A Sequence of Critical Thinking Tasks

Critical thinking skills remain at the forefront of educational discussions. These higher order thinking processes, including but not limited to reflection, inference, and synthesizing information, enable individuals to make reasoned judgments not only in the classroom but in everyday life. School systems demand that critical thinking be incorporated into curricula, and standardized testing increasingly assesses it. However, there remains the question of how English language teachers include the development and practice of these important skills in their lessons. To this end, this article presents a sequence of seven critical thinking tasks, a flexible framework that acts as a practical tool for planning and developing level-appropriate classroom materials that encourage and advance critical thinking. The sequence of tasks, originated by Carol Numrich at Columbia University, guides teachers in scaffolding critical thinking and English language skills so that critical thinking may be practiced at any language proficiency level.