GPS and American Lit - Critical Thinking?

I looked at the GPS for American Literature for this week's blog... Because I am no longer in the classroom, I do not read these everyday anymore! I couldn't really remember the exact wording of the standards and how/if they fostered opportunities for critical thinking. Not surprisingly, each of the standards in the Reading & Literature section of the American Literature standards are well written and definitely provide for the development of critical thinking skills. Upon further investigation of one standard in particular, I was able to actually easily come up with a simple plan to teach the standard while engaging them in critical thinking skills through the use of technology.

ELAALRL2 The student identifies, analyzes, and applies knowledge of theme in a work of American literature and provides evidence from the work to support understanding. The student

1. Applies knowledge of the concept that the theme or meaning of a selection represents a universal view or comment on life or society and provides support from the text for the identified theme.
2. Evaluates the way an author’s choice of words advances the theme or purpose of the work.
3. Applies knowledge of the concept that a text can contain more than one theme. 
4. Analyzes and compares texts that express universal themes characteristic of American literature across time and genre (i.e., American individualism, the American dream, cultural diversity, and tolerance) and provides support from the texts for the identified themes.

The fact that they standard actually requires "analyzation" is definitely a clue that critical thinking is involved... It also asks the students to make connections between the text's theme and life in general. The standard also asks the students to effectually "prove" their theory about the book/literary work's theme. "Proving" something is the epitome of critical thinking skills.

If I were still teaching American Literature, I would definitely use this standard (along with several others) to create a large, overarching project for the students to complete throughout the semester. I would probably have them think about all of the huge themes that are pervasive throughout all of American literature. Throughout the semester, as we read different essays/ novels/ poems, they are to search for this theme within the texts. They should prove that it exists and be able to explain how they have interpreted the theme. Their project would include two big technological aspects- one a journal or blog- preferably using Penzu online journal or some blog site. The other would be a collaborative presentation made with students who chose the same them... They could use Google presentations to work together or they could create in Prezi or another web 2.0 collaborative presentation tool. Anyway, the presentation should cover all 4 aspects of the standard.

I think fostering critical thinking is easy in a literature course... Additionally, the GPS were written in order to engage students in the higher order skills on Bloom's Taxonomy. The Common Core standards are even better at providing guidelines for teachers to create instruction that focuses on critical thinking. It will be interesting to see how students respond once they are implemented in all Georgia classrooms.