ELL 1 - Lesson 5 – Critical Thinking 1: Analyzing

Warm Up

Write agenda on the board and explain the activities

1. Warm up: Question Game (refer to Lesson 2)

Content – What is Critical Thinking?

Ask students to define the two words: ‘critical’ means to examine something closely to evaluate it;
‘thinking’ is how we use our minds. ‘Critical Thinking’ thus means to examine something closely and
think about it from an evaluation perspective.

Teach the words ‘subjective’ and ‘objective’. ‘Subjective’ meaning we have a personal perspective on
the idea; while ‘objective’ means we are just looking at the facts of an issue. When we think critically,
we just look at the facts.

Ask the students to name one of their favourite musicians or songs. Look the song up on YouTube and
listen to it together. Then allow the student to give their subjective opinion on why they like this song
so much. Challenge them next to give an objective opinion using these questions:

- How interesting are the lyrics?

- How unique is the music?
- Does it sound like anything else?
- Can you think of another song in this same style that others might think is better? Why would
they think that?

If students are struggling with this task, use a well-known pop song as an example and conduct the
same strategy.

Additional Content – Reading Comprehension – Reading Two Sides

Refer to the ‘Lesson 5 Reading Activity’ attached.

Extension: Have students write a similar paragraph and critically assess their own work.

Content – Grammar Lesson - Perspective

Explain to students that often in class, they will be asked to choose and defend a perspective even if
they don’t really agree with that idea.

Run through the vocabulary of expressing their opinions listed here.

Chant through the pronunciation at the relevant language level.
Have students use the question formulation previously taught to ask one another questions, then
express their honest ideas and have the questioner disagree. Students should understand that they
won’t always be asked their honest opinion, sometimes the challenge is seeing if you can defend a
perspective with which you disagree.

Content – Defending Yourself

Now that students have the sentence stems for disagreement and discussion. Choose some of the
topics on this list that are most relevant to your group/student. Have a discussion with them where
you express an opinion and they must take the opposite perspective no matter what it is.

Wrap Up

1. Reflection: What did you learn today? What will help you most in a Canadian classroom?

Homework

Finding and summarizing: Students should practice being objective by researching a news topic from a
few different perspectives, then summarize it in 1-2 sentences being as objective as possible.