Reflecting on Your Practice
- What are some questions or dilemmas that you can use in your own teaching or subject area?
- Consider how your class differs from Mr. Poon's. How would you encourage your students to recognize the value of questioning (teachers, other students, references) in their own learning, and what strategies can you use to support students in raising questions that lead to learning?
- What topics in your course lend themselves to teaching students how to be critical thinkers -- for example, to question, weigh evidence and support for various answers, and think of the consequences of different courses of action?
Taking It Back to Your Classroom
- Construct a dilemma or use an example from literature that lets students apply abstract ideas to a concrete example. One example that illustrates tensions similar to those in Fenway can be found in To Kill a Mockingbird, a novel by Harper Lee about life and justice in Alabama during the Depression. Ask students to consider the issue of "justice" from the point of view of different characters in the novel.
- Then ask your students to construct a dilemma themselves based on something important to them. Have them raise questions, weigh evidence to support alternative points of view, and consider the consequences of choosing various courses of action. Have your students discuss the dilemma in class to extend their learning.
For related print materials and Web sites, see Resources.
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