Foster critical thinking skills by using the DR-TA Strategy with Jonathan Swift’s “A Modest Proposal.” Class members read portions of the essay, stop and discuss what is happening, make predictions based on evidence from the text, and...

You can learn a lot from a robe, especially if that robe is from the Qing Dynasty. Examine the beauty and symbolism that covers a functional and piece of clothing entitled Winter Dragon Robe. The class will consider and analyze all...

Discuss the difference between legitimate debate on a political issue and arguments that are based on hate through a science-fiction scenario that shows how a controversial issue can be discussed in both ways. Then learn how purveyors of...

Students discover how easy it is to accept oulandish claims by witnessing a fellow student show that they have a form of ESP but is secretly working with the teacher. This demonstrations uses skepticism as a starting point for...

Students are given a description of a scenario of Professor Fink searching for a group of children. When he finds them, he states that he can express their location as a function of his hand. Students analyze the scenario and determine...

In this critical thinking learning exercise, students answer five brain teaser questions that challenge them to use their common sense and basic knowledge.

Promote critical thinking and literary analysis with a short activity. Readers of Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart respond to a series of questions modeled on Bloom's Taxonomy.    

Make your students critical consumers of media, and foster an awareness of how culture is reflected and shaped by media. This resource covers how alcohol advertising presents and promotes gender stereotypes. After a discussion on...

A happy discovery occurred in Arkansas in 2004: a woodpecker, believed to be extinct since the 1940s, reappeared! Or did it? Middle to high school ecologists examine scientific evidence and use critical-thinking skills to determine...

After readers finish the story Deep-Sea Monster, they utilize this two-page worksheet to write short-answer responses to questions about the story. The questions posed require critical thinking, not simply recalling details from the...

What happens next? Learn to make predictions with five short passages. As kids finish reading each passage, they jot down what they think will happen next, as well as the evidence from the text that supports their prediction.

Ideal for a language arts class, literary unit, or independent reading assignment, a set of reading worksheets address a wide array of skills. From poetic elements to nonfiction text features, you can surely find a valuable resource in...

Use this political cartoon as a class warm up or discussion starter. Upper graders examine the role of newspapers as government watchdogs. Items for consideration are available, alongside a vivid cartoon.

Students explore language arts by analyzing a story in class. In this story comprehension lesson, students read the book The Story of Jumping Mouse and ask themselves questions about the story in order to predict and explain...

In this paragraph construction worksheet, students read a model paragraph regarding Costa Rica. Students respond to 10 questions regarding the structure of the paragraph.

Two primary sources, a speech, and an article provide tweens and teens with different perspectives of the American Thanksgiving holiday. After analyzing Wamsutta James' suppressed speech and Jacqueline Keeler's article, class members use...

A series of activities help middle- and high-schoolers identify and explore gender stereotypes and how they can lead to violence and abuse. Use think-pair-share to activate whole class brainstorming about what it means to "be a man" and...

Who has the power? The founding fathers asked the same question when the United States was formed. Learners explore issues that arose during Madison’s presidency that raised constitutional questions. Through discovery, discussion, and...

Upper graders play the voting game to help them understand voting patterns, political movements, and build a content specific vocabulary. Each student creats a chart to determine if his or her political view veers liberal or...

Your 9th - 12th graders can hone their analysis and critical thinking skills by studying the way a subject is portrayed across media types. They examine how various print, visual, and online sources have portrayed key players in the 9/11...

Engaging and fun, this lesson is a good way to reinforce context clues with this lesson, in which middle schoolers investigate literary puzzles. They apply critical thinking skills to codes in order to solve them. They use a variety of...

Seventh grade math is so much fun! They solve 10 different problems that include using patterns to complete a table, describe the pattern, and identify the specific term in the pattern for each. Then they give a description of the...

Who was Vincent van Gogh? Most of the questions can be answered in two or three sentences; however, there is at least one essay prompt and one personal response question that require longer answers. Questions call for a good mix of...