Critical Thinking in ELA Classrooms: From Buzzword to Blueprint
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Authors
Mannion, Colleen
Date
2026-03
Type
Dissertation
Language
en_US
Keywords
Alternative Title
CRITICAL THINKING
Abstract
This qualitative single-case study examines how New Hampshire (NH) high school English Language Arts (ELA) teachers conceptualize, teach, and assess critical thinking. Despite its prominence in policy, standards, and graduation requirements, critical thinking has remained operationally undefined in classroom practice. Guided by the Delphi Report’s six cognitive skills as a conceptual lens, inquiry in this study set out to examine how experienced ELA teachers across five NH public high schools describe and implement critical thinking within their instructional contexts. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews and analysis of curricular artifacts, including assignments and curriculum maps. Findings reveal that although teachers do not share a single formal definition of critical thinking, they demonstrate consistent expectations for student reasoning in practice. Critical thinking is embedded in lesson design and developed over time through reading, discussion, and writing rather than taught as a discrete skill. A recurring six-stage instructional sequence emerged across sites, suggesting coherence in instruction despite variation in terminology. As such, this study adds to the discourse on critical thinking in ELA by shifting attention from definitional ambiguity toward a practice-based understanding of the instructional structures through which critical thinking functions in secondary classrooms.