Scaffolding adolescents’ critical thinking and disciplinary literacy skills in an in-person and virtual humanities class

Critical thinking is one of the most highly sought skills in education, yet questions remain about instilling students with this elusive set of skills and dispositions. Is it generalizable or discipline-specific? How should it be taught? This article describes an approach by two middle school teachers who developed and taught an in-person and virtual humanities curriculum. They utilized an instructional routine involving discussion and writing to help students comprehend and think critically about challenging, disciplinary texts. Opportunities for discussion and writing before, during, and after reading allowed for scaffolded, deeper understandings of the texts.