Implementing Critical-Inquiry requires that a student-centered classroom and curriculum (Beach, Thein, & Webb, 2016). In order to pursue the students questions that are developed during the initiation of Critical-Inquiry projects, the students must also develop their research and literacy skills. Research skills are necessary to find and evaluate sources whether they will be beneficial for their product. Once the students have found the sources, the students need reading comprehension skills to utilize the texts for their Critical-Inquiry learning.
To help students engage in Critical-Inquiry, students must develop digital-literacy to find sources and identify claims, warrants, and biases from the sources. Students' non-stop exposure to the internet can give the impression that students have the technological skills for effective research, however, that is false. Many of these students will create questions to research for their Critical-Inquiry research and they must be taught the specific skills to effectively research their questions. (Willison, 2012). It has been demonstrated that explicitly teaching and modeling the effective research skills are important for effective research-skill instruction (Smith, 2003). This includes providing the students guidelines, scaffold into clear achievable goals, and teaching students how to approach and evaluate sources (Smith, 2003). The internet is a vast source filled with effective information that will be extremely beneficial for students, however, as demonstrated by martinlutherking.org. A site that has the pretenses of being an informational site about Martin Luther King Jr, an American Civil Rights Figure, owned by Stormfront, an infamous white-supremacist website (Beach, Thein, & Webb, 2016). While this is an extreme example, students must have the habits and skills of evaluating sources to determine if they are credible or not. If determined credible, students must also be able to For example, if students have a Critical-Inquiry project researching Civil Rights, a common topic in any American Studies course, English, Civics, US History course, the students would need the background information of federalism. During their research about federalist, they could find the article “Washington is expanding its power by turning state governments into instruments of federal policy” by the Washington Post, such as myself. This would be an excellent opportunity for the students to identify the claim and warrant to verify the arguments. The claim of this article would the American federal government is surpassing its allotted amount. It even colorfully describes it as, “... incipient institutional breakdown is House Speaker John Boehner’s suit against President Obama for rewriting laws and stepping on Congress’s turf” (Epstein & Loyola, 2014). The warrant for this claim that programs, such as Federal Medicaid, might be popular among the public, however, the federal government pressures states to implement it to fiscally unsustainable levels. Students can assess this claim and evidence to whether it is credible, sufficient, or accurate.
Once students have obtained their text sources, literacy-focused instruction is vital for the students success in critical-inquiry. In humanities courses, there are a multitude of literary texts with specific instruction necessary, including expository texts, fictional texts, poetry, and more. Literary texts can be a useful source for inspiring students imaginations and foster questions about societal norms and human interactions. In humanities courses, applying a point-driven stance can be an effective way to inspire students to critically analyze and infer what the author is trying to say with their story (Beach, Thein, & Webb, 2016). For humanities courses, the novel “Animal Farm” is a classic book in any high-school. In a Social Studies course, it could be red and the students can use a point-driven stance to analyze political and economic systems and how humans respond to it. In addition, using literary texts allow students’ to consider alternative perspectives in characters which is crucial for Critical-Inquiry (Beach, Thein, & Webb, 2016). In the literary classic, “Of Mice and Men”, students can apply historical perspectives of the Great Depression in the story and analyze George’s actions of killing Lenny. In order to ensure success with expository texts, there are several strategies for humanities disciplinary literacy (Jetton & Shanahan, 2012). Reciprocal teaching is an effective method to teach the humanities disciplinary skills (Beach, Thein, & Webb, 2016). It mirrors Jetton & Shanahan’s concept of explicitly teaching and modeling the disciplinary skills while reading and analyzing expository texts. Prior to reading the texts, explicitly stating the purpose of the reading this make students more likely to succeed in to organizing and understanding the information given in the texts (Akhondi, Malayeri, & Samad, 2011). Activating prior knowledge is also a useful source for using expository texts in Critical-Inquiry (Beach, Thein, & Webb, 2016). In Critical Inquiry, acknowledging students experiences and perspectives in the curriculum is vital and also mirrors the importance of activating prior knowledge for texts (Beach, Thein, & Webb, 2016). While reading “To Kill A Mockingbird”, it the perfect opportunity in humanities classes for students to share their perspectives and knowledge of prejudice in America.
With these skills, the students will be prepared to pursue their Critical-Inquiry projects. The students will be able to find a variety of sources, evaluate the claims made, and apply them to their research. With the information, the students will have the opportunity to communicate their conclusions and take informed action in their community.
References
Akhondi, M., Malayeri, F.A., & Samad, A.A. (2011). How to teach expository text structure to facilitate reading comprehension. The Reading Teacher, 64(3), 166-178.
Beach, R., Thein, A. H., & Webb, A. (2016). Teaching to exceed the English language arts common core state standards: A literacy practices approach for 6-12 classrooms. London: Routledge.
Epstein, R., & Loyola, M. (2014). Washington is expanding its power by turning state governments into instruments of federal policy. The Atlantic. Retrieved from https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/07/the-federal-takeover-of-state-governments/375270/
Jetton, T. L., & Shanahan, C. (2012). Adolescent literacy in the academic disciplines: General principles and practical strategies. New York, NY: The Guilford Press.
Smith, C. B. (2003). Student research skills and techniques. ERIC Topical Bibliography and Commentary. Retrieved from https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED481232.pdf
Willison, J. (2012). When academics integrate research skill development in the curriculum. Higher Education Research & Development, 31(6), 905-919. doi: 10.1080/07294360.2012.658760
https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED481232.pdf