Using Literature as a Gateway to Critical Thinking

Sometimes, the groans usher out be heard clear crossways a campus, and they resonate in memory for years. When a professor assigns a text for claiming, whateverthing from the numbers Just to say by William Carlos Williams to Herman Melvilles Moby Dick, the students argon rapid to react as if they bring on been handed a last sentence.In some cases, this is because they hand over so much their development on their plates that they just feel overwhelmed, but many times, it is a look of their former failures to grasp anything meaningful from a publications assignment. This later is the primary request of importance in continuing to distribute the literature. Many university students lack a fundamental grasp on the son of a bitchs they require to read and write critically, which in criminals leaves them without the ability to think and reason in logical and critical equipment casualty.The crook of critical thinking on the success of a student at the university level is un deni qualified. It testament influence how headspring they compreh intercept the texts in cause of them. It will guess the way in which they can relate adept text to another across classroom and semester borders. It will also have a great effect in the way in which they can communicate their ideas to both(prenominal) their peers and their instructors. The way in which a student learns to read and produce written work will be the fundamental onus of their language and communication abilities without regard to bea of specialization.This teaching begins very betimes in childhood. Learning to read as a child one(a) develops a sense that the author is the beginning and end of the page, and the words apply are at that place for the sole purpose of the surface story. Once a student is capable of surpassing this stage and he or she begins to visualize the works on a deeper philosophical level the existent learning begins. The student will begin reading for to a greater extent than simple issue and an entire new world will open up encompassing of possibilities.Many students will never learn to recognize the deeper or more subtle meaning in many of the texts unless they are first unresolved to it in literature. Poetry is exceptionally useful for this purpose. The allusions, worked in through metaphor, simile, and symbolism, intrust a deeper insight to the position of the author from the outset. The famous lines of This is Just to verbalise by William Carlos Williams provides an excellent example for this type of inquiryI have eaten the plums that were in the iceboxand which you were probably saving for breakfastForgive me they were scrumptious so sweet and so coldIf five students are asked what the bank clerk is rightfully speaking about, the instructor will likely get five, or more, differing opinions. The poem may be about real plums. The poem may be about the consumption of personal space or time. The poem may be speaking on the conceit that obtaining forgiveness for acting may be earier to obtain than permission. These tools allow the student to understand there is a greater depth to the approach than the simple words on the page as a literal expression of a real object, place, or person.At the same time, these keys offer a new precipitate on the authors angle of approach. Knowing where the author is glide path from helps to weed out fallacious arguments, personal vendettas, and even suppositions masquerading as facts. piece of music others ideas can help a reader to formulate their own intellectually sound opinions, those ideas will only be as firmly grounded as the foundation of facts they are based on.The number of times that something is presented as a fact, only to turn out to be an opinion may really shock and surprise many of the students who are used to opening a text for a class and consuming what is before them for regurgitation. This technique is peculiarly well suited to high schools where the teacher to student ratio oftentimes precludes discussion.When the students then have to begin seeking out secondary sources and turn to the internet for information they will have to confront decisions on what is sincere information versus bad information. They will not even be able to be certain that newspaper articles and TV shows presented as news are giving them the honest facts. Looking at headlines on the internet, with a tool such as Google News, you can instantly see how word choices affect the entire tone of a story and change meaning dramatically even when reporting on the same incident.By giving students the tools they motive to think critically, through the exploration of literature, the universities will begin to overcome the around common objections to much of the assigned reading. These students will begin, and continue, to question even those facts and ideas that compendium to them. This will give them the ability to construct strong and fair opinions of their own. It w ill lead them to be more cautious when writing papers for any number of disciplines. Not only will they have the moral ruggedness to stand up for their opinions, they will be certain that their opinions and statements are both fully realized and backed up with good documentation.The trouble with literature in the classrooms is not in the amount of time spent on literature itself, but on the lack of time spent on discussing the literature to bring about these changes to the culpabilities of the students as critical thinkers. Just reading it is not good enough. In order to derive a eudaimonia which will deepen the experience of education, and therefore contribute more effectively to the community, the time must be taken to teach explication as well as construct.Defining the importance of literature for the students and then perusing the matter if educating with it as a matter of common course is despotic to the end result of a well educated individual. These individuals will retur n more to society than what they take from it. In order the continue to chip outside(a) at the disparity between classes, races, and even genders, it is important to continue to drop back students who will think and reason in logical and critical terms through the ability to read and write critically. Literature is as imperative as resource as the air they breathe.