Your student will learn to think for themselves through information analysis, decision making, evaluation, reasoning and problem solving.  Your student will develop opinions, create judgements and claim ownership for their arguments. This class will prepare students to critically think in all of their classes as well as in life. They will develop skills of observation, analysis, interpretation, reflection, evaluation, inference, explanation, problem solving, and decision making. I believe students need to feel valued and that a class needs to be fun for students to truly learn. Classes will include a variety of delivery techniques such as short lecture, slides, video clips, group collaboration and individual activities. This class will rely heavily on discussion. We will be reading, writing, and discussing as a group and individually. We will incorporate images, data, expository text, and artwork. Homework will consist of different activities reinforcing what we learned in class. 

Week 1:  The Art of Questioning
This week will learn about the Depth of Knowledge wheel. We will practice this knowledge through creating questions about short stories, articles and photos. Students will teach one another the different levels of questions through their favorite character from literature, movies, theater, gaming or cartoons. One activity we will do together is I will reveal one clue at a time about a job, animal, etc and students will try to figure out what it is.
Homework:
Students will be asked to bring a strange item to show to their peers. Peers will ask questions about the item to determine what it is. 

Week 2: Information Analysis
We will learn about persuasion: factual/credibility, emotional, logical.
We will read articles (length and complexity will be determined by age) students will decide topic.  We will complete a Venn diagram together and discuss what the author wants us to know and what persuasion technique was used. 
Gallery Walk: pictures will be presented on the screen and students are to write down what they see: subject, what's happening, people, possible time period. We will have a discussion about the pictures. Students will observe a video clip of a science experiment and we will observe, collect data, make decisions, come to conclusions.
Homework: Students will find a picture that they will share with classmates and answer the following questions:
1) What do you think is happening in this picture or photo?
2) Who is in the picture or photo?
3) Where do you think the picture or photo is taking place? 
4) When do you think this picture or photo is taking place?
5) What do you think the artist or photographer is trying to tell us?
OR they can do one of the experiments recommended (see the links provided) take photos (or videos) of the different phases of the experiment to share with classmates and answer the following questions:
1) What did you think would happen with this experiment?
2) What did you observe?
3) Did the experiment do what you thought it would? Why or why not?
4) What did you learn?
5) What could you add to the experiment or do differently next time for a different outcome?

Week 3:  
Students will participate in an island survival activity. 

Homework:  Students will choose a mysterious item to share with the class. Classmates will suggest different ideas for what it is used for. 

Week 4: 
Teams will share out their decisions for the island survival activity. And we will discuss the different items each student brought. Depending on grade levels of students, we will have a topic and students will be assigned pro or con sides. Students will work with another peer to create an argument either pro or con. Students will share out.