Critical Thinking

Today, I was working with a fifth grade classroom. After speaking with the teacher, she felt that her class really needed work on group discussions (don't they all!). I wanted to use a picture book that had a lot of rich content so that we could capture the students' attention, while still giving them many opportunities to think critically and make meaningful connections. This rich text would serve as the foundation for our discussion. The book that I chose and would suggest to anyone looking for a picture book to use with older students is, The Other Side, by Jacqueline Woodson.

This book can simply be about two girls who wanted to play with one another and ended up forming a friendship despite certain obstacles, but it is also so much more than that. There are endless opportunities to question the decisions made by the author and create meaning from every word choice or illustration. I also love the text-to-world connections that are so important in this story. Everything essentially has a "bigger picture."

The idea of meaningful discussion sounds wonderful, but how do we actually achieve it within our classrooms? Well, in my humble opinion, not only is this process challenging, but it is also uncomfortable. Similar to anything worth doing in life, success takes struggle. The teacher's role eventually becomes a mild facilitator, almost a spectator, who occasionally guides the direction of the group so that they hit each aspect that you have deemed essential. However, in the beginning you are really in the trenches modeling critical thinking and stretching the minds of your students. It must be an absolute requirement that students step outside of the comfortable surface level questioning and they push themselves to think deeper. The way you achieve this is by choosing the right material, modeling using think alouds, and focusing on high-level questions that push students beyond their comfort zone. At times, it is almost painful and you may question whether this is just too difficult, but then someone makes a connection or comment and you see the light..."It's working!!."

I started the lesson by informing the students that our work that day was preparing us for a discussion that would take place later in the week. I was very clear with the type of discussion we would be practicing and wanted students to be aware that without doing the work today, we wouldn't be successful in the next phase. I drew the three tiered model above on the board one tier at a time and we discussed how they connect. When we move to the second tier, I asked students what it meant to "think critically"...crickets. Immediately I thought to myself "uh-oh," and I knew that I was going to have to take a different approach. My initial plan was to allow students to discover the text and make meaning as I read, however, within the first five minutes I knew they would need more support to really dig deep and so five minutes into the lesson I was already making adjustments.

The students then divided their paper into three sections and titled them; Author's Intention, Connections, Theme. These are the areas that I would pull out as I read the story. Because I saw that the critical thinking skills were lacking, I knew that I would have to really guide them through this and that the discussion would become secondary. In the end, we can't have a quality conversation without the ability to make meaning and think critically about the author's writing. 

Students then wrote a response (something they had practiced many times in class) about the overall theme of the story and that was the basis of our discussion. We ended up having a wonderful discussion, but again, I had to do a lot of the leading during the read of the story to make sure that the students weren't missing the "big picture." The goal for these students will now be to continue working on analyzing a text in a meaningful way so that can lead to stronger, more independently led discussions.

We are on our way!!