answer to the career question—though simple

and natural—is a sign of epistemological fallacy. That is, how we know what leads to

success today is going to be obsolete tomorrow. Furthermore, the world of today puts

fourth a reality that is so capricious that there is simply no time to master and understand

it before it changes itself again. In this type of environment, the ability to think critically

allows people to navigate through constantly changing problems and to find essential

connections among a myriad of otherwise disjointed pieces to a puzzle.

To further illuminate the idea of change and its pertinence to critical thinking,

Paul (1995) mentioned the issues of depletion of the ozone layer, world hunger, over

population, and AIDS—all of which were not pressing issues to prior generations. To

solve these problems, Paul (1995) purported that we need a grasp of "the political

realities, economic pressures, scientific data on the physical environment and its

changes—all of which are simultaneously changing as well" (p. 3). That is, a greater

level of expertise and the mastery of a mode of thinking that allows one to question his or

12

her own knowledge (hence "critical" thinking) will be an invaluable tool to navigate

through the life of tomorrow. In short, the argument is very convincing that the teaching

of critical thinking (whether it be an explicitly taught subject or engrained within the

existing curriculum) is essential to ensure that the world is maintained for future

generations.

Moreover, in a society that is characterized by a melting pot of multiple cultures,

the ability to see things from a different perspective than one's own becomes an

invaluable catalyst to tolerance on the whole. According to Wiest (2003), "People tend to

be egocentric. A most difficult and important thing to learn is an ability to see—to the

degree possible—things from another person's perspective." The ability to see things from

another perspective, then, has importance that goes well beyond making students good

writers; the quote suggests that appreciating the other perspective can help to "undo"

man's innate tendency to be egocentric. Going further, Wiest (2003) found,

Minority groups sometimes are criticized for being "separatist" and not mixing to a

greater degree with members of the dominant culture. Students should reflect on their

own habits. Most likely they spend much of their time with others who are similar to

themselves in some manner, be it by ethnicity, gender, a shared pastime, or the like.

Students can analyze why people tend to do this, the pros and cons, and if and why some

groups (in particular, subordinate or marginalized groups) might be more likely to behave

this way.

Wiest suggested, then, that using the Language Arts classroom to encourage

students to think in a more critical mode can also help students analyze their own cultural

epistemology (2003). The previous quote by Wiest illuminates even further the need to

13

teach critical thinking. It is not just a pathway for professional and academic success, but

also, it is a tool that can encourage positive social change through the understanding of

culture. In a country that demands greater tolerance and acceptance on a cultural level,

critical thinking becomes a vastly important ability to be taught, in my opinion, at the

earliest ages possible.

The preceding evidence is taken from the works of critical thinking experts who

claimed that the need for critical thinking is something that goes far beyond the reaches

of what we call "education." Reading, writing, and arithmetic: the paradigmatic triangle

of ideal education, is no longer the perfect example of good education. As the research

suggests, critical thinking is worthwhile, but it is vastly more complicated to teach than

the "traditional" concepts that were once so highly valued. The complexity of the subject

makes assessment, teaching implementation, and other pedagogical components objects

of great debate and controversy in the education community.

Definitions of Critical Thinking

Frank Smith (1990) discussed the different ways in which words can be used to

help give meaning to the term "critical thinking," and he essentially arrives at the

conclusion that there is not solid definition for the term. In other words, one cannot

identify the universal crucial components that make up the concept of critical thinking.

However, he went on to make the argument that asking for a concrete definition of the

term is not a valid question because people learn to think critically and use critical

thinking skills regularly even though they are only able to ambiguously describe some of

the components of critical thinking (see twelve skills outlined later). Furthermore, those

components can only be applied to specific situations given specific circumstances; there

14

is no universality to the conversation of critical thinking. In To Think, Smith (1990)

outlined a list of twelve skills that he felt were generally connected to the idea of critical

thinking. He pointed to the indisputable truth that none of the skills on the list is

generalizable in any sense. These skills included "judging whether an observation

statement is reliable, judging whether an inductive conclusion is warranted, judging

whether a definition is adequate, and grasping the meaning of a statement" (p. 151).

Smith (1990) explained that none of the "critical thinking skills" can have meaning

unless the thinker has some knowledge about that which he is thinking: "How could

someone learn to detect conflicting assertions in a chemistry text, an article on chess, or

estimate for repairs to an automobile without an understanding of chemistry, chess, or

automobile mechanics in which case contradictions would be immediately apparent?" (p.

97). The noteworthy implication here is that critical thinking is not a skill or even a skill

set in the conventional sense of the word; it is a mode of thinking. This explains why

there is not much promising evidence that explicitly teaching critical thinking without

giving students the necessary knowledge to engage in a thoughtful conversation about a

subject is effective. The concept of teaching critical thinking as a mode of thought

becomes more and more logical as the literature in the following pages is dissected and

analyzed.

As I will discuss later, thinking critically about anything requires knowledge

about the subject, and this means that explicitly teaching students "critical thinking" skills

gives them knowledge about critical thinking, but it does not internalize it as a mode of

thought for the student. As we shall see in the following pages, critical thinking is

something that can be taught, but it is very complicated to define. For the purposes of this

15

paper, critical thinking will be treated as a mode of thought, and not a quantifiable skill

set. This adds great complexity to assessment and teaching, but as the literature suggests

(in the proceeding pages), looking at critical thinking in this way makes the most sense.

Building Knowledge for Critical Thinking

To further corroborate the assertion that critical thinking requires base knowledge,

cognitive scientists also agree. According to Bransford, J., Brown, A., Cocking, R., and

Research, N. (2000), competent and expert performance in anything can be broken down

into several different aspects. Firstly, "relevant knowledge helps people organize

information in ways that support their abilities to remember." In other words, knowledge

must be organized and presented to students in such a way that it is worth knowing for

purposes other than passing the test or writing the essay. Secondly, "Learners do not

always relate the knowledge they possess to new tasks, despite its potential relevance.

This disconnect has important implications for understanding differences between usable

knowledge and less-organized knowledge, which tends to remain 'inert.'" One of the

critical responses to this assertion is that teachers must find ways to scaffold or build

upon existing knowledge in order to learn new concepts and to make valid connections.

Students, according to Bransford, J., Brown, A., Cocking, R., and Research, N., do not

simply go from knowing nothing about a topic to knowing vast amounts about it based on

entirely new information. This is important for teaching students to think critically

because it illuminates the concept that critical thinking cannot take place without a deep

and masterful knowledge base about the subject.

Bransford, J., Brown, A., Cocking, R., and Research, N. (2000), also found,

"Relevant knowledge helps people to go beyond the information given and to think in

16

problem representations, to engage in the mental work of making inferences, and to relate

various kinds of information for the purpose of drawing conclusions" (p. 237). This

further emphasizes the importance of teaching students details and basic knowledge

about subjects before asking them to think critically about them. Drawing conclusions by

relating multiple pieces of evidence is absolutely necessary for critical thinking. In fact,

the rubric for critical thinking (later on in this chapter) explains this necessity in detail.

Bransford, J., Brown, A., Cocking, R., and Research, N. (2000) hit on this point again

when they found:

In-depth understanding requires detailed knowledge of the facts within a domain. The key attribute of expertise is a detailed and organized understanding of the importantyacte within a specific domain. Education needs to provide children with sufficient mastery of the details of particular subject matters so that they have a foundation for further exploration within those domains (p.239).

Again, we see that in order for deep exploration to take place (necessary to critical

thinking), students have to have a foundation to build from. Part of the way to do that is

to make sure that curriculum is relevant for students and that they are provided with

substantial amounts of time exposed to domains of knowledge.

Daniel T. Willingham's (2008) article, "Critical Thinking: Why is it so Hard to

Teach?" explained that educational systems encourage students to look at the surface

structures of problems and tasks from English all the way to Math and Science. The result

is a lack of ability for the student to transfer knowledge from subject to subject and, in

some cases, even within the subject. Students who cannot transfer knowledge have not

learned to think critically about subjects. Willingham (2008) found that often, these

students will have success with some concepts in a subject, and completely fail with other

very similar concepts within the same discipline. Paul (1995) gave an excerpt from a

17

letter written by a teacher with a Master's degree in physics and mathematics where he

admits he was capable of reproducing textbook answers and formulas for things, and that

he knew how to find the right answers to problems, but that he never really understood

why processes and formulas were effective. He realized that he was never forced to think

for himself, but rather, didactic teaching styles of his professors and other teachers led

him to take education simply as memorization. Likewise, a mathematics student may be

able to solve a story problem with ease, but when the words are changed and the

processes necessary for a solution remain the same, that student may not recognize the

similarities.

Willingham (2008) found that the only way to increase the likelihood of transfer

of knowledge for students is through repeated exposure to the deep structures of

problems. He explained, "After repeated exposure, the subject simply perceives the deep

structure as part of the problem description." The implications of the assertions of

Willingham (2008) are very great for the Language Arts teacher. The Language Arts

educator must find ways to ensure that students understand why a particular piece of

writing can be classified a certain way or specific goals can be met through specific types

of writing. In other words, Willingham's (2008) article and explanation of the necessity

for students to understand and appreciate "deep structures" of problems can be

summarized by focusing on the "why" in a problem, not the "what." To crystallize the

essence of this topic's incredible complexity, I quote Willingham (2008), "Critical

thinking is not a set of skills that can be deployed at any time, in any context. It is a type

of thought that even 3-year-olds can engage in, and even trained scientists can fail in."

18

Models of Critical Thinking and Levels of Ability

One model that is used to better understand critical thinking is the disposition

model. Smith (1990) agreed with the arguments of John McPeck in an article entitled

Critical Thinking and Education, which found that critical thinking can better be looked

at as a disposition than a quantifiable skill set. This can be viewed as a readiness to doubt

when it is reasonable. The disposition model says that everyone has the ability to think

critically but that many (namely students) lack the willingness to doubt and judge

accordingly for the purposes of thinking critically. To be sure, values, feelings, and

compromises must be taken into account, and something has to control the flow of

critical thinking—this control (according to Smith) must lie in intentions and the

worldview of the individual. This all points to the idea that the critical thinker thinks

critically because of a willingness to doubt and to confront the consequences of that

doubt. As Paul (1995) suggested, this is a rare tendency for humans who default to a

more compliant and less resistant way of making sense of the world and understanding

things in general.

With a better understanding that critical thought does not tend to occur in thinkers

without the appropriate disposition and knowledge in the individual, I would now like to

turn to a model of the different levels or stages that are connected to the term "critical

thinking." Kurfiss (1988) outlined a four-stage model that illuminates the key aspects to

each level of critical thinking displayed in students. (This model is a synthesis of

extensive research conducted by William Perry and Mary Belenky et al.) The first stage

of intellectual development with regard to critical thinking is the "dualism/received

knowledge" stage. In this stage, students believe that all knowledge taught to them in

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classes is universal and indisputably true. Kurfiss (1988) claimed that they believe that

looking in textbooks is always the most effective and valid way to find truth. Kurfiss

(1988) found that when students are presented with the reality that the world is far more

confusing and complex than they may have once believed, they often choose to keep

quiet and remain passive until they are given the "right answers." Kurfiss (1988) went on

to say, "Their [students'] resistance to critical thinking reflects a legitimate

developmental quandary" (p. 53). It is interesting to note that most people progress

beyond this stage of thinking during the course of their cognitive development, however,

it is intriguing to consider that many students never get beyond the next stage.

The second stage of critical thinking development is called "multiplicity/

subjective knowledge. At this level of critical thinking, students start to look to their

"inner voices" or intuitions as authorities of knowledge and not just their teachers. They

have made a crucial turning point in their epistemological beliefs in that they are now

able and willing to accept the concept that different theories and ways of navigating

problems exist, and that there is no right or wrong answer for everything. Although this

level is a huge improvement upon the first level, it is important to remember that Kurfiss

(1988) found that multiplicity thinkers tend to suffer from being overly open. In other

words, they tend to lack an ability to judge the veracity of differing opinions, and there is

too heavy an emphasis placed upon intuition, feeling, and "common sense" to judge

differing perspectives. Kurfiss (1988) went on to explain that they do not usually see the

necessity to use reason or other concrete validation techniques because their own inner

voices become the authority in epistemological subscription. This level represents the

stage that is evident among the vast majority of the students that will be observed

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for the purposes of this study. (The last two stages of Kurfiss' model have been omitted

as only the first two will be representative of the participants of this study.)

Bloom's Taxonomy (Anderson, L., Krathwohl, D., and Bloom, B, 2001) of the hierarchal

properties of thinking offers another valuable tool by which to regard critical thinking a

scaffolded system where one level must be mastered before the next one can be reached.

Although this model was never designed with K-12 education in mind (as I will discuss

later), it further corroborates the concept that deeper level thinking cannot occur without

"lower level" knowledge. The model was originally divided into these six levels or tiers:

1. The ability to recall specific facts, key terms, and basic principles (1.00 Knowledge)

2. The ability to state ideas in one's own terms, and to interpret and extrapolate from a set of data (2.00 Comprehension)

3. The ability to apply principles in novel situations (3.00 Application)

4. The ability to identify assumptions, spot logical errors and to distinguish facts from values (4.00 Analysis)

5. The ability to combine extant elements into new forms and patterns, i.e., creativity (5.00 Synthesis)

6. The ability to judge by internal and external criteria ( 6.00 Evaluation) (Anderson, L., Krathwohl, D., and Bloom, B., 2007)

This set of standards was initially designed to be used at the collegiate level of education,

but, according to Booker (2007), it has become one of the fundamental models used in

the K-12 system to assess and teach critical thinking. Booker (2007) went on to say that

the misplacement of this model has led to serious problems in both the K-12 and

collegiate arenas. Booker (2007) also stated that the emphasis of primarily "higher level"

thinking (4-6 in Bloom's Taxonomy) has taught students to disregard concrete facts and

formulas—the things that fall into the "lower levels" of the Taxonomy. In other words,

21

students who do not have fundamental knowledge about a subject are at a serious

disadvantage to think critically about that subject. Booker continued to say,

A large cohort (much to my frustration) doesn't know how many grams are in a kilogram or when to use an apostrophe. I have a friend, Dr. Lawrence Barker, who once taught statistics at a state university. Each quarter he quizzed his incoming statistics students about basic math. The majority, he learned, couldn't determine the square root of one without access to a calculator. (2007)

This is where the collegiate level of teaching suffers as a result of the misimplementation

of the Taxonomy's principles. That is, the knowledge of the students is not scaffolded in

such a way that they understand the deep structures of problems. Instead, they are taught

to mindlessly apply formulas in math (in this case) that they do not even understand.

At the K-12 level, students are asked the "right" questions to foster higher order

critical thinking like " 'What do you think about X?' and 'Do you agree with X?'"

(Booker, 2007). Such questions encourage students that their opinions are enough and

that the fundamental knowledge of a subject takes a back seat to the "higher order"

thinking that teachers so badly want their students to exhibit in the classroom. What this

all points to is a need for teachers to place a stronger focus on facts and knowledge before

attempting to teach students to think critically about a subject. Booker (2007) found that

teachers tend to read students' opinions as evidence of critical thinking when such

discussions in the classroom are really just a waste of time if the students lack the basics.

Teaching Critical Thinking

The questions about how to teach critical thinking become more and more

complex as one delves into the literature. For one thing, there are two main sources from

which information about critical thinking tends to come. The first is a compilation of

various teaching methods used that happened to work and therefore made their way into

22

the pedagogy canon with which we are familiar today. The second is found in the field of

cognitive science (Van Gelder, 2005). To be sure, both sources have their strengths and

weaknesses. Cognitive scientists do not tend to study critical thinking explicitly as a

discipline in and of itself partially because it is so broad and complex. Also, cognitive

science offers only a theoretical overview of how critical thinking works—this overview,

however, is constantly in flux because scientific knowledge about the brain is constantly

changing and growing. Even when cognitive scientists learn more about how critical

thinking works, they will not be able to develop any "sure fire" method by which to teach

it. The pedagogical wisdom that has been developed over years of trial and error,

however, presents us with a wide range of "best practice" methods for teaching that are

not always rooted directly in a definable cognitive reason for success. In other words, all

we really have is a set of ways to teach that seem to work for the most part. Van Gelder

(2005) found that the best thing we can do is blend the studies of cognitive science with

the practical wisdom of teachers for the best chance of teaching critical thinking to

students.

Van Gelder (2005) provided several "lessons" about the methodology of teaching

critical thinking. First of all, he found that "critical thinking is hard" (Van Gelder, 2005).

Though critical thinking is something that many of us find to be rather elementary or

even a developmental part of growing into adulthood, some studies have shown that this

is not the case at all. A study done by Deanna Kuhn supports this concept (as represented

by Van Gelder). She took a "diverse selection of 160 people and, in extended, structured

interviews, gave them every opportunity to demonstrate their ability to argue in support

of their own opinions" (Van Gelder, 2005). What was found is that while the majority of

23

the participants in the study were able to give opinions about topics such as "why

students tend to skip school," over half of them could not support their opinions logically.

This provides the secondary teacher with serious implications and challenges. If adults

tend to lack the ability to think critically, then how is the teacher to be able to teach

adolescents to think critically?

Van Gelder (2005) complicated this issue further when he found that human

beings are not naturally inclined to think critically—evolution itself, then is working

against the secondary teacher! Van Gelder (2005) quoted Michael Shermer (2002) who

describes us (human beings) as "pattern seeking, story-telling animals." He goes on to

say that "the problem arises when we do not spontaneously (and do not know how to) go

on to ask whether an apparent pattern is really there or whether a story is actually true."

Van Gelder (2005) suggested that human beings have evolved just enough to survive—

this makes sense when one reviews the theories pertaining to evolution. There is also a

mentioning that even if critical thinking happened to be a natural or innate disposition

within the human psyche, it would still be difficult to teach because it is a higher-order

function that relies on prior abilities and knowledge that are simpler. The article

illustrates this by saying that one cannot respond critically to a letter in the newspaper

without already being able to read and understand the letter (Van Gelder, 2005). Still,

even with those simpler skills, critical thinking requires the proper combination and

implementation of them. Thus, critical thinking is extremely difficult to master.

In fact, critical thinking can only be mastered by enormous amounts of practice

and exposure. Meyer (1986) talked about the differences between an expert and a novice

in Teaching Students to Think Critically. One key difference is that the novice in a

subject lacks two fundamental components to being a good critical thinker on a given

subject (a) background knowledge (discussed by Smith and Bransford, J., Brown, A.,

Cocking, R., and Research, N. as shown earlier), and (b) personal experience (a key to

reaching level four in the model previously discussed). Because teachers have usually

spent thousands of hours immersed in their areas of expertise, their ability to think

critically becomes second nature to them to the point that they often forget that their

students lack the fundamental building blocks necessary from which to scaffold higher

order thinking.

This gap of complexity in thinking invariably leads to great disappointment and

frustration from both the student and the teacher. To combat this, Meyer (1986) suggests

that if teachers want to get students to learn how to think critically, then they must start

out by giving them the basic foundations from which to build and grow. Meyer (1986)

insists that teachers' automaticity makes it difficult for them to explicitly show students

what they are implicitly expected to understand. At this point, Meyer (1986) mentions the

work of one of his colleagues, Carol Holmberg who drew up a model of critical thinking

to show her college students. In the model, Meyer (1986) draws out four different levels

of analysis of literature: Concrete, Rational, Imaginative, and Visionary. By doing this,

she is able to show her students with a concrete visual representation exactly what it is

that she has automated cognitively after thousands of hours of practice in her field of

expertise. Holmberg's visual representation technique worked well for her and many of

her colleagues who also implemented the idea in their own ways. This, according to

Meyer (1986), is congruent with the theory of Piaget who said that all learning must

begin with a concrete experience before progressing into more abstract thought. This

25

work is a small step toward pointing students in the right direction to think critically—

they are able to see what an effective thinking process looks like rather than make

guesses in a hit or miss manner.

With a model such as Holmberg's, students are encouraged to think dialectically

and dialogically. Paul (1995) described these two thinking modes as dialectic being the

process of thinking and taking multiple interpretations, logics, and other pieces of

evidence into account to make a choice about something. For instance, dialectical

reasoning or thinking is necessary when a jury must decide whether a man is guilty or

innocent, when a person decides whether to marry his or her spouse, or when one thinks

about different ways to raise children and concludes that one is better than all the others

(Paul, 1995). Dialogical thinking is described as being similar in that it requires one to

take into account many points of view and to synthesize a great »amount of information to

make meaning for one's self rather than to arrive at a concrete answer or solution to a

problem. Paul (1995) found that dialogical thinking is displayed whenever students

students. . . . have to use their own thinking to figure out the thinking of another, whenever students have to listen carefully to the thoughts of another and try to make sense of them. . . and whenever students must organize their thoughts in a manner that they will be understood by another, (p. 292)

Paul (1995) concluded that students actually learn best in dialogical thinking. These are

circumstances in which they "must continually express their views to others and try to fit

others' views into their own. . . . Students need to move dialogically between their own

thinking and 'correct' thinking on the subject before they come to appreciate the 'right'

answer; students need to think dialogically first" (p. 292). The previous quote applies not

only to the humanities, but also to the sciences and mathematics. In order for the student

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to fully understand a concept, students should be able to arrive at the right way of doing

so on their own.

Coming up with and asking the "right" questions in classroom discussions is key

to guiding students to making meaning and arriving at truth with their own thinking.

Marzano (2004) identified multiple levels of thinking that can be encouraged within the

student by asking the right questions. The lowest tier is the "retrieval" tier. It is defined

as, "Knowledge is retrieved/recalled from permanent memory and executed/applied to

the process" (pp. 30-31). This level is necessary for gaining a solid knowledge base of the

facts before going into the deeper levels of critical thinking. Such a process can be guided

by asking a student something like, "What do you know about x?" He described the next

tier as the comprehension level of thought, which is defined as "Knowledge is presented

in a basic, symbolic, and clearly understood manner" (Marzano, 2004, pp.33-38). Such a

level of thought can be encouraged by asking, "How do you know?" Marzano (2004)

described the next level as the analysis tier, "Knowledge is reasonable and extended from

the basic understanding by one or more of the analysis processes: matching,

classification, error analysis, generalization, specification" (p. 45). Questions like "How

did you arrive at your understanding?" can promote an analysis of thinking from the

student.

The more complicated levels of critical thinking require different thought

processes that can also be encouraged or prompted with questioning. Marzano (2004)

called the next level the knowledge utilization tier. This tier was defined as "Knowledge

is demonstrated by a new idea or awareness and uses: decision making, problem solving,

experimental inquiry, and investigation" (p. 48). One question that may lead to this

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process could be, "What are other ways to use or think about x?" This level shows that

the student has reached a level where he or she is beginning to think in a critical way

automatically—that is, he or she can and does effectively use investigation and inquiry

methods to solve problems. The child sees the importance in asking and answering the

right questions to gain the right knowledge for a particular purpose. The next level is the

metacognition level. "Knowledge is monitored, evaluated, and regulated by establishing

clear goals and monitoring the process, clarity, and accuracy of information." The

students who think at this level not only seek out and apply new knowledge to problems,

but they also can change their thinking about concepts by questioning their own

knowledge. A question that can bring this out in a student is "What thought process led

you to your conclusion about x?" Marzano (2004) called the highest level of thinking

self-system thinking in that "Knowledge is expressed in an interrelated system of

attitudes, beliefs, and emotions" (p. 54). These students take into account multiple

viewpoints on the same problems or issues, and they can assign emotions and attitudes

significant roles in the acquisition of knowledge and wisdom. A question that can prompt

this is, "How strongly do you believe in? What questions come to mind?" Understanding

these thought processes and asking questions to constantly engage students in the modes

of critical thinking is an extremely important piece of solving the critical thinking puzzle.

Too often, it seems that teachers spoon feed students with the correct answers to

problems or pre-packages "acceptable" opinions on important issues.

With all of this in mind, creating lessons and unit plans that truly encourage

critical thinking becomes much more complex than "answer the critical thinking

questions at the end of the reading selection." The literature suggests that the best ways to

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encourage critical thinking are done through giving assignments that demand students to

think outside of the confines of their "default" methods of thinking and knowing.

Student-centered teaching will be a necessary part of encouraging students to make

meaning rather than the more traditional (and much simpler) method of "giving" students

knowledge for them to regurgitate later in a test or paper. Real-world connections to

literature and a focus on the thoughts and beliefs of others will also be invaluable tools

that will encourage students to think critically. Also, debates and the demand of students

to support opinions will be a critical component of the majority of the lessons that I will

use through the duration of my research.

Assessing Critical Thinking

To speak to the complexity of assessing critical thinking, according to

Papastephanou and Angeli (2007), viewing critical thinking as a skill that is "teachable"

and assessable in a "black and white" or standardizable way is not conducive to the

concept. They argued that viewing critical thinking as a concept that has right and wrong

"formulas" is precisely what students need to be steered away from in education today.

They even say that the skills paradigm is outmoded and ill suited for teaching critical

thinking (Papastephanou and Angeli, 2007). The article went on to say, "Non-

measurability and resistance to assessment does not entail less educational importance or

even expendability" (Papastephanou and Angeli, 2007). To corroborate this assertion, the

article discussed a new addition to a British curriculum, which aims to "combat racism,

cultivate democratic feelings and communal spirit and prepare the pupils for their lives in

a democratic society." Such aims, as discussed by Papastephanou and Angeli "display

considerable resistance to standard assessment techniques, but that does not hinder their

29

being valuable than mere proficiency in political terminology" (2007). Assessment of

critical thinking is often difficult, and this article suggests that good critical thinking

curriculum is sometimes expended simply because of this.

According to Schommer-Aikins (2009), one of the key elements to deciding

whether a student is a strong critical thinker is to determine his or her willingness to

argue. That is, good critical thinkers see argumentation as constructive and a way to

further epistemic knowledge. Those who see argumentation as a battle where the goal is

to inflict hurt or negative feelings upon the opposition are generally not good critical

thinkers. Schommer-Aikins (2009) discussed five levels of "knowing" where the highest

two are called "procedural knowing" (optimal for critical thinking. Require the thinker or

knower to construct meaning or reality for his or her self), and the lower three—silence,

received knowing, and subjectivism—are considered "preprocedural knowing" (make

critical thinking difficult to obtain because knowledge is not constructed, but rather it is

accepted). Schommer-Aikins (2009) went on to say, "these epistemic positions make

higher level learning difficult because of an overreliance on authority (silence), a distrust

of one's own thinking (received knowing), or an overreliance on one's own thinking

(subjectivism)." The last two, separate knowing and connected knowing, are key to

critical thinking. According to Schommer-Aikins,

Connected knowers put greater emphasis on empathy. They walk in another person's shoes or attempt to understand an assertion from someone else's perspective first. After this empathic perusal, these individuals then accept, reject, or modify the particular assertion. By contrast, separate knowers put greater emphasis on doubt. They play the devil's advocate by first questioning and challenging assertions. After this questioning perusal, these individuals accept, reject, or modify the assertions. (2009)

30

What is of particular importance here is that the connected and separate knowers are

much more likely to engage in argument not for the purpose of causing psychological

harm to what they perceive as "the opponent," but rather as a way to broaden or expand

their own knowing. With this in mind, it becomes clear that the critical thinker is able and

willing to broaden and deepen his or her own knowledge without the aid or prodding of a

teacher. Not only does this underscore the invaluable attributes to being able to think

critically as a teacher, but also, it offers a helpful piece to solve the assessment "puzzle:"

willingness to argue.

Richard Paul (1995) outlined eight critical attributes to the assessment of critical

thinking. In his rubric, Paul (1995) called upon intellectual standards to assess critical

thinking. The rationale for this is that critical thinking must be rooted in logical and well

conceived reasoning rather than loose un-founded "brainstorming" and the like. He

defined each parameter of critical thinking in Critical Thinking: how to prepare students

for a rapidly changing world. Firstly, Paul (1995) argued that a student must be cognizant

of his or her purpose, goal, or end when constructing any kind of argument, essay, or

other piece of writing. If a student's goal is unreasonable, unattainable, or unrealistic,

then one can assume that the student's reasoning is faulty, and critical thinking is not

being implemented at a high level on the part of the student. When Paul (1995) assessed

whether a purpose, goal, or end is clear, significant (not trivial), and realistic, he stated

that good reasoners "take time to state a purpose clearly," "distinguish it from related

purposes," "periodically remind themselves of their purpose to determine whether they

are straying from it," "adopt realistic purposes and goals," and "choose significant

purposes and goals" (p. 157). Also, Paul (1995) insisted upon the importance of

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continuous feedback. Using the standards-based rubric is a way to show the student what

he or she has done well while simultaneously offering valuable constructive criticism for

improvement.

The second piece of Paul's (1995) rubric for assessing critical thinking has to do

with the student's ability to clearly state the question at issue and or the problem to be

solved. This means that a student must be able to present the problem or issue in a clear,

coherent manner without inserting his or her opinion too early on in the discussion, essay,

or summary. If a student's argument is about something trivial, or if it suggests a goal

that cannot be reached, then there is fallacy in the student's reasoning. The tendency of

students to make arguments that are unrealistic or important to virtually only the student

making them is a sign of egocentricity. According to Elder (2009), critical thinking relies

substantially on one's ability to deal with one's own egocentrism—that is, one must

override the human tendency to "think with an automatic, subconscious bias in favor of

oneself." To be sure, secondary students often tend to open their arguments (in persuasive

essays, for example) with statements like, "Anyone who has an abortion is a murderer."

Such statements are rooted in egocentricity in that they assume that there is only one set

of universal values (that of the student, in this case) to which all must conform.

The types of thinking and argumentation outlined in the previous paragraph come

into violation of Paul's (1995) third parameter of evaluating critical thinking, which

states that the student must be cognizant of his or her point of view as well as the points

of view and suppositions that his or her audience may have about a particular argument

or line of reasoning. Paul (1995) found that good reasoners tend to "approach problems

and issues with a richness of vision and an appropriately broad point of view" (p. 160).

32

That is, students who think critically about their writing are able to view problems from

the epistemological lens of their "opposition" as well as that of their own. This allows

them to see and consider problems from a much broader point of view than that of lesser

thinkers.

One way that students must be able to express themselves effectively is to use

empirical evidence in their arguments. That is, they must be able to appropriately use

concrete details or data in order to corroborate their arguments and their opinions. This

understanding of a need for supporting one's thinking is invaluable to critical reasoning

and thinking because it is how students get out of the "I'm right because I said so" or

egocentric mindset that represents much of their default disposition to reasoning. The use

of evidence and data requires the student's understanding of the concepts or ideas on

which his or her thoughts and arguments hinge. This is Paul's (1995) fifth dimension of

critical thinking outlined in the rubric. Students who are capable of reasoning well know

whether the concepts they describe or discuss are relevant or trivial. They also can

"distinguish special, non-standard uses of words from standard uses" (p. 155). An

example of this would be the understanding that even though the student may define

abortion as murder, he or she must not define abortion as murder in his or her paper

because that is not the standard definition of the word.

Paul (1995) goes on to say that all reasoning requires some level of

presupposition or assumption. For even the most airtight syllogism to be logical and

justifiable, there must some given assumption or presupposition from which the argument

is grounded. With that, students must have assumptions that are clear, justifiable, and

valid to their arguments. One of the ways by which these are assessed is looking at how

33

consistent the assumptions seem to be versus how often they are contradictory or

detracting from the student's arguments or points. With that, good reasoners "make

assumptions that are clear," they "make assumptions that are reasonable," and they

"make assumptions that are consistent with each other" (pp. 162-163).

The seventh piece of Paul's (1995) rubric explained that students are capable of

making logical conclusions concerning the implications and consequences of their

arguments. The fundamental standards that define this section of the rubric are

"Significance of implications, realistic nature of implications, clarity of articulated

implications, precision of articulated implications, and completeness of articulated

implications" (p. 163). To simplify, reasoning through a decision requires understanding

of the implications and consequences that follow from it. The question here is whether

students recognize the true implications of their arguments or if their understanding of

such implications is confined to the trivial and unjustifiable. For example, a student who

sees the primary implication of abortion as, "If my mom had an abortion, then I wouldn't

be here today" misses the more justifiable and realistic implication like, "abortion

deprives human beings the chance of living—what if the parents of Martin Luther King

Jr. or John F. Kennedy decided to get abortions? The world would be different as a whole

today." The second example illustrates a robust understanding of reasonable and

justifiable consequences to people as a whole relating to abortion, and the first example

shows that the student views abortion from a narrow epistemological lens in terms of

consequences and implications.

The final dimension of Paul's (1995) assessment of critical thinking has to do

with inferences and conclusions. Students who make inferences that are reasonable

34

understand that ifX, then Y where X consists of data and or concepts, and /represents a

synthesis and evaluation of those factors into a valid and reasonable inference. Paul

(1995) found that good reasoners make inferences that are "deep rather than superficial,"

and "follow from evidence or reasons presented" (p. 164). Essentially, students have to

be able to arrive at some kind of original and logical conclusion that finalizes and

cements the essence of their writing or thinking.

Summary of Literature

Essentially, the literature over the past pages in this chapter should present the

reader with a several assumptions about critical thinking:

Thinking critically requires scaffolding of knowledge. Various models throughout

this chapter view thinking (with or without critical thinking in mind) as something that is

divided into levels or groups. The bottom of all models discussed in this chapter is

"knowledge" or some equivalent. That is, critical thinking cannot take place without

knowledge or basic facts about a subject.

Critical thinking has many definitions and is difficult to assess. Critical thinking

has to do with the ability of one to find "deep structures" in problems, question sources of

knowledge and ways of knowing, and understand and evaluate the thinking of others in

order to create knowledge for oneself. Because of the complexity of critical thinking, it is

difficult to assess.

Critical thinking is a mode of thought that requires practice to master. The

literature suggests that critical thinking is something that requires thousands of hours to

master. It is a mode of thought that becomes automated in the thinking of higher-end

35

learners, but it requires huge amounts of practice to achieve because it is not a natural

inclination for humans to think in this way.

With these pieces in mind, I would like to now turn to the methodology of

assessment for the purposes of this study. Please keep in mind that the following is based

off of my own synthesis of the literature and information collected throughout this

chapter.

Methodology of Assessment for the Purposes of this Study

Since there is a vast number of rubrics and theories for the assessment of critical

thinking, I have borrowed from various sources in this paper to construct my own model

of assessing critical thinking. For the purposes of this study, I will focus primarily on two

of the components of critical thinking that I have found to be the most problematic for

ninth graders in two of my Language Arts classes at Black Lake High School in Buckley,

Washington. The first will be recognizing and validating points of view other than those

of the student's own. The second will be understanding the importance of and

implementing valid, justifiable evidence to support claims and opinions. These two

central parameters are designed to force the student to do several things that are essential

to critical thinking. Firstly, they both encourage the student to think in broader terms than

egocentricity. To be sure, seeing the need to validate claims in terms beyond, "because

it's my opinion, and that's enough" is an important component to critical thinking that

gets alluded to by most of the theorists mentioned earlier in this chapter. These

parameters encourage students to search for justifiable validations—inferred from

previous statements or gathered from concrete details found in literature. Secondly, both

of the parameters are meant to encourage students to keep the audience in mind when

36

they write. If the student is capable of doing this successfully, then his or her writing will

not only improve, but his or her thinking about the world as a whole and making meaning

out of events and themes in life will be improved as well. Critical thinking instruction,

then, will help to make better global citizens even if they choose not to seek higher

education (more on this in chapter one).

The following rubric is a tool that I will use to ultimately assess individual pieces

of writing from my students. The top level or tier represents a high level of critical

thinking in the defined area for the ninth grade level. Conversely, the bottom level or tier

represents little to no critical thinking. I will discuss exactly how this tool will be used for

my study in chapter three of this paper.

Table 1

Rubric for assessing critical thinking

31

Recognizing and Validating Points of View other than those of the Student (A)

Tier 1: Superior Student mentions and validates a different point of view for the sake of ultimately bolstering his or her own point of view or opinion. Student does not contradict his or her own views or opinions in so doing, and his or her opinions become validated in part through the validation of the other view point.

Tier 2: Standard to Strong Student mentions the opposition or differing view point but does not validate it. The opposition or "other" is portrayed as wrong or inferior, thus revealing the student's bias. Student's own opinions are sometimes contradicted for a lack of superior understanding of opposing view point.

Tier 3: Weak to Emerging Student fails to use evidence in a justifiable, effective way. Student does understand that there is a different point of view from his or her own but articulates this understanding vaguely at best.

Tier 4: Fundamentally Lacking Student shows no understanding that there is another point of view. This lack of understanding causes the student's statements to ultimately be weaker than they could have otherwise been. Student's lack of understanding causes him or her to contradict his or her arguments and or opinions.

Understanding the Importance of and Implementing Valid,

Justifiable Evidence to Support Claims and Opinions (B)

Tier 1: Superior Student Selects logical and necessary parts of writing to use valid pieces of evidence and data to support original and creative claims. Evidence goes well beyond superficiality and brings the student's thinking to a greater level of depth and validity.

Tier 2: Standard to Strong Student uses evidence and data to bolster claims that are justifiable but not always entirely valid or clear. Evidence supports claims and sometimes deepens understanding. Evidence is usually used where it is needed.

Tier 3: Weak to Emerging Student uses evidence that is disjointed and rarely instrumental in supporting claims and opinions. Claims and opinions lack originality and insight. Student rarely uses evidence when it is needed. Evidence seems randomly placed.

Tier 4: Fundamentally Lacking Student makes claims and judgments that are not supported by any logical or insightful thought. Claims are rarely if ever supported with any evidence or data. When data and evidence are used, they do not enrich understanding, justify, or validate claims and opinions made. Claims are superficial and or trivial.

38

CHAPTER THREE

METHODOLOGY

Overview

The implementation of my research was multi-faceted to give me the greatest

depth of understanding about this subject. This study was designed to develop and assess

the critical thinking ability of ninth grade students in a layered language arts class. I will

use the research literature covered in chapter two to design lesson plans, activities, and

assessments that will be particularly aimed at critical thinking. Later on in this chapter, I

will give examples of these to help clarify. To help me achieve this goal, I have designed

a rubric that will help me assign quantitative scores to critical thinking.

Implementation of the Research

Based on the literature review from chapter two, I have come to several

conclusions that guided the pedagogical decisions for implementing my research. Firstly,

I paid close attention to organizing units and lessons in such a way that background

knowledge was gained. According to the literature, it is imperative to have knowledge

about a subject before deeper levels of critical thinking can take place on that subject.

Also, I asked questions and gave assignments designed to stimulate critical thinking in

terms of the rubric I have designed in chapter two (Also, see section in chapter two about

asking questions and Marzano). The literature has also shown me that teaching critical

thinking as a skill is not effective practice. As a result, I implemented critical thinking

education into the curriculum with formative assessments and discussions (mentioned

39

below). Also, I treated critical thinking as a mode of thought and not a skill set. As the

educator, I merely attempted to guide thinking across my curricula and avoid reliance on

"the right answers" or opinions. In other words, the units for this study focused on the

cognitive abilities outlined in the rubric more than any other ability or skill associated

with the curriculum.

With this in mind, many of my assignments were designed to encourage students

to do some of the "lower level" thinking and cognitive work before critical thinking was

demanded. Booker (cited and addressed in chapter two) insisted that this method is

crucial to teaching critical thinking because without "lower level" knowledge (as seen in

hierarchal models of thinking similar to Bloom's Taxonomy and others), students really

do not have much to think critically about. One way that I established the lower order

knowledge from which to scaffold critical thinking was through assigning a worksheet

that contained blocks that students used to summarize and put into their own words what

they read over a ten-minute period. I simply stopped them every ten minutes to ask them

to summarize and discuss what they read. This was the first step to getting students to

internalize some concrete details and facts before they were asked to move into the

higher-level stages of thinking.

The next piece of such assignments was a series of questions that had simple

right/wrong answers (fill in the blank, multiple choice, and true/false usually in the form

of a worksheet or reading guide). These questions asked students to go back through the

reading and their summaries to find more specific details. After this was done, I had

students answer questions that were designed to encourage them to think about what they

40

read while paying attention to recognizing and validating the points of view of others as

well as implementing data to support their opinions.

I used one example of this technique during a unit about "The Odyssey." I had the

students stop every ten minutes to summarize in their own words what they read, and

then I had them answer questions pertaining to the text. I helped them through these

questions when they struggled, but I made sure that they used the text in order to find

their answers. I paid very close attention to my own teaching to ensure that I was not

"spoon feeding" the information, because I wanted them to construct their knowledge

rather than have it "given" to them. This concept was covered in chapter two with a

discussion about actualization of knowledge and constructionist epistemology. The

questions asked things like, "Why didn't the suitors recognize Odysseus?" "What was the

plan outlined by Odysseus on page 927?" and "Describe the contest that Penelope sets up

for the suitors." Once the students had answered ten or fifteen questions like this, they

were in a position where enough "lower level" knowledge was gained to give them

something to think critically about. (This concept was discussed with the exploration of

Booker and Bloom's theory in chapter two).

Short-Answer Response Questions

The students were then asked to answer some deeper critical thinking questions.

One example of such a question was: "Does Odysseus want to get back home to Penelope

because he loves her? Is it possible that he simply wants to come claim her because she

'belongs' to him and nothing more? Use specific details to support your opinion." Such

questions could not be answered by looking them up in the text, and many students

tended to struggle with them because of that. These questions required students to draw

41

on their own experiences and reflections as well as the views of others (like Odysseus)

along with the material itself to synthesize logical answers. In order for the students to

adequately justify their responses, however, they had to use the concrete knowledge and

facts they gained from reading the text and doing summaries as well as the knowledge

questions. Going over the answers that students come up with in questions like these as a

way to supplement the critical thinking portion in that students could interact with one

another about their opposing viewpoints pertaining to critical thinking questions. This

method was designed to encourage students to be more successful with a part of the

assessment rubric I constructed in chapter two: "recognizing and validating other points

of view." Again, the short-answer response to literature questions were what made up the

majority of my formative assessments in terms of how well the students critically thought

about and responded to the literature they read. To summarize, most of my lessons were

designed to lead the class from lower "basic knowledge" to deeper critical thinking

Essays

The essays were used not only as a summative assessment method to show me

how well the students understood what they had read, but also, they were designed to

show me how well the students thought critically about the text. Much like the short

answer responses they had to do during the unit, these essays did not demand

"right/wrong" answers or responses, but rather, they encouraged the students to analyze

and think about the details and knowledge they learned over the course of every unit. The

final assignment for "The Odyssey" required students to complete a project as well as to

write an essay. They had an option to do a number of different tasks to complete the

project, ranging from using music (either of their own creation or from their own

42

collection of music) to explain or react to a part of the literature all the way to writing a

series of letters from the points of view of several characters from the epic poem.

The essay portion asked students to make and defend an opinion about a portion of "The

Odyssey" in the form of a five-paragraph paper. By the time they finished reading the

epic, the students had completed enough formative assessments (and received feedback)

so that they could synthesize what they had learned into an essay. The students received a

very open-ended prompt: "Give and support some opinion you have about 'The Odyssey'

now that you have completed it using the five-paragraph model." I also included several

examples of topics from which they could choose. I helped students at their requests

before and after school as well as during study hall to minimize the anxiety that comes

from being assigned a deadline for major project. When I collected the essays, I used the

rubric in chapter two in order to decide how well the students were able to think critically

from the literature they studied. I will discuss how the rubric was used later in this

chapter.

Similarly, I also gathered data from a unit on the book, Night by Elie Wiesel. For

this unit, students were asked to complete a daily journal entry with a critical thinking

question pertaining directly to the text. Also, there were several quizzes throughout the

unit that consisted of short-answer questions that required students to reflect personally

on what they had read from the novel as well as to think critically about the topics

covered (examples of these questions found in chapter 4). Finally, the students were

asked to write a letter to Elie Wiesel asking about and commenting on his experiences

and their reflections upon them. The letter assignment also required students to use

specific examples from the text with page numbers. The essay assignments were

43

purposely designed to encourage students to think in the ways the rubric outlined in

chapter two.

Interviews

I selected (at random) ten students for interviews. I had a set of questions that I

asked them about various issues and topics that required their opinions. These questions

were loosely developed to allow students to think about them more freely. The questions

pertained to subjects within and outside of the curriculum in the class. The idea here was

not to gauge mastery in the language arts content area, but moreover, it was to get a better

sense of their critical thinking ability in general. I conducted the interviews like a

conversation, and I used what the students said to lead the interviews. I took notes on

their responses and how they justified them verbally. This piece gave me a better sense of

how my students think critically about subjects in which they may be more inclined to

have interest. To be sure, students sometimes tend to demonstrate a greater willingness to

think critically about topics outside of the curriculum, and the interview section of the

study often verified this (see chapter 4). For these interviews, I talked with students

individually, in pairs, and in groups of up to four. Because the interviews were held in a

very informal type of environment, and because they were led more like discussions, the

questions I asked varied from group to group. Specific examples of the nature of these

conversations were recorded in chapter 4 of this paper.

Using the Rubric

I took average scores for a collection of assignments from each unit. For the short

answer responses, I assigned a single score (1 being the highest, and 4 being the lowest

tier of critical thinking) based on the rubric to all participants in the study. I then took an

44

average for all samples collected to give me an idea as to where my students are in terms

of critical thinking for that type of assignment. For the essays, I found three of the highest

examples of critical thinking demonstrated in each essay I collected, and I recorded an

average number for all of the essays in order to get an idea as to what my students'

performance level in critical thinking was for that type of assignment. I then collected

instances of critical thinking during the interview sessions and followed the same process

as mentioned before. Since scoring critical thinking was highly subjective, even with a

rubric, I included examples of average, low, and high scores of critical thinking in the

next chapter.

Once the data was collected and analyzed, I gained a clearer view as to how

implementing the findings from the literature in chapter two seems to function in terms of

teaching students to think critically. I also have an idea as to which medium of

assessment (short answer, essay, or interview) seems to yield the highest levels of critical

thinking. Finally, I was able to see which unit {Night or "The Odyssey") yielded the

highest critical thinking scores. The findings from the implementation of this study led

me to a great deal of understandings as well as questions for future study.

45

CHAPTER FOUR

DATA ANALYSIS

Difficulties with Data Collection

The following is the collection of data I have accumulated over this study. I ran

into several problems in gathering this data. Firstly, I found that some students who lack

"buy in" tend to neglect putting maximum effort into their assignments even when grades

are at stake. As a result, any data points collected from those students probably does not

represent their actual critical thinking level. This tended to especially be the case with my

third period class that is made up of about 50% repeaters of the same course. Another

problem that I ran into was enforcing due dates so that I could get a large sample of data

in a timely manner. Black Lake High has a policy where students are allowed to turn in

any assignment at any time as many times as they want with no penalty. As a result, I

would get less than 20% of my students handing in assignments for the purposes of this

thesis. In fact, this tended to be the case even when class time was given to complete

work.

Another piece of the data collection that provided me with great difficulty was

using the rubric to assign quantitative values to critical thinking. I found that maintaining

consistency was particularly challenging since each student chose different topics to

discuss, answered questions differently, and gave different evidence for opinions.

Furthermore, when recording the data for written answers and essays, I found a tendency

to subconsciously match my expectations for each student's academic progress to the

46

results of their critical thinking. For example, the students with the lower grades or who

tended to be less successful in general registered in my mind as lower-level critical

thinkers, so I had to second guess myself often after recording their scores. What I found

was that critical thinking ability had very little to no correlation to academic progress

(more on this later). Likewise, I found myself assigning higher scores to the students with

higher grades and success levels even though their critical thinking evidenced by the data

was not as high as I expected. As a result, I had to evaluate each piece several times.

Reflections on Methods

Before assigning any essays, I made sure that my units were designed prepare

students to think critically about the subject. For example, I had students first do a

miniature research project on the Holocaust before reading Night. Each student was asked

to select a topic pertaining to World War 2 with a partner and give a speech as well as

create a visual aid for it. This was to give students the background knowledge necessary

to begin thinking about the novel in context. Next, I had the students fill out journals each

and every day before reading their copies of the novel. The journal contained a daily

prompt for practicing grammar (as you shall see, students still struggle with this; such is a

topic for an entirely different thesis), as well as a question pertaining to the reading for

the day. For example, just before reading the section of the book where a boy left his

father behind him on a death march, students were asked to respond to the following

prompt, "if you know that a loved one would want you to save yourself even if it meant

sacrificing him or her, is it okay to do it?" Very rarely did I notice students off task or

disengaged from this type of question.

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These types of questions were designed to help students see or experience

dilemmas from the perspectives of others. Discussing the responses students gave for

these questions showed that different people had differing views on the same topics. For

instance, when I asked Jacob from my third period class what he wrote, he told me, "I

wouldn't hesitate to leave a parent behind to save myself." I asked him why, and he

responded, "I am younger than my parents; I should get to live because they have already

lived a long time.[sic]" Immediately, Janelle responded, "That is so messed up! I would

never sacrifice my parents for myself! [sic]" At this point, I asked both of them, "Which

is worse for the parent: death, or living with the knowledge that you are alive because of

the death of your child." This sparked huge debate, and it got students exposure to one

another's viewpoints.

Finally, I had students take quizzes and fill out study guides throughout the

reading of the novel. This held them accountable for the basic knowledge of the story.

Questions asked things like, "Who is Moishe the Beadle?" "How did Elie react when his

father was beaten before his very eyes?" and "What was Mrs. Schacter screaming about

on the train to Birkeneau?" The rationale behind such quizzes is to equip children to

better deal with criterion B of critical thinking rubric, which has to do with using specific

evidence to support and validate opinions and claims. Chapter two goes over the

necessity of base knowledge for the processes of critical thinking.

Essay Data

Upon collecting and evaluating the data for essays, I have come to numerous

realizations. I used one assignment from Night by Elie Wiesel, and one assignment from

"The Odyssey." The critical thinking demonstrated by the students in the Night

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assignment scored an average of 2.37 points in parameter A (Recognizing and validating

points of view other than those of the student) while parameter B (Understanding the

Importance of and Implementing Valid, Justifiable Evidence to support Claims and

Opinions) yielded an average score of 2.66. Please remember that a higher "score"

corresponds to a lower level on the rubric for measuring critical thinking. The following

will give examples of the levels of critical thinking demonstrated by the students and a

sense of how I evaluated each data point.

In the Night letter, one student was reflecting on a scene where a Jewish prisoner

began screaming hysterically while on a train with many other prisoners. The student

wrote, "The woman that started yelling out of no where, you guys thought she was crazy,

but actually she was forseeing what was going to happen when they got there; fire and

death. To see her act like that must have been very strange.[sic]" (All grammatical and

spelling errors have been left unrevised). This piece ranks in tier 2 from criterion A on

the rubric. The student was demonstrating an understanding of the Jews' point of view

while aboard the train: this woman is out of her mind. However, the student also points to

a literary irony, taking place in that the woman's seeing fire quite literally matches the

fate of many of the Jews aboard that very train. This example, however, did not reach the

"superior" tier because it failed to operationalize the word "strange." This shows that the

student's thinking about the incident is not incredibly deep. Perhaps asking some guiding

questions like, "what do you mean by 'strange'?" would help to take her to a deeper level

of thinking critically about the event in the book. Thinking critically about the subject

would have helped her to reach a better sense of (and therefore better explanation of) the

epistemological process that has led her to describe the moment as "weird." This example

49

most closely represented the average for scores on the rubric in criterion A, which was

2.28.

The same student's comment was at a level 2 in criterion B of the rubric because

the evidence given was vague and not developed very deeply. More specific concrete

details from the book and drawing on more than the obvious events from the novel to

help explain this concept of "fire" would have put the example at the top of the rubric.

Despite several shortcomings, the claim still shows that the student realized that her

opinion needed to be validated with examples and evidence from the text. The evidence

was well placed, and it was valid to the student's point of view.

The preceding example shows what I expect as the standard in critical thinking

when writing essays at the ninth grade level. Unfortunately, as the data shows, many of

these students are still slightly below this standard as evidenced in this example: "This

book impacted me by making me feel like that I was like really there when all of this was

going on, it put me in like someone's own point of view, in their own eye's, [sic]" This

example scored a three both in criterion A and B on the critical thinking assessment

rubric. The student said that the book had placed him in another's point of view, which he

found impactful. However, he followed this up with no evidence until later on in the

paragraph when he said, " When you had to watch those baby's be thrown into the air an

be used for target practice. I just couldn't imagine what that had to be like for you. [sic]"

This was an attempt at using evidence from the text to support his original claim,

however, it is unclear why the student chose that event and exactly how that part of the

book bolsters his claim. Because there is some evidence that the student realized that a

different viewpoint exists, the example did not show "fundamentally lacking" or "tier 4"

50

critical thinking. This example most closely represented the average for criterion B in the

rubric for essays, which was 2.50.

Only a handful of the 20 essays collected for this section displayed critical

thinking at the first tier in the rubric. In fact, no one was able to show critical thinking in

the first tier of the rubric for criterion B. This was one of the things that first intrigued me

about this topic—students have great difficulty using evidence to effectively bolster

opinions, claims, and arguments. For example, one child who scored a level four on the

rubric for criterion B wrote in his letter to Elie Wiesel, "I would of shut up and tryed to

get out there. I would have killed the German people and if any one asked I would say I

don't know who did it. [sic]" There was absolutely no evidence offered to support this

proposal. Such a statement received a level four in criterion B because it demonstrated

that the child saw no need to give evidence to support his claim that a Jew in a

concentration camp should have just killed all of "the Germans" and escaped.

Short Answer Questions Data

The short answer questions used for this project were pulled from various

assignments, quizzes, and daily journal entries. These questions were designed as

anticipatory set activities to introduce students to the text and to get them thinking about

possible essay topics. Furthermore, they were also often used as discussion topics with

the class. Similar to the collection process for the essays, I had great difficulty in getting

students to respond to these fully. Many students chose to write a sentence or two as a

response to a question that was meant to stimulate thinking that should require multiple

sentences to articulate. As a result, there is not a 100% guarantee that the following data

is a reflection on the group's ability to think critically. Likewise, it was also a great

51

challenge to get students to hand in work in a manner timely enough for me to give the

students feedback for revisions. As a result, this data is the product of students' work

before any kind of revision or feedback was given to them.

The short answer question data yielded the lowest levels of critical thinking. I

found that the best critical thinking examples, however, were in the Night journals. In

fact, the average score of all short answer pieces used to gauge critical thinking averaged

a 3.20 on the rubric. The Night journal critical thinking responses, however, showed a

much higher 2.30 average. Of all of the questions used for journal prompts for this unit,

the one that almost always showed the highest levels of critical thinking in both criteria

of the rubric was: "If you know that a loved one would want you to sacrifice him or her

for your own life, would you do it? If it is what they want you to do, then how might that

be an ethical issue? What would Elie Wiesel say? Use evidence from the text." Similar to

the problems from the essay responses, students had great difficulty with using events

from the book to justify their opinions, but the students showed very deep thinking in

general when they responded to this prompt. Here is an example:

For me, if I truly loved someone I want what's best for them no matter what. Even if they told me they want to sacrifice their life for mine. If it were a parent, then I would accept their sacrifice cause they already lived a long time. Not if it were a child or best friend.

The student made distinctions and built off of her prior experiences in this example to

justify her opinion on the concept of accepting a sacrifice. She continued,

I'm not entirely sure why I believe this way, but I think it's because I have had family issues in the past, and at the same time I would be viewing their death as revenge. I know that sounds horrible. My friends are my self-built family, and they mean more to me than my real family.

52

The rest of the response showed that she was aware that her opinion on the matter

may "sound horrible" to someone else, so she went on to justify herself by saying that her

friends were her self-built family. She even started off by questioning and exploring her

own epistemology by saying, "I'm not entirely sure why I believe this way. . . .[sic]"

These are evidence that critical thinking was taking place, at least in criterion A of the

rubric.

In multiple cases, the critical thinking evidenced in these journals tended to be

much higher than it was in prior units and assignments. For instance, one boy, when

asked to answer a question about why Odysseus was a good leader in "The Odyssey"

wrote that his leadership was good because Odysseus could shoot a bow and arrow well

and that all leaders must be good with weapons in order to be successful. The story

contains only one or two parts where Odysseus' skills with a bow and arrow are

instrumental to his success, however, there are no points in the story where his ability to

use weapons is imperative to his leadership. The same student, however, responded to

Night with much higher levels of critical thinking in his journal. For instance, when asked

the question about accepting sacrifice, he said things like, "I don't think that anyone

could ever live it down if they let a family member or friend sacrifice themselves. The

guilt would haunt my dreams forever. It is never okay to sacrifice someone else unless it

is someone you dislike very much, [sic]" This example was not a superior display of

critical thinking, however, the student clearly had thought about how he or she would feel

if he let a family member sacrifice his or her own life for him. He has looked beyond the

immediate need for survival, and he has thought about the implications of such a

decision. The assertion that it is okay to let someone sacrifice his or her life to save his

53

only if he dislikes that person is a bit less insightful, but the deeper thought that

characterizes critical thinking (according to criterion A of the rubric) is certainly much

more present in this example than in the one from "The Odyssey."

One question asked whether Odysseus really loved his wife, Penelope or if he

wanted to get back home to her because she was a "possession" of his. One student

responded,

Odysseus seems to treat those closest to him like they are his property. He let his crew suffer on the journey home a lot. Like when he went by Scylla knowing that a bunch of guys were going to get killed, and he did it anyway without telling them. He just wanted to get home, and their safety didn't mean anything to him. Some people might say that he loves his men because he gets really sad when they get hurt or killed. Like when the Cyclops ate two of his guys, he shows a lot of sadness because he loves says he loves them like brothers. I don't think that's true.

This student showed very high-level critical thinking relative to most of my other

students. She stated her claim early on, and then she validated it using evidence from the

text. She did this in a creative and justifiable way sufficient to bring her to a level 1.00 on

the rubric for criterion B. Also, she showed a very good understanding that there are

other points of view, and she used those to bolster her claims. This was most effectively

done when she said that Odysseus showed great sadness when his men get killed by the

Cyclops. She evidenced a level 1.00 in criterion A as well for this example.

The data from the short answer questions is evidence that some topics are easier

for students to think critically about, and or said topics are more engaging for students to

work with. However, Night was not always the topic where students showed the highest

levels of critical thinking. For instance, one of my top-performing students responded to

the following prompt: "It is said that indifference is worse than hate. Do you agree or

disagree? Explain using evidence from Night." She responded, "Yes, because if people

54

were to be getting killed and no one cared it would be worse than anything. It is really

bad because you don't care, [sic]" This scored a level 3 in criterion B of the rubric, but a

level 4 in criterion A. This student did vaguely touch on evidence ("people getting killed"

presumably is a reference to the Holocaust), but she did not display any thinking that

suggests that she had an understanding that her opinion could be refuted. When we had a

class discussion about this, one student explained that being hated is much worse than

having someone be indifferent towards one. I asked her if it was better to have someone

care enough to hate her or to have someone lack any care at all toward her. This is when

the student who wrote the previous example interrupted, "If no one cares, then hate can

take control, though!" Her point was fantastic, and it tied very well into the Holocaust.

However, she did not justify her point of view in her writing.

There has been a definite trend with students' making great points verbally in

class discussion, but then falling flat in showing their critical thinking through writing.

One student responded to the question, "Why didn't the United States intervene more

quickly and help the Jewish people who were being killed and persecuted?" He answered,

"It isn't our problem to be cops for the world. There is no way we could have convinced

everyone to go to war because Americans would have gotten killed when the country

wasn't in danger." The answer impressed me because he was a much less successful

student than the majority of the children I taught. When I read his journal (the same

question was the prompt of the day), he wrote, "Because we didn't care. We don't have

to worry about it." The evidence highlighted a disconnect between critical thinking and

writing about critical thinking conclusions.

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Even though the Night journals yielded the highest levels of critical thinking in

both criteria on the rubric, students' ability to use evidence from any resources

whatsoever was rare, and this caused lower results in criterion B than A. I asked students

to respond to this question in their journals, "Is it true that what doesn't kill you makes

you stronger? Did Elie's endurance of the Holocaust make him stronger? If so, was all of

what he endured for the better? Explain using evidence from the text." One of my most

successful students wrote,

Even though the Holocaust didn't kill Elie, it did make him stronger. The experiences in a way were good for him. They made him tough and taught him how to handle situations which he endured in the Holocaust like poverty or abuse. It also isn't good for him because he has the memories of it, he's probably scarred for life, [sic]

The student scored a 2.00 for criterion A because she showed an understanding that

others may disagree with her original statement about the Holocaust making Elie

stronger. However, she did not explore the two ideas, which prevented her from reaching

tier 1.00. She scored a 3 in tier two, however, because there was no specific evidence

present in the response that showed "poverty" or "abuse." There were many events in the

novel that would be paradigmatic examples of those two things, yet the student did not

use those examples to bolster the claims made.

Interview Data

The main point of the interviews was to explore whether there is a significant

disconnect between students' ability to verbalize critical thinking and to write it. I

prefaced all the interviews by asking students to treat the interview as though they were

in a professional setting. I also told them that they were to think about each answer and to

try to justify all of their comments with evidence when necessary and possible. In the first

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interview (conducted in the classroom with ten randomly selected students), I asked a

student to tell me what she thought of Shakespeare (we had just started reading "Romeo

and Juliet"). She is a repeating student of the course. She told me that "Romeo and Juliet"

is "stupid" and that Shakespeare "sucks." I then asked her to tell me why she thought

that. Her response was, "It is badly written, and it's boring." Prodding her further, I asked

her to tell me why she thought that. After thinking about it for a few minutes, she replied,

"It just sucks, and it's too hard." I then asked, "Why do you think some people like it,

then?" Her response was, "they are nerds, and they are pretty much egg heads."

A second student (not a repeater and more successful academically) then chimed

in, "I think she means that the language is really old, and nobody talks that way. That

makes it kind of pointless because we won't really use it." The first student showed tier 4

critical thinking in criteria A and B. She showed no understanding that Shakespeare could

be appreciated or viewed differently than the way she viewed it. Also, she applied the

universal assumption that all people who genuinely enjoy Shakespeare are "egg heads."

The second student showed higher-level thinking when he identified a valid, justifiable

reason for the text being non-engaging. However, he did not identify and validate an

opposing point of view that might find the language instrumental to the meaning of the

play. Therefore, his comments would score a level 2.00 in criterion A and a level 2 in

criterion B. The first student, despite her display of low-level critical thinking according

to the rubric, displayed much higher-level critical thinking in her short answer response

(earlier on in this chapter, she was the author of the example from "The Odyssey" that

displayed level 1.00 critical thinking in both criteria from the rubric). Contrary to my

expectation, this student seemed unable to talk about her own thoughts or beliefs in the

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interview context, however, she was able to show quite profound insight for her grade

level when she wrote about "The Odyssey." The evidence becomes more perplexing

when we take into account that the lowest levels of critical thinking evidenced in this

study came from the short answer questions.

Most students showed that they could demonstrate critical thinking verbally much

more effectively than they could through the written word. For instance, I asked the

following question, "Is it true that indifference is the greatest crime against humanity?

Try to explain yourself using evidence from what we've learned in the Night unit."

Previously in this chapter, I noted that one student said, "Yes, because if people were to

be getting killed and no one cared it would be worse than anything. It is really bad

because you don't care." As previously mentioned, said student scored poorly in the

realm of critical thinking as per the rubric standards. However, she answered the question

in interview form as follows, "At least if someone hates you, then that person cares about

you even if it's bad. I guess it's better to know that you can at least make someone care

even it's negative than to have someone totally not even care at all. Like if you get killed

or treated bad, then you would want someone to care rather than say, T don't care about

that person.'" This scores a 2.00 in both criteria of the critical thinking rubric because it

shows that the student has thought about the question in terms of the level of care being

presented rather than the sheer negativity of being "hated." Also, she presented some

evidence, though rather vague, by saying that having someone not care about the death of

another is worse than the death of that person being celebrated or welcomed because of

the level of care involved.

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Despite the aforementioned anomalies in my data, I discovered that students are

by and large much more capable of displaying critical thinking when they can verbalize

it. In the second interview I conducted, I used the same questions. This time, I took ten

students aside who showed the lowest levels of critical thinking in their writing. Their

writing consistently showed tier 4 critical thinking in both criteria from the rubric.

However, when I spoke with them, they demonstrated tier 2 critical thinking almost

unanimously. In fact, I even pulled questions from the bank used for the short answer

question data analysis—questions the students had already written about and scored

poorly on—and the students showed vast success. The data, then, suggests that students'

difficulty in showing critical thinking could be a difficulty with writing, lack of

motivation, or any other set of issues pertaining to classroom performance—not thinking

ability.

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CHAPTER FIVE

CONCLUSIONS

Brief Review of Data

The research and practices that I have done for this project have illuminated

several general understandings. Firstly, different methods of encouraging and demanding

the demonstration of critical thinking have vastly different results. For example, the data

showed that students demonstrated significantly higher-level critical thinking when they

did the Night unit versus the "The Odyssey" unit. This is highly significant because both

units used similar assignments to stimulate critical thinking. The general finding that

different curricular choices have unseen variables (in this study) that impact critical

thinking results suggests that critical thinking cannot be objectively measured with any

one-assessment strategy. Another finding was that students were almost always able to

demonstrate critical thinking more effectively when they could vocalize their opinions or

feelings versus when they were asked to write about them. As the data shows, even when

the short-answer and essay prompts demanded very open-ended but thorough responses,

students still were able to respond verbally, evidencing much higher-level critical

thinking.

The data also showed that when students were asked to complete journal entries

to daily prompts on the board, evident critical thinking was much higher than any other

written samples. The students even knew that the prompts were going to be graded

primarily for completion, and not profoundness or perfection, but the evidence suggests

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that they took those assignments more seriously (judging by the quality of them). These

journal entries fell into the "short answer" portion of the data, and they were examples of

significantly higher-level critical thinking than any of the other short answer assignments.

Finally, even with these best examples of critical thinking from my two classes, it was

incredibly rare for a student to achieve tier 1.00 in section B of the rubric (usage of

evidence to support claims). Even though I provided countless examples of how evidence

is used to corroborate claims and opinions, the students tended to use evidence

ineffectively across the board. This could be for any number of reasons. Firstly, a simple

lack of will to use evidence could very well be the culprit. If student engagement is the

case, then the rubric does not account for those students who simply chose not to

complete their assignments thoroughly. However, 1 would argue that the students who

scored the lowest with using evidence in their arguments and claims simply did not see

the need to do so. If this is the case, then the rubric functions well in assessing this facet

of critical thinking.

Enduring Understandings

Over the duration of my research of literature and the actual implementation of

my methodology for this topic, I learned that critical thinking is inexplicably complex

because it is a human function. When I initially began doing research for this topic, I was

under the impression that one could leaf through the literature, pull out and implement a

couple of "best practice" methods for encouraging critical thinking, and give a test to

assess it. What I found was that this assumption could not be further from the truth. We

educators, parents, and even politicians want the task of teaching critical thinking (and all

other subjects) to be this simple, but it will never be. As I mentioned earlier in chapter

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one, we rely on the "critical thinking questions" in the back of the book to teach students

this invaluable method of thinking and questioning. The process of teaching this mode of

thought takes tremendously more than that.

I have found that hundreds of factors come into play (the vast majority of which I

have yet to even identify) when it comes to teaching adolescents to engage in a new mode

of thought, and those factors seem to literally change daily. A student may demonstrate

brilliant critical thinking one day, and because of a lack of engagement in a new topic,

problems at home, social difficulties, or a multitude of other issues, the same student may

appear to be fundamentally lacking in critical thinking ability the next day. This is

precisely why it is so complicated to gauge students' ability to think critically. I think that

without this knowledge, it becomes easy for the educator to falsely label or judge

students prematurely on their academic abilities. This means that the educator and society

as a whole must consciously attempt to get beyond the assumption that there can be some

set method or panacea answer to the question of critical thinking. To be sure, it requires

substantial planning, research, and appropriate response to classroom dynamics to teach

students to think critically; these are things that will be fundamentally different for each

teacher based on a multitude of factors.

The literature suggested that students would be resistant to think critically. I never

realized that this would be such a tremendous barrier to teaching them to engage in this

mode of thought. I remember during my first couple of months at White River High

School that another English teacher warned me not to be too disappointed when teaching

my unit on "The Odyssey." She explained that the critical thinking components of the

unit would be very difficult to implement because, "they [the students] don't like to think

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about anything." I learned that in today's society (at least at this particular high school), it

is extremely difficult to get students to engage in meaningful thought about topics related

to academic curriculum. However, I would amend the statement from the other English

teacher and say, "Students don't like to think about things that are not immediately

entertaining or gratifying." Even when I taught Night (the most successful unit of the year

for critical thinking), students still complained that the book was "stupid" or "boring"

after reading less than two pages. It gets easy to blame students for their lack of

willingness to immediately engage in thinking critically about things with which they

have little to no experience. To be sure, I have run into many teachers who are quite bitter

about students' willingness to engage in so many of the things that we would call

"meaningless" like cell phone use, movies, video games, the internet, Mp3 players, and

shopping instead of the "sacred" curriculum. I would argue, however, that the issue a lot

of teachers run into with teaching critical thinking is not student laziness or stupidity, but

rather, it is a lack of cultural congruency. That is, many students have not grown up in

cultures where it is "cool" to be smart or knowledgeable, but they have learned to place

value on the "other stuff that their generation has taught them to embrace. The educator,

then, is indeed at a disadvantage when it comes to competing with the vibrant, digital,

sexy, glamorous, hip, outside world, but he or she must adapt the curriculum accordingly.

Students are indeed not hopeless or stupid by any means, but there is a definite overall

lack of willingness to learn about things that they do not instantly find entertaining.

Implications for Practice

Based on my research and practices, it has become much more evident to me that

assessing the effectiveness of lessons geared at encouraging critical thinking is extremely

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complicated. It is easy to take a look at a piece of work from a student, apply it to some

rubric, and make a judgment about that student's critical thinking ability. The truth,

however, is that critical thinking cannot take place unless the student is in an environment

that is optimal for him or her to think critically. For example, students were more inclined

to show higher-level critical thinking when they were reading Night, and not when they

were reading "The Odyssey." Upon reviewing the lessons and overall nature of both

units, I found that the journaling routine was optimal for getting students to demonstrate

high-level critical thinking skills, however, assignments from "The Odyssey" asked

students to think critically in very similar ways. For instance, one question from the Night

unit was, "If you know that a loved one would want you to sacrifice him or her for your

own life, would you do it? If it is what they want you to do, then how might that be an

ethical issue? What would Elie Wiesel say? Use evidence from the text." This question

yielded some of the highest levels of critical thinking in written form. A similar question

from the "The Odyssey" unit asked, "Is it ethical for Odysseus to allow his crew to risk

their lives so that he can get back to Ithaca? If they are willing to do it, then is it okay?

Why or why not?" This question yielded much lower results. What the best

environments, curricula, and assessments are for getting students to demonstrate their

best critical thinking could easily take another thesis to tackle, however, it is important

for teachers to pay close attention to the subtle nuances of their teaching that can be the

difference between student success and failure.

Between my research and scientific findings, I have realized that scoring students

based on their critical thinking abilities is next to impossible to do in any single format.

The data clearly showed that while trends to exist in terms of what activities seemed to

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yield the highest critical thinking results, there is still a significant number of anomalies.

For instance, a handful of students did much better working with "The Odyssey" in terms

of critical thinking than they did with Night. Likewise, a significant portion of my sample

of students excelled with writing from behind the lens of critical thinking than speaking.

The importance of this for teachers is that curricula must be differentiated in such a

manner that it allows students to show their ability to think critically in more than just

one way. To be sure, this is the only way that the educator can offer every student an

equal chance to be successful in the realm of critical thinking within the academic sphere.

The concept of scoring students' work based on critical thinking becomes even

more complex when we take into account that much of the literature from chapter two

suggests that the ability to think critically has developmental properties. How can

teachers assign poor grades to students who are at a cognitive level that literally may not

let them engage in an "acceptable" level of critical thinking? Such was a problem that I

ran into upon conducting my research for this thesis. Teachers must be very cognizant of

what they ask their students to do. If teaching critical thinking is not a set of skills, but

more of a mode of thought that requires huge amounts of practice and knowledge to

master as well as a certain level of developmental maturity, then it should be treated as

such and not a math formula or grammar rule that requires only rote memorization. As far

as the teaching of critical thinking at the ninth grade level, I have come to the

understanding that the educator is obliged to use the available research, literature, and

other resources to keep students engaged in a mode of critical thinking despite the subject

level. Gauging students' progress over the duration of the course is how the educator

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should decide how effective his or her practice for teaching critical thinking really is—

not with a test or essay.

My teaching has been greatly impacted by the work done for this thesis. I have

gained a new appreciation for the importance of teaching critical thinking not as a

separate subject or unit, but rather as the backbone for most of the curriculum.

Scaffolding knowledge and leading students into the deeper thinking about a subject is

the key to getting students to think critically. Also the engagement piece has been

instrumental to my understanding of how critical thinking works. I believe that the reason

for students' display of high levels of critical thinking in the Nightunit over the other

work in the class was because they were simply more interested in the story and therefore

willing to gain a higher level of knowledge upon which to think critically. When I

conducted the interviews, one boy who displayed low critical thinking in the majority of

his writing and even in his speech about the curriculum decided to tell me about

Mitsubishi cars instead of the curriculum. I tried to get him back on topic, but he insisted

on talking about Mitsubishis. I told him that I liked Fords better, and he responded with a

passionate and very deep explanation about why Mitsubishi makes a better vehicle. He

was able to tell me about the machining processes of the various components in the

engines of both vehicles and point to the superiority of the Mitsubishi motor. He was able

to fluidly discuss the differences in fuel economy, performance, safety, and even the body

styling of each vehicle. He used spectacular amounts of evidence and was even able to

use my point of view on the subject to promote his own as shown here:

You are right; the Ford Mustang GT does look pretty cool, but the undercarriage is really not built well. If you read the reviews, you'll also find that they have a ton of other mechanical problems with everything from electrical issues to transmissions problems. The Mitsubishi Spider GSX is cheaper, and its style is functional! Those ridges on the door make it stronger against impact. Ford doesn't do anything like that with their cars.

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The evidence in the aforementioned example points to the fact that the boy could

think critically but that he chose what he wanted to think critically about. In this case,

cars indefinitely beat out literature when it came to distribution of cognitive energy. This

poses the question: How does the teacher make his or her school subject into a

"Mitsubishi" for a student like this one? Engagement is a topic that I will definitely

research heavily as I am under the assertion that it is crucial to get students to gain the

knowledge necessary to think critically about things.

Questions for Future Examination

Why was Night so much more successful than "The Odyssey" as a unit? Beyond

just the critical thinking that came out of the units, there were other points where Night

was more successful than "The Odyssey" as well. I think that Night's being about a

young boy who is their age might make it easier for them to connect with the material.

But on the other hand, "The Odyssey" is filled with adventure, temptation, drama,

romance, battle, camaraderie, and other concepts that are equally prevalent to their lives.

The Night versus "The Odyssey" question brings up a huge number of topics to explore

for engagement. It would certainly be worthwhile do delve into the engagement question

because it seems that there is a very pronounced correlation between level of student

engagement (and enjoyment) and critical thinking assessment results-formative and

summative.

Are students' cultural and social behaviors detrimental or encouraging for critical

thinking ability? I mentioned earlier that students tend to live immersed in a world of

video games, television, cell phones, and other "instantly gratifying" media. It would

certainly be worthwhile to engage in a study that explores this question much more

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thoroughly. The results of such a study would certainly have vast implications for

teachers and our society in general. If the things that technology and society have allowed

to change the way we communicate and entertain ourselves really do have negative

impacts on critical thinking or cognitive ability in general, then how do we respond?

What if the opposite is true?

What is the real correlation between critical thinking ability and the socio­

economic clout of a nation? I cited Paul earlier when he talked about how critical

thinking will be an invaluable tool in the future because every facet of the world we live

in will become more and more complicated. I would like to know just how pronounced

the correlation between critical thinking and a nation's overall "success" is. With that, I

would ask, "How do other countries and communities outside of the United States treat

the critical thinking question?" The cultural implications of teaching and assessing

critical thinking could really offer a much broader perspective on this topic. It would also

be quite useful to incorporate multi-cultural styles of teaching this profoundly

complicated topic in the classroom.

Closing Remarks

I believe that critical thinking is one of, if not the most important goals of

education today. Ultimately, we want our students to become as equipped as possible to

fend in the real world, to bolster the economy, to change lives, and to carry on legacies.

Constantly questioning knowledge and truth, being flexible in one's epistemology,

creating knowledge for oneself, and applying knowledge to complex problems are tools

that are incredibly powerful and instrumental to meeting those goals. Unfortunately, there

is no shortcut or easy road to give our young learners these tools, and it is up to the

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educator to do all that is in his or her power to help students get them. Closed

mindedness, blind faith, and indifference toward others' thinking will, over time, have

frightening and tragic implications for our society and for future generations. I believe

that we must act with fervor, passion, and efficiency to train our students to think

critically—we owe it to them; we owe it to ourselves, and we owe it to our world.

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