RETHINKING COMMUNITY COLLEGE GENERAL LITERACY COURSES:

CRITICAL AND CREATIVE THINKING AS A FOUNDATION

Synthesis Presentation by Mary Lou R. Horn

Critical and Creative Thinking

UMass/Boston May 6, 2013

Community College Applicants

Open-admission policy and

mission

Prior education - dropout/GED, Diploma, Distant Grad, AP and Honors courses

Literacy levels - 4th to 12 grade and above

Between 40 and 70% deemed underprepared

Ages range from 16 to 75

Linguistically, culturally, socio-economically diverse

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Underprepared - the norm

High failure rates in this group

Low percentage complete programs and degrees

“Students who enter community college with…shaky academic backgrounds often end up stuck in remedial courses…”(Chronicle of Higher Education, April, 2013).

Open admissions policies such as the one at the City University of New York (1970) created a perceived literacy crisis (Gleason, 2001). This “crisis” persists.

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Premise

Community college applicants whose general literacy is deemed below that

needed to succeed in college would benefit from a course in which they

develop cognitive and metacognitive skills and strategies, along with critical

and creative thinking habits essential for academic reading, writing, and study.

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Chabot College CLIP Reading Between the Lives

Course Structure – balance of individual, small group, whole class activities

Work through modules in small groups Learning outcomes stated in cognitive skill

terms Reading Activities - apprentice Writing Activities - apprentice Individual Learning Journal – chart growth Reflections on group processes

6 modules – views of literacy1. Self

2. Family

3. Peer Groups

4. Community

5. Academic

6. Workplace

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Action: A General Literacy Course Designed for Underprepared Applicants

1. Based on Critical & Creative Thinking

2. Develops Process Awareness & Cognitive Skills

3. Accessed through Interpretive Communities

4. Combines Reading and Writing as one course

5. Scaffold Reading of College-Level Texts

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Build-up Cognitive Skills,Critical Thinking

Analyze Examine Explore Compare Analogize Reason

*Memory, processing, and attention are not within the scope of this project

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Reading Process AwarenessWriting Process AwarenessMetacognition

Alternative order, leadsWhat if – to open upRole play – viewpointBrainstormIdea Mapping

Nurture Process Awareness,Creative Thinking

Interpretive communities

Students are readers and writers Meaning-makers Members of many discourse

communities Users of language accessing many

registers Entering Academic

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In Reading AND WritingCritical Thinking Textual analysis Structures (sentence,

paragraph, essay, genre) Meaning making Process awareness Reading apprenticeship Traits Revision

Creative Thinking Multiple meaning Play with order, style, words,

structures What ifs, opposites Role play Mapping Risk-taking Revision

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Student Learning Outcomes

Students will be able to:

Think critically to read and produce texts

Think creatively to read and produce texts

Articulate use of cognitive skills

Articulate use of strategies

Collaborate with peers

Reflect on learning

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Text selection considerations

Risks and benefits of low-demand

Too easy slows progress

Shelters from college work

Boredom

Independently readable

High comprehension

Achievement

Risks and benefits of high-demand

Frustration

Limited Comprehension

Quits

College experience

Persistence/confidence

Growth/gains

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Scaffold in teaching and in texts: begin with modeling > imitation

Connect, relate Structural awareness Strategies (speed, etc) Analyze Writers’ rhetorical moves Use of evidence

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http://www.learningandteaching.info/learning/bloomtax.htm

Sample Scaffolded Text - chunk, focus, examine, relateFrom Pedagogy of the Oppressed , chapter 2 New York: Continuum Books, 1993.

Embedded Support < Narration refers to lecture-style teaching, for example (relate, exemplify)

Taking notes during a lecture

Memorize for tests

< Question to check assumptions (strategy, judge, accept/reject) Can teachers fill students with knowledge?

What is the learner’s part in this process?

< Purpose (assess, predict, defend) Is Freire criticizing this approach?

What evidence is used?

< Tone (infer, interpret, translate) Consider this paragraph in relationship to the title of the chapter

“Narration (with the teacher as narrator)

leads the students to memorize

mechanically the narrated account.

Worse yet, it turns them into

"containers," into "receptacles" to be

"filled" by the teachers. The more

completely she fills the receptacles, the

better a teachers she is. The more meekly

the receptacles permit themselves to be

filled, the better students they are”

(Freire 1993).

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4. Reading Scaffold/Print Texts and Independence

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Start of semester

End of semester

What is college-ready? The student who…

Questions ideas Monitors understanding in reading and writing Seeks/provides clarification Identifies and uses patterns and relationships Calls for, uses supporting evidence Examines Assumptions (author, peer, self)

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Reflections

Steps – Missteps – sticky points, centrifuge, doubt Next steps – preparation, details, wider

application?

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