Fostering Critical Thinking Through Critical Pedagogy in the High School English Classroom

Abstract

This project is a teaching guide to help high school English teachers use the strategy called "Critical Pedagogy" linking the students' actual experience with curriculum texts to foster critical thinking in the adolescent classroom. The thesis outlines the philosophy of Critical Pedagogy and offers insight into using it to teach classic novels in literature as a way to connect student, teacher, and the outside community as one answer to overcoming the achievement gap. Included are lesson plans that focus on issues of race, language, social class and employ students' personal experiences and conflicts to create an alternative to traditional teaching instruction.