Writing teachers' quick start guide to
Developing critical thinking skills

Developing critical thinking skills is a part of every teachers' job description, but is especially important for writing teachers.

Students may be able to shade in ovals with Number 2 pencils without being able to think, but they cannot write a job application or a college essay without thinking skills.

Here are some online resources you can consult to learn more about why you need to teach critical thinking skills to your students. I have chosen them specifically because they are:

• Succinct.

• Easy to understand.

• Practical rather than theoretical in approach.

• Concerned with attitudes as well as logical processes.

• Useful in developing critical thinking skills required for expository writing.

Definition of critical thinking

Just as Moliere's Monsieur Jourdain spoke prose all his life without knowing it, you can teach critical thinking skills your entire teaching career without knowing it. However, you make a better impression when you know the lingo.

CriticalThinking.NET, a website developed by Robert Ennis and Sean Ennis, gives this capsule definition: "Critical Thinking is reasonable reflective thinking focused on what to believe or do."

Robert Ennis provides longer definitions, including a "superstreamlined conception of critical thinking" that describes, using a list of 12 points, what a critical thinker does. The points are ideally suited for using when talking to parents and to students themselves, as well as when preparing goal statements.

For another quick introduction, check the five points on the Critical Thinking Talking Points Definition (with accompanying explanations of the definition keywords) on the University of Maryland Online Teaching and Learning website.

Ideas for teaching critical thinking

Your time is too valuable to spend it teaching students about critical thinking. Your time is much better spent developing critical thinking skills.

The Grayson H. Walker Teaching Resource Center at The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga lists ways teachers can promote critical thinking in the process of teaching their class content.

Among the recommendations for teaching critical thinking strategies are some I suggest on this web site:

• Formative writing assessments,

• Collaborative learning and

• Writing assignments.

Another resource with easy to understand ideas for developing critical thinking skills is Twenty-one strategies and tactics for teaching critical thinking by Robert Ennis, co-host of CriticalThinking.NET. The 21 are divided into three categories: Underlying Strategies, Fundamental Strategies, and Tactics.

The Center for Critical Thinking

The university-level resources listed above will give you a good orientation to critical thinking. However, you may want some additional aids more tightly focused on your teaching assignment.

The Center for Critical Thinking and Moral Critique website has an astounding amount of material about critical thinking, much of it free. The site makes it easy to find useful material by:

• Subject.

• Grade level.

• Material type.

You can buy books, videos, DVDs at prices that won't break your budget. The center also has online courses.