Page 61 - THE ONTARIO CURRICULUM, GRADES 11 AND 12 | Canadian and World Studies

The development of these critical-thinking skills is supported in every course in the Canadian and world studies curriculum by strand A on inquiry and skill development as well as by the concepts of disciplinary thinking that are identified as a focus for each overall expectation (for a description of the concepts of disciplinary thinking, see page 16). As they work to achieve the Canadian and world studies expectations, students frequently need to identify the possible implications of choices. As they gather information from
a variety of sources, they need to be able to interpret what they are listening to, reading, or viewing; to look for instances of bias; and to determine why a source might express
a particular bias.
Critical literacy is the capacity for a particular type of critical thinking that involves looking beyond the literal meaning of a text to determine what is present and what is missing,
in order to analyse and evaluate the text’s complete meaning and the author’s intent. Critical literacy goes beyond conventional critical thinking by focusing on issues related to fairness, equity, and social justice. Critically literate students adopt a critical stance, asking what view of the world the text advances and whether they find this view acceptable, who benefits from the text, and how the reader is influenced.
Critically literate students understand that meaning is not found in texts in isolation. People make sense of a text, or determine what a text means, in a variety of ways. Students therefore need to be aware of points of view (e.g., those of people from various cultures), the context (e.g., the beliefs and practices of the time and place in which a text was created and those in which it is being read or viewed), the background of the person interacting with the text (e.g., upbringing, friends, communities, education, experiences), intertextuality (e.g., information that a reader or viewer brings to a text from other texts experienced previously), gaps in the text (e.g., information that is left out and that the reader or viewer must fill in), and silences in the text (e.g., voices of a person or group not heard).
In Canadian and world studies, students who are critically literate are able, for example, to actively analyse media messages and determine potential motives and underlying messages. They are able to determine what biases might be contained in texts, media, and resource material and why that might be, how the content of these materials might be determined and by whom, and whose perspectives might have been left out and why. Students would then be equipped to produce their own interpretation of the issue. Opportunities should be provided for students to engage in a critical discussion of “texts”, which can include books (including textbooks), television programs, movies, web pages, advertising, music, gestures, oral texts, visual art works, maps, graphs, graphic texts, and other means of expression. Such discussions empower students to understand the impact on members of society that was intended by the text’s creators. Language and communication are never neutral: they are used to inform, entertain, persuade, and manipulate.
Another aspect of critical thinking is metacognition, which involves developing one’s thinking skills by reflecting on one’s own thought processes. Metacognitive skills include the ability to monitor one’s own learning. Acquiring and using metacognitive skills has emerged as a powerful approach for promoting a focus on thinking skills in literacy and across all disciplines. In Canadian and world studies, metacognitive skills are developed in a number of ways. Throughout the inquiry process, students use metacognitive skills to reflect on their thinking, ensuring, for example, that their questions are appropriate,
SOME CONSIDERATIONS FOR PROGRAM PLANNING IN CANADIAN AND WORLD STUDIES
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