How we can develop critical thinking while teaching English literature

In the course of our everyday lives, we are faced with infinite choices that require us to make decisions that could have a lasting impact on not just our lives, but others as well. 

The decisions that we are expected to make could be as nanoscopic as choosing books to read, to as profound as having a say in electing the leaders of a country. 

Hence, the 21st century's higher-order thinking skills are now more important than ever, as the ability to be able to objectively analyse and make almost error-free judgements is a very crucial capability to be equipped with in the present-day’s information-saturated world. 

Thereby, the art of making thoughtful decisions i.e., critical thinking is essentially in demand these days. But what does this skill actually stand for? Well, as Wikipedia puts it, ‘Critical thinking is the analysis of available facts, evidence, observations, and arguments to form a judgment. It is self-directed, self-disciplined, self-monitored, and self-corrective thinking.’

Let us have a look at some salient features of the present-day education systems and their counterparts of the 19^th and 20^th centuries.  

In the past, education institutes were - 

• merely based on the transfer of knowledge from the experts to novices.
• more focused on what to teach and learning was confined and limited.
• inclined more towards 'rote' learning.
  

The present-day educational systems - 

• are designed to foster life skills such as cognition, open-mindedness, and good communication skills in the students.
• focus is not only on content learning, but also on imbibing the higher-order thinking skills such as the ability to think rationally.
• encourage students to evaluate what they learned and further, experiment with their learning methods to manifest their critical thinking abilities.

Relation with English literature

As a matter of fact, one of the various disciplines that have undergone a significant modification in their teaching methods and pedagogy to inculcate the practices of critical thinking is English literature.

The realms of literature learning and teaching provide ample ground for incorporating these modern abilities to make a more liberal and reflective conceptualization of learning environments; as a learner traverses through the fields of different literature ages and writings of various authors, the expanse of which spans across the globe, he comes across various situations that demand the ability to be able to infer, deduce and reason out. 

In fact, literature teaching has always provided the grounds for the development of critical skills. The modern educational frameworks, however, strive to take this dominion to another level by incorporating critical thinking skills, rooted in critical philosophy i.e., the approach of equipping learners with the means to create their knowledge and focus on ‘how to think’ rather than ‘what to think’ into their curricula.

This teaching approach, however, comes with its own set of advantages and disadvantages.

Advantages:

• You learn to see problems as exciting challenges.
• You differentiate evidence from opinion.
• You are open to new perspectives.
• You think before acting. 

Disadvantages:

If not exercised through the correct pedagogy, it can lead you

• To the development of many negatives.
• To be biased, egocentric and arrogant.

Therefore, the role of instructors who teach critical thinking is of prime importance as the designing and operating aspects of inculcating critical thinking in teaching are just as important as the topic itself.

Steps to develop critical thinking while teaching English literature

1.     Choose material that invokes and arouses the interest of the learners

Clever application and conceptualization of literature teaching aids and lessons of the current times play a major role in activating engagement and schematic development of the critical thinking disposition among the students.

To effectively bring this to action, the curriculum makers and practitioners can 

• consciously include and channel opportunities that engage students in discussions about the ideas expressed in literary texts.  
• explore opportunities provided by classic literary works and genres, to create healthy discussions in the class.  
• include popular literature of current times that arouses interest in the learners to initiate some thought-provoking interactions among the learners.

Incorporating this, benefits learners in two ways:

• Firstly, it enables them to express their ideas about life, preferences, relationships, and situations; 
• Secondly, it forces them to think of a more complex set of lexical structures and a more ‘developed’ vocabulary range. 

Hence, they are exposed to becoming better and potentially independent in making and justifying their creative choices and abilities.

2.     Make use of modern reading strategies, such as Close Reading

Another practice that helps develop higher-order skills in English Literature teaching is close reading. 

Analysing the granular details of a text and adopting a multi-level approach to deep reading helps in more ways than one.

• It uncovers different layers of reading and writing, 
• It also helps in scaffolding learning among the readers, and  
• It enables them to focus on comprehension questioning and interpretation of the text.

3.     Incorporate the dialogue teaching method in classrooms

Another useful practice, that is an extension of close reading, is the dialogue teaching method. 

In this approach, students are asked to read sections of texts, cross-examine them and give their opinions about the setting and characters in the text, or the style of writing — whether it is narrative, humorous, or vivid.

It involves assessing the worth of a text; that is, saying whether one liked or disliked the storyline and why, or what are the distinguishing characteristics of the text. Hence, the teacher has students produce judgments about their reading that they explain and defend during class discussions. 

4.     Include Creative Writing sessions in the teaching of English Literature

Encouraging creative-critical writing is another effective strategy that can be widely incorporated across literature classrooms to focus students’ attention on the concept of perspectives, an important aspect of critical thinking. 

Writing from different viewpoints helps learners in various ways.

• They develop the concept of thinking through, or about, other people sensitively and reflectively.
• Additionally, trying to step into others’ shoes helps them to gain new ways of seeing and thinking. 

Teachers, from their end, can incorporate the creative writing practices of journal writing, different story endings, and varied writing styles to help learners develop. Alternatively, this art not only benefits learners but teachers too, as they read through the various creative writing assignments handed in by their students.

Conclusion

Overall, the mentioned methods serve as perfect settings for incorporating critical thinking skills, as not taking anything at face value gradually becomes a functional approach to deducing circumstances for the learners and helps them to practise expressing opinions, embracing differences, and elaborating on their perspectives.