Fostering Critical Thinking in the Classroom
Using Inquiry Charts, Discussion Webs, and Technology
 “American textbooks have become compendiums of topics,
none of which are treated in much depth.”
 According to research from Harriet Tyson and Arthur
Woodward, they found that textbooks structure 75-90
percent of classroom instruction.
 Textbooks define the scope and sequence of instruction
 Elementary teachers typically depend upon teacher guides to
provide them with road maps for teaching the year’s material.
 Science books are seen more as colorful dictionaries.
 Focus is primarily on vocabulary terms
 In a study of science textbooks for grades 6-9, it was found
that the science books that were examined contained as
many as 2,500 new and unfamiliar words – double what
could be expected in a foreign language text for the same
grades.
 High School Biology textbooks studied contained as many
as 9,900 unfamiliar words.
 James W. Loewen
 Best selling author of
Lies My Teacher Told Me
and Lies Across America.
 Former professor
 Taught race relations at
the University of
Vermont for twentyyears.
 Remove the dependence of textbooks in the history
classroom.
 Focus on narrow topics in class versus overloading students
with needless material topics. (trees vs. twigs)
 Create a classroom of excitement in which discourse of
historical topics is used effectively.
 Teach students techniques to become critical thinkers and
readers
 challenge the material that they are reading and formulate
their own theories and ideas based on historical evidence.
 “High school textbooks in American history present the
past as one damn thing after another.” (p. 12)
 Textbooks do not show causation in history.
 Students are not able to link past events with current ones.
 Textbooks downplay critical thinking skills.
 Focused primarily on memorizing the facts
 “ Almost never does a textbook suggest more than one
possible answer and invite students to assess evidence for
each. Instead they tell the right answers, over and over, in
their sleep-inducing godlike monotone.”
 Why do I want my students to know this?
 What should they be able to do with the information,
assuming they recall it once they leave school”
 Do I have to teach it?
 Based off of state standards or preparing students for
standardized tests.
 Don’t allow history to be a weapon (racism, ethnocentrism,
nationalism)
 Textbooks do not want to offend people, so they offer
dishonest history
 Examples: the Alamo, Vietnam War, race/class relations,
presidents, etc.
 Questioning the myths told in textbooks is the first step
toward good citizenship
 Get students to critique information in textbooks
 Test the source: locate the speaker, the audience, and the era
and then look for internal and external contradictions to
develop empathetic understanding.
 Read effectively, find main ideas in text
 Read critically: are the ideas supported by evidence?
 Understand the difference between and the importance of
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primary and secondary sources
Use historiography on a source to understand the speaker,
audience, & context of the time period
Write a coherent essay
Write effectively – use evidence to justify your opinion
Speak effectively - debate
Have a grasp on mapping skills and direction
Understand, critique, and create tables of data
Cause change in society
 “Social studies, more than other disciplines, require
students to read a wide variety of texts, and some
students find traditional textbook reading difficult.”
- Massey, D. and Heafner T. (2004)
 Scaffolding Reading Experience (SRE)
 Teachers can scaffold or model their instruction to assist
their students to accomplish a task they wouldn’t
normally be able to do without additional help.
 Before/During/After Reading Strategies
 Graphic organizer used to help students organize information
from multiple texts and primary sources.
 “Students keep track of what they are learning and begin to
make association between the texts.”
 “This simple framework allows students to begin making
connections between and across texts to answer an established
question or learn more about a particular topic.”
 Strategy focuses the purpose for reading, students will be able to
develop their own questions for the reading, and helps navigate
struggling readers on what information to focus on.
 Rationale
 In many classrooms discussions tend to center around a
few individual students rather than the class as a whole
due to the fact that many students are unwilling to voice
their opinions.
 Discussion Webs provide all students with a chance to
voice their opinions.
 Students think individually then pair up with a partner
and work in groups to decide on a conclusion to a
question.
 www.hulu.com/watch/67878/the-future -of-food
 www.stixy.com/guest/110670
 www.thinkquest.org
 www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNezTsrCY0Q
 http://hpssc09.pbworks.com/f/Article+1.pdf
 Alvermann D.E. (1991) The discussion web: a graphic aid
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for learning across the curriculum. The Reading Teacher
45(2) p. 92-99
Loewen, J.W. (2010) Teaching what really happened: How
to avoid the tyranny of textbooks & get students excited
about doing history. New York: Teachers College Press
Massey, D.D. and Heafner T. (2004) Promoting reading
comprehension in social studies. Journal of Adolescent and
Adult Literacy 48 (1)
Tyson, H. and Woodward A. (1989) Why students aren’t
learning as much from textbooks. Educational Leadership.
Presentation By: Ashley Cole and Jeff Zwally