If we think of critical thinking as metacognition - thoughtful self-awareness in the process of working through problems - then the teaching of critical thinking involves giving students the opportunity to practice monitoring their behaviors in process. In some circumstances , being aware of the process comes naturally. When learning a new skill, like driving a car, for example, one must very consciously work through a series of steps (put on seat belt, adjust mirror, put key in ignition, and so on) until the process becomes second nature. So process awareness in situations like this is almost inevitable.

In other circumstances, focussing awareness on process may be difficult. This is most often the case when one is involved in a process that is either very complex (having an argument with someone you love) or already so routine as to have become automatic or subconscious (decoding the words as you read). In situations like this, stepping outside of yourself to monitor and adjust the process may be become difficult or impossible. In other situations - playing music, for example - self-consciousness may actually be undesirable and counterproductive. But certainly there are some in which it may be helpful to be able to step back, see where we are in a process, check to see how the process is working, and make adjustments as necessary. Most high school students are not particularly cognizant of or alert to their own processing strategies. One of the goals of a CT course is to help them become more so.

During the first few weeks of this school year I've been working with my sophomores on the idea of process observation. I introduced the idea of the "process observer" by asking the students to do a very concrete, hands-on activity for which the process moves would be easily to identify and articulate.

I divided the class up into groups of four or five students. Each group was given eight sheets of blank paper, about five feet of masking tape, and a pair of scissors. The instructions went something like this:

You will be given 15 minutes to complete your task, which is to construct a free-standing three-dimensional object, using only the materials you have been given. This is a design competition of sorts. Your object will be evaluated according to four criteria, as follows:

Height. 5 points will be awarded to the group whose construction is the tallest. 3 points will be awarded to the second tallest, and 1 point to the third tallest.

Aesthetics. The attractiveness of your construction will be considered using the NIMBY test. (NIMBY stands for "Not In My Back Yard.") The question I will ask myself is how I would feel if the design for your construction were to be approved for a memorial to be built on the vacant lot next to my house. Is it something I would be pleased to wake and and look out the window to see every day of my life? Points will be award as for the "height" criterion.

Stability. Stability will be tested after the height is taken. We will use the "Big Bad Wolf" test. I will come to your construction the first time and blow lightly on it. Then I will come again and blow more heavily. The third time I will huff and puff and attempt to blow your house down. Points will be awarded to the most stable constructions. Your construction must be self-supporting and free-standing. You cannot use the tape (or anything else) to anchor your construction to the floor or wall. You cannot use other objects (shoes or books, for example) to weight the base of your construction.

Time. You will be given fifteen minutes to complete your task. When time is called, you may not touch your construction for any reason. IF you finish early, you can win points for coming in first, second or third, but no group will receive points unless it finishes before the deadline.

One member of each group will be assigned to act as a process observer. It is that person's responsibility to monitor and take notes on the process the group uses as they go about working on this task. What does the group do first? What do they do next? How do they make decisions? What roles do the individual group members play? What decisions seem to work the best? Which decisions turn out to be bad ones? Process observers may wish to intervene in the process by making suggestions during the activity. After the activity is over and the judging is completed, each process observer will give a brief report summarizing the process that was used and evaluating its effectiveness.

The important thing in this exercise is not the building of the towers, although it has always amused me to watch how quickly the students become engaged in this process and how focussed they become in doing it. The whole exercise is designed to introduce the concept of process observation, which will become thematic in the course. The immediate, short-term goal is to give students a chance to rehearse being process observers, because I will often during the course of the year ask students to work in groups with a process observer available to guide them during the activity, and to help us think critically about what we are doing when we debrief the activity afterwards. The long-term goal is to get the students to recognize and cultivate their own "inner process observer," the voice in the back of the mind that steps in from time to time and says, "But wait! This process isn't working! How else could I do this?"

This activity is the first in a series of activities in which students are asked to first understand, then practice, and finally interiorize the role of the process observer. Other steps in the sequence might include activities such as the following:

Building Bridges: I tell the class that while during the first activity they were asked to build a tower with certain physical properties, in this next activity they will be asked to build a bridge with certain properties. But the bridge this time is a conceptual bridge. Again I divide the class into groups and appoint a process observer for each group. (It might even be the same groups as last time, but with a new process observer.) This time, however, the task of the group is to examine two texts (these might be short poems or prose passages provided on the spot, or they might be reading assignments already completed at home or in previous classes) and consider how they might best be compared and contrasted. I usually give the group a time limit (ten or fifteen minutes) and a file card on which they are to write one or two sentences which they attempt to articulate with clarity and precision what the significant points of comparison and contrast might be. Once again it is the job of the process observer to make notes on the steps the group goes through to arrive at the final product, and to make suggestions in process if it looks like the group needs to switch gears or proceed differently. At the end of the time, a group representative reads what is on the card, and the process observers report on the process.

An alternative followup is to simply collect the cards, debrief the process, and then type or photocopy the cards overnight. During the following class, students can be asked to meet in (new) groups and to rank order the responses based on the criteria (in this case, clarity, precision, and significance.) The results are debriefed by the teacher at the board in large group. Once the "winning" card or cards have been discussed, the process observer for the group which has won can be asked to re-state the behaviors which led to the successful response.

Individual Reflection: After any group activity, it is possible to ask each student as a followup, in class or for homework, to write a brief reflection about his/her own role in the group activity. Students might be asked to comment on "My Role This Time" - what exactly their contribution to the group activity was and whether it satisfied them - and also on "My Role Next Time" - how they intend to improve on or adapt their roles.

Be Your Own Process Observer: I sometimes ask students to go home and do a reading (a poem or short story), and to prepare it as they normally would. But I ask them to keep notes on the process they use: what they do first, what they do next, where they get stuck, what they do when they get stuck, and so on. I ask them to bring these notes to class. (Sometimes I collect them; sometimes not.) When we debrief the assignment the next day, we look not only at the reading, but at the process moves as well. Our goal in this CT course is always twofold: to consider what we know about the work in question, and to consider what we know about reading (or talking about, or interpreting, or writing about) works like the work in question.

Harkness Discussion: Students can be given practice in monitoring their own roles in large-group discussions as well. About once every five or six class periods I set up a Harkness Discussion. Since this is an activity in which the teacher's participation is severely limited, it makes all students stop and think about - and practice changing - the roles they usually adopt in discussion. There are commonsense criteria for judging the success of a large-group discussion; they are detailed on the instruction sheet I give the students. I challenge the students to come up with an "interaction plan" - and stick to it. The plan can be fairly simple and unimaginative: "I'm going to ask clarifying questions twice in the next ten minutes." or "I'm going to direct the attention of the class to this one passage from the text." Or the plan can be whimsical: "Every time anyone wearing red speaks, I'm going to raise my hand to disagree; every time anyone wearing blue speaks, I'm going to raise my hand and agree." The point I try to make with the students is, "You have a role in this discussion. And it is your choice what this role is to be." I look at this as another opportunity for students to practice the shift in point of view that I like to call "the sideways move" - "Let's see what happens if we look at it from over here." Just because I usually talk all the time in class, or usually say nothing at all, doesn't mean that today I can't try something different.

After ten or fifteen minutes of discussion, I suspend the discussion for a few minutes of feedback from the process observer - me. The students have been told that everyone is receiving a grade for this discussion based on the criteria listed on the sheet. I tell them what I'm observing, where they stand, and what I see as "do differentlies" or opportunities for improvement. Then I turn it back to them. There is often a very dramatic improvement in the quality of the discussion after the feedback - a point I will reinforce at the end of class: That's what we're doing. That's why we're doing it.

The Process Observer in Your Mind: The ultimate goal of all of these activities is to make the concept of process visible, and to encourage students to become flexible, adaptable thinkers. Good critical thinkers know how to monitor and reflect on their own processes. They pause from time to time and ask "Where am I now?" "Where am I trying to get to?" and "How am I going to get there?" It is part of the design of my CT English course to give students the chance to rehearse these questions regularly. It is the goal of the course to get them to see the value - and develop the habit - of doing it on their own.

This is not to say that being mindful of process is always a good thing. There are many situations in which this kind of metacognitive awareness - this self kind of self-consciousness - might be inappropriate or counterproductive. But there are times - especially those times when one is frustrated or deadended or stuck - when knowing how to get unstuck is important. That's when it's time to ask some questions of the Process Observer in Your Mind.