About Higher Order Thinking

In order to put in practice higher order thinking with our students we need to teach them to take the information and ideas given and coach them to transform their meaning. Student through the activities prepared by the teacher, must have the chance to combine information and ideas that will lead to the creation of explanations, hypothesis and creation of conclusions and interpretations about the short stories that are presented to them. If the students have the opportunity to manipulate the ideas and information, we will be allowing them to open a world of possibilities. They (the students) will be able to solve problems and discover new meaning and understandings. This process can be called construction of knowledge, which brings a note of doubt about what a class or group of students are creating as new ideas. The teacher, here takes the role of a helper in the student process of creation new ideas. Teachers must provide activities as well as the environment that encourage students to engage in higher-order thinking. The educators interested in giving these opportunities to students must be prepare to serve as creators of opportunities and not only the transmitter of knowledge. On the other hand, we found the opposite side of higher order thinking. Lower-order thinking that stand as a much more structured way of teaching, where students receive information that they need in the form of work sheet, readings etc, method that just transmits the information and the students receive without giving opportunities for questioning. Classes are predictable as they only reproduce step by step the routine set for the class and the expectation are only for the students to answer or produce information previously specified. Even though comparing the two styles may not be prudent, we must say that promoting higher order thinking can be much more provechoso to reach the goal of our thesis. As we are using literature, we need to open our students mines, using creative activities, providing opportunities and serving as facilitators for them to explore and reach new ways of thinking.

Literature:

What is literature for us? What is the approach we will take in order to teach literary texts in classroom settings?
Finding a definition of literature is a difficult task, as we looked through all the information available that referred to the subject matter, we found and endless ranges of studies, definitions, papers and opinions. For our work we have to conceive our own definition of literature, having in mind the objective that at the end of our thesis we want to achieve and the approach that we want to take in order to teach through literary texts. Literature at a first and most basic glance can be define as written works , especially those considered of superior or lasting artistic merit or books and writings published on a particular subject (Oxford Dictionary).This is one the first definition that we encounter but, it is not enough for us as we need to go much deeper into what literature means in order to make our own definition.

to different authors that will give us the ingredients to form our own definition and understanding. As we have seen during our years of

As stated in the quotation by C.S. Lewis, literature not only describes reality but also adds to it. forays