Technology “Reading and Writing for Critical Thinking” As a Resource for Developing Students' Self Skills

Abstract

At a time when the pace of changes in all spheres of human life is increasing and the future is predicted only tentatively, young people have to be prepared for their future life on the basis of analytical and critical thinking. The paper presents an analysis of the main ideas underlying the concept of using the technology “Reading and writing for critical thinking” by teachers in order to form some components of the self- skills competencies in their pupils: self-determination, independence, and self-organization skills. Teachers can use open learning technologies, including the technology “Reading and writing for critical thinking”, to develop these skills in their students. The choice of this particular technology is facilitated by the use of the basic principles of this technology (cooperation, mutual responsibility, rejection of possessing the truth, active communication, reflection), as well as a wide range of strategies and specific methods presented in it. The article also analyses the possibilities of using the technology “Reading and writing for critical thinking” in a tutor’s work. The authors have made an attempt to correlate each technological stage with a certain stage of the tutor’s activity: creation of an open educational environment, implementation of educational navigation, and scaling. The article is devoted to the characteristics of the textual educational environment as a condition of self-skills formation in students within the framework of individual and group tutorials with the use of the technology “Reading and writing for critical thinking”: openness, variability, abundance, lack of structure, provocativeness.