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In the last four columns we introduced the concept of critical thinking competency standards and elaborated a number of such standards, targeting the analysis of thought, the assessment of thought, and the cultivation of intellectual virtues. In this column we focus on three subject-specific critical thinking competency standards.
It is essential for students to learn generalizable intellectual skills, such as those covered in the first four columns, for they need these skills to effectively take thinking apart and determine the quality ofthat thought, in any context. But, further, students need to develop subject-specific skills such as standards focused on close reading, substantive writing, and ethical reasoning. Naturally, there will be considerable overlap between generalizable critical thinking skills, abilities, and traits and subject specific ones. We invite scholars in all fields of study to contribute to the articulation of these subject-specific critical thinking standards.
Standard One: Skills in the Art of Close Reading
Students who think critically read texts worth reading and take ownership of the most important ideas in texts.
Critical Thinking Principle
To become critical thinkers, students must read texts closely and, through that process, identify and apply the most important ideas in them (Paul & Elder, 2008).
Performance Indicators and Dispositions
Students who think critically routinely read in texts that are significant and thus expand their worldview. Recognizing that every text has a purpose, they clarify the purposes of texts as they read. Recognizing that close reading requires active engagement in reading, they create an inner dialog with the text as they read: questioning, summarizing, and connecting important ideas with other important ideas.
Outcomes
1. Students reflect as they read.
2 . Students monitor how they are reading as they are reading, distinguishing between what they do and do not understand in the text.
3. Students accurately summarize and elaborate texts (in their own words) as they read.
4. Students give examples, from their experience, of ideas in texts.
5. Students connect core ideas in a text to other core ideas they understand.
6. Students take the core ideas they internalize through reading and apply them to their lives.
7. Students accurately paraphrase what they read (e.g., sentence by sentence).
8. Students accurately and logically explicate the thesis of a paragraph.
9. Students...