Ok... to start with, I haven't really had many options for I-Search project to pick from; the idea about "critical thinking" in the classroom and the ways we, as potential English teachers, can promote it to our potential students came up to me, and, since, it has been always of an interest to me, I have made a determination to commit to it. And, of course, our Professor has strongly encouraged my choice, so here I am...
The questions that I have for I-Search project:
1) What IS critical thinking? What makes us think critically? How can we reinforce/encourage it? How can we make sure that we write critically? What does it mean? Is there a way to do a self-check?
2) What IS NOT critical thinking? What are the mistakes that students usually make when they fail to write critically? Is there a "meter"? How can we avoid writing unbiased?
Now, speaking of my personal experience with "critical thinking" (CT) and "writing critically". Personally, the term "CT" itself, I think, produces a lot of misunderstanding. I really think that this concept is not taught enough in schools, and is sadly somewhat only touched upon - in college. When I was in the 10th grade I had a great teacher on Russian literature, a university professor, in fact; she was very experienced and very knowledgeable about her subject; BUT (I apologize for all CAPs) she would demand a great composition from every one of us and would be very hard on grading and very demanding. The only problem here was that she would provide a minimum feedback on our essays, leave it alone, explaining to us how we should have written it. The concept of "critical thinking" became familiar, and then - somewhat understood to me -upon my second and third years of university, and finally - after completion of my diploma project on Linguistics. This was some 7 years ago... In the recent years the concept of "critical thinking" has been debated and thought over. However, there is still a lot of room for exploration and questions.
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