Finding The “Write” Curriculum Designing prompts for critical thinking By : Victoria Begg

Who Am I? Victoria Begg PDS English intern through Penn State State College Area High School North Building 11 th Grade College Prep 12 th Grade AP Literature with Raeann Horgas

What’s the Big Idea? It all started with…. Journaling, Into the Wild Unit Based in a study of Virginia’s Woolf’s To The Lighthouse CONS: o Short answers o Repetition of in-class discussion o Summary PROS: o Interacting with text o Independent thinking

I want to know: How can informal writing help develop student’s critical thinking skills? How does this help them become better learners? I want to see: students engage in higher-order critical thinking skills.

What does that mean? Blooms Taxonomy

Prompt #1 *Reflect on their own values *Based on their own experiences How can a “mathematician’s symbols” or a “poet’s phrases” translate as “a love that never attempted to clutch it’s object;… but was meant to be spread over the world and become part of the human gain”? How are these examples similar of different from the love between a mother and child? A husband and a wife? In what ways do YOU contribute, or hope to contribute, to this sort of “human gain?”

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

Student Responses #1 TEXT  Understand: Explaining the character’s main conflict.  Apply: Classifying the type of love that is expressed character’s art.

Student Responses #1 WORLD/ PERSONAL?  Evaluate : Deciding the consequences of “love”... human gain.  Analyze: Identifying with ways they can connect with the concept. (This type of love…)

Prompt #2 Goals: 1) Use student responses 2) Emphasize the personal component 3) Develop shaded questions Are people more inclined to tell the truth to people they admire or people they dislike? Are people more inclined to see the truth about the people they admire or people they dislike? What other factors affect someone’s ability to be truthful? If the goal of art is to represent the purest form of truth, how might this affect an artist’s representation of someone/something? “She had done the usual trick- been nice. She would never know him. He would never know her. Human relations were all like that, she thought, and the worst were between men and women.” (92) Text Self World

Student Responses #2 PESRONAL Life as a Student  Analyze: Explaining character’s issues with truth  Apply: Illustrating a situation from their life as a student.

Student Responses #2 WORLD/PERSONAL  Analyze : Examining something she doesn’t understand.  Evaluate: Justifying the purpose of abstract art.

Metacognitive Thinking in Writing “Critical thinking is one aspect of metacognition. Critical thinking is evaluating ideas for their quality, especially judging whether or not they make sense.” (Martinez 697)  Evaluate: Rating own writing as well as the function of abstract art in society.

Metacognitive Thinking in Writing  Evaluate: Assessing their own behavior, realizing it doesn’t always match up with her thoughts.

Prompt #3 Goals: 1) See if I could do it again 2) Focus more on Text Think about Mrs. Ramsay, Lily and Mr. Ramsay, respectively. How do each of these characters attempt to “make life stand still”? How does this help them make ‘meaning of life’? What does it reflect about their values? fears? goals? Why do you believe mankind strives for order in chaos, permanence in an impermanent world? Text Self World

Student Responses #3  Analyze: Examining a specific character  Analyze: Comparing and Contrasting him to two other characters  Evaluate: Assessing character values TEXT

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

Conclusions  Blend of higher and lower order thinking when asked about broad generalizations -(human gain/love) Prompt #1: World Text  More higher order thinking when asked about personal connections to the larger world. -(truth and art) Prompt #2:World Self  After setting a foundation of personal and worldly connections students were more able to critically think about the text and engage with its themes. -(character and creating order) Prompt #3: Text World Theme s Details

Further Questions: How does my interpretation of student work match up with the actual thinking my students are doing? How do we grade critical thinking in writing? How does pre-discussion writing aid students in articulating their critical thoughts during discussion? How do we help our students understand the purpose of analytical thinking in the larger world? How can I be more explicit about my purpose? How do we prove to them this is a worthwhile skill to have?

Works Cited Christenbury, Leila, and Patricia Kelly. Questioning: A Path to Critical Thinking. Urbana, IL: National Council of Teachers of English, Print. Martinez, Michael E. "What is Metacognition." Phi Delta Kappan: Print. Varma, Ravi. "Bloom's Revised Taxonomy." Bloom's Revised Taxonomy. More Than English: Teaching Language and Content, n.d. Web. 26 Apr