Critical Thinking in the Humanities

Abstract

Critical thinking represents a key aspect of contemporary educational reform. Teachers need to provide students with opportunities to foster skills of critical analysis. This is a particularly important role of the humanities. Perhaps the most fertile ground for the growth of critical thinking lies in the analysis of source material. Students take on the role of the historian, classicist and philosopher by posing questions about texts. This requires a fundamental shift in thinking. Rather than answering questions from textbooks, students think analytically and experience the discipline in much more direct ways. Framing theory offers useful interpretative approaches for the exploration of sou..