Critical/ Creative Thinking: The Holy Grail of Social Studies
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Critical/ Creative Thinking: The Holy Grail of Social Studies
Critical thinking is the ability to think creatively and apply what one has learned about one topic to another situation. The “Holy Grail” of critical thinking is analyzing real-world, unpredictable situations using knowledge gleaned from the study of academic content. The Industrial Revolution unit supplies an ever-increasing overabundance of opportunities for this kind of thought.
The mantelpiece of this unit is to imagine what the historical figures would say were they to rise from the dead. Below is a list of possible questions that can be posed to students as they role-play one of the historical figures they have studied. Ideally, several suggestions should be given to get the students thinking, incentives should be offered for finding their own connections, and several should be “saved” so that students must think on their feet (from another’s shoes) during their presentations.
What would they (Marx, Malthus, Dickens) say about? (See Appendix C for a categorized and hyperlinked, but less complete, version of these questions).
China? Wal-Mart? Walton family? Billionaire’s pledge? Minimum wage? Public schools? Charter schools? School vouchers? Union busting in Wisconsin? Food aid to Africa? Eurozone debt crisis? Stimulus bill? Romney or Obama? SOPA/OWS? Income gap? Bush tax cuts? 1 in 7 Americans on food stamps? Corn subsidies? Wal-Mart subsidies? Sugarcane tariffs? AT&T T-Mobile merger being blocked? Obama-care?
The mantelpiece of this unit is to imagine what the historical figures would say were they to rise from the dead. Below is a list of possible questions that can be posed to students as they role-play one of the historical figures they have studied. Ideally, several suggestions should be given to get the students thinking, incentives should be offered for finding their own connections, and several should be “saved” so that students must think on their feet (from another’s shoes) during their presentations.
What would they (Marx, Malthus, Dickens) say about? (See Appendix C for a categorized and hyperlinked, but less complete, version of these questions).
China? Wal-Mart? Walton family? Billionaire’s pledge? Minimum wage? Public schools? Charter schools? School vouchers? Union busting in Wisconsin? Food aid to Africa? Eurozone debt crisis? Stimulus bill? Romney or Obama? SOPA/OWS? Income gap? Bush tax cuts? 1 in 7 Americans on food stamps? Corn subsidies? Wal-Mart subsidies? Sugarcane tariffs? AT&T T-Mobile merger being blocked? Obama-care?