ceciliafelsenstein Who has not thought that our students sometimes seem to lack common sense?… Who has not thought that our students seem not be thinking properly? However, the problem is that all of this needs to be taught. It is called critical thinking.
Critical thinking is the process of actively and skillfully conceptualizing, understanding, applying, analyzing, synthesizing and evaluating information. Benjamin Samuel Bloom (1913-1929) was an American educational psychologist who developed a “taxonomy of educational objectives” which classified the different learning objectives and skills that educators set for students. It is hierarchical, like other taxonomies, meaning that learning at the higher levels is dependent on having attained prerequisite knowledge and skills at lower levels.
Below, you will find some critical thinking activites for ELA high school students which tackle several (or all) of the hierarchical levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy.
Critical Thinking Activites for ELA High School
- Current Events: What can be better than using current events to make our students reflect, understand, compare, analyze, judge… Nothing! Try this bundle of activities to help them develop high order thinking skills!! The best part: these resources can be re used throughout the year with different events news articles or reports! If you want more details on how to go about this topic, you can check this post!
- ELA centers based on ANY text: If you want to foster deeper engagement and comprehension among your students, you can work with this resource. It has been designed to address key ELA skills and standards while promoting active learning and critical thinking. From enhancing vocabulary and grammar proficiency to honing literary analysis and creative expression, these centers cover a wide spectrum of competencies essential for academic success.
- Reading Comprehension: Have you tried including deep thinking questions into your reading comprehension activities? It’s not as easy as it sounds… Not every question in reading comprehension worksheets encourages critical thinking. Here you will find a few passages with questions based on Bloom’s Taxonomy:
- Working with quotes: Ask students to read some interesting quotes and to create their own questions based on Bloom’s Taxonomy. You will need to share with them an image of Bloom’s pyramid or a chart with verbs or question tags to help them. Creating questions is a great activity which helps students develop deep thinking skills. You can check this resource which contains the activity with a detailed guide and the material students will need to make the questions.
- One-pagers: One pagers are an excellent way to get students to think critically. What I like the most, is that they do not realize that they are working. I don’t know why, but students tend to think that artistic activities are a waste of time or do not demand much from them. I completely disagree. Check out this post with details on the benefits of using one-pagers in class and get some already made resources for you to use!
So…no more excuses… Here you have plenty of re-usable critical thinking activities for ELA high school! I have used all of these resources and will continue to use them! Check them out and let me know if you find them handy! I’d love to hear other opinions and feedback!
