Critical+Thinking

I came across this question matrix during my elementary placement, and I find it to be a great resource for actually //teaching// critical thinking. I think it's an effective tool for educators to use when asking students question. To get our students thinking critically, we should aim for the high level adaption. I wanted to share an activity my mentor teacher used this question matrix for, which can be used in an English classroom. After reading a chapter of their History textbook, small groups of students were to come up with 3 short-answer questions for their history test. My mentor teacher wrote the questions on chart paper and chose 6 of the students' questions. Those chosen were from the high level adaptation area of the matrix. The students were to prepare for all 6 short-answer questions, and 3 of those questions would be on the test the following day. The activity got the students critically engaged with the text as well as prepared for their test, and they really students enjoyed being accountable for creating the test with their teacher.