Scientific reasoning and achievement in a high school English course

The hypothetical-deductive pattern of reasoning, an advanced reasoning model common to science, can be effectively transferred to the study of English and improve both English usage and reasoning skills.

Though educators in the United States say that they already are teaching thinking and that the physical sciences and mathematics offer opportunities for learning higher-order reasoning skills, most observers agree that the goal of teaching students how to think has not been fulfilled.

The reasons are varied. Perhaps the most serious deficiency is that teachers have never had a clear notion of just what advanced reasoning is - and just what to do to stimulate its development in students.

My own search for effective ways to promote critical thinking during thirty years as a high school English teacher grew out of dissatisfaction with what was offered by various authors representing the humanities and behavioral and social sciences. Guided by my study of the paranormal and my association with college professors experimenting with various theories of intellectual development, including those of Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget (known for his research of thought processes in children), I turned to the physical sciences for answers.

Emphasizing the hypothetical-deductive pattern of reasoning in teaching critical thinking appeared feasible. So by means of a Piagetian-based, systematic instructional theory developed by Anton E. Lawson of Arizona State University, I used this reasoning model in my twelfth-grade English course at Grand Island Senior High in Grand Island, Nebraska, from 1982 to 1991.

This reasoning model, common to science, can be effectively transferred to the field of English (and likely to other curriculum areas, as well as to everyday life); an academic discipline such as English can be used to help students develop higher-order thinking skills of a hypothetical-deductive nature.

Patterns of Advanced Reasoning

Some psychologists have characterized human intellectual development in terms of four major levels or "stages" of thought processes. Piaget called the stages sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operational and formal operational For this article, the last of these, called by Lawson the hypothetical-deductive stage, is of interest. The thinking patterns at this stage are advanced reasoning patterns used in testing alternative hypotheses and are characterized in five ways. Examples in this article are taken from the discipline of English and include language, literature, and composition.

Combinatorial thinking enables the individual to systematically consider all possible relations of experimental or theoretical conditions, even though some may not be realized in nature. For example, one could generate all possible combinations of the several probable causes of Hamlet's depression in Shakespeare's Hamlet. One could systematically list the options a novelist has for the outcome of a story given the meaning of the novel, the traits of the characters, and the author's intent. Once generated, these possibilities can then be tested.

In the identification and control of variables, the individual recognizes the need to consider all the known variables and to design a test that controls all variables except the one being investigated. One could determine in John Knowles's novel A Separate Peace that the differences in the responses to hardship of prep school students Leper and Gene were due to their differences in assertiveness and abilities to communicate. The boys were alike in all other identifiable variables: both were the same age and were sensitive, intellectual, serious students; and both participated in the same activities. Leper dropped out of school to join the military but was discharged during basic training for mental illness. Gene finished school despite a trauma with his roommate, Finny.

Proportional thinking enables the individual to recognize and interpret relationships between relationships in situations described by observable or theoretical variables. While qualitative functional relationships are found in some literary works, seldom if ever are these relationships quantified. For example, one would recognize in Shelley's poem "Ozymandias" (the character Ozymandias calls himself a "king of kings") that a functional relationship exists between the esteem of the dictator's followers and the vast size and quality of the stone statue sculpted as a tribute to him.

Probabilistic thinking enables the individual to recognize that natural phenomena themselves are probabilistic in character and that any conclusions or explanations must involve probabilistic considerations. For example, one may predict that if eight out of ten of fictional character Michael Henchard's interactions with other people in Thomas Hardy's Mayor of Casterbridge resulted in a negative impact on the characters life, then his next personal interaction will most likely (a probability of 8 out of 10) have a negative impact as well.