Lesson 12:

DEVELOPING CRITICAL THINKING

SKILLS AMONG LITERATURE
LEARNERS
LEARNING OBJECTIVES:
At the end of this lesson you are expected to:
 Analyze situation promote thinking skills among literature
classes
 Differentiate higher-order and lower-order thinking skills,
and
 Create a brief literature activity to promote the use of
critical thinking among literature learners
INTRODUCTION
What is passive teaching and learning to you? You might
have thought of a purely lecturing or a situation where
teacher dominates the class. Literacy, as defined (UNESCO)
2004, is an ability that can developed through time. It is
associated with varying contexts to achieve the pupil’s
goals, to build their knowledge and potential and participate
fully in their community and society.
 This means that effective classroom for literacy should
ignite the use of critical thinking skills among learners. In
that way, active learning is achieved. In this lesson, you will
be immersed in strategies and techniques to activate critical
thinking skills among the learner.
 Developing higher order thinking skills is one paramount
aim if the current K to 12 Curriculum in the Philippines.
Deped Order No.21,s,2019 states the curriculum adopts
inquiry-based learning, which puts “premium on
questioning, probing, and proving.” This will eventually
lead to developing the critical thinking of the learners.
 One way to ensure the engagement of the learners is by
giving them the proper activities that develop their skills.
Critical thinking involves abilities like identifying a
problem, looking for assumption and trying solutions from
inductive and deductive logic (Kennedy, Fisher &
Ennis,1991). Sometimes, critical thinking skills are equated
to higher order thinking skills. The term “higher-order
thinking skills” has esteemed Bloom’s taxonomy of
learning.
 During the conception of the taxonomy, many
educationists believe that learning in hierarchical; however,
an on going debate is challenging this concept. Hence, some
educationalists agree to just classify the skills into lover and
higher thinking skills.
Lower-order thinking skills allow the learners to plainly
give back what the teachers provided them or what the book
gave them. The material learned goes through no changes at
all.

For example, when the literature teacher just elicits the name of the
character in the short story read in class, the pupils just tend to give
back the fact that is found in the piece. So, purely parroting a fact or
a piece of information from the text is considered a lower-order
thinking skills.
Higher-order thinking skills involve the use of the piece of
learning given to the learners in order to take concept,
combine the pieces of learning, evaluate something, or
create something out of the learning. Usually the answers
might not be based on the book or the literary piece, even
though they can use the book to arrive at an answer.
 In other words, higher-order thinking is the result of the
teacher giving opportunities to learners the appropriate tools
that they will need in order to meaningfully interact with the
content for them to remember the concept correctly.
 Going back to inquiry based teaching approach, we can
say that questioning matters in a literature class in order to
immerse the pupils use their higher order thinking skills.
One adopted teaching strategy to achieve appropriate
questioning and ensuring class participation in the “ Six
Thinking Hats” by Edward de Bono in 1985.
THE FOLLOWING ARE SOME OF THE BENEFITS OF
USING THE “SIX THINKING SKILLS” AS TEACHING
STRATEGY TO DEVELOP HIGHER ORDER
THINKING SKILLS
1. It is a powerful decision-checking technique while
promoting collaboration among pupils.
2. It helps the learners explore the situation from each
perspective at the same time.
3. It forces the learners to move outside their habitual
thinking styles.
THE FOLLOWING ARE SOME OF THE BENEFITS OF
USING THE “SIX THINKING SKILLS” AS TEACHING
STRATEGY TO DEVELOP HIGHER ORDER
THINKING SKILLS
4. It allows the learners to look at things from several
different perspectives, thus, teaching them to be critical
thinkers.
5. It permits the pupils to get a more rounded view of the
literacy piece and the context upon which their piece is
related.
EXAMPLE:
Passing the Bouquet
 Choose a familiar song.
 Group the class into three big circles.
 Post the critical questions in front.
 Ask the pupils to sing a song. Let them pass in something
(ex. a pen, handkerchief or a toy) while singing.
 When you say stop, pupils holding that thing that will
have the chance to answer the question.
Trip to Jerusalem
 Group the class into two big circles.
 Arrange the chairs (as in typical Trip to Jerusalem game)
 Post the critical question in front.
 While playing a song, pupils will walk (or dance) around
the chairs.
 When the music stops, pupils who are unable to sit on the
vacant chair will have the chance to answer the question.
Questions Prompts Wheel
 Create a wheel of critical thinking questions.
 Discuss each question on the wheel(ex. what does the
question mean or what answer is needed)
 Give each pupil a number
 Using the number generator (downloaded online) choose
the pupil who will manipulate the wheel.
 When the wheel stops, the arrow that points to the
question will be asked to the class or to the pupil
participant.
Thankyou!