Definition

Critical thinking involves making judgments based on reasoning: students consider options; analyze these using specific criteria; and draw conclusions and make judgments. Critical thinking competency encompasses a set of abilities that students use to examine their own thinking, and that of others, about information that they receive through observation, experience, and various forms of communication. (BC Critical Thinking Competencies )

Critical literacy requires readers to move beyond a basic understanding of a text (i.e. “basic literacy”) to take an evaluative view, or what could be called a metacognitive view, of the text in its context from the perspectives of political power and social justice, aesthetic values, and personal affect. In the globalized environment we now occupy, where there are many points of view in play, critical literacy needs to mean more than just the polarized opposition of the “I’m right/you’re wrong” variety; it has to mean more than just being able to poke holes in the other guy’s argument. At its best, critical literacy should lead to a respectful understanding of multiple points of view on any issue, including one’s own, as well as the ability to identify the tenor of any exchange. To help students develop this metacognitive view, they need to be guided to look at the text from a variety of perspectives:

1. they need to see how a given text compares to other similar texts (aesthetic values)
2. they need to examine how it is used and viewed by others (social uses)
3. they need to understand how their own knowledge, experience and attitudes affect their understanding of the text (personal affect)
4. and they need to explore how the given text has been constructed (context)