Developmental Features Of Senior High School Students' Critical Thinking In English Writing

Critical thinking,as one of the core literacy of English discipline,has received extensive attention in the field of English teaching.English writing is closely related to critical thinking.There are many studies devoted to exploring the relationship between writing and critical thinking,which can be roughly divided into three categories.The first kind of research mainly discusses how to use writing to promote the development of students' critical thinking.The second kind of research focuses on how to improve students' writing ability by using their critical thinking.The third kind of research emphasizes the measurement and evaluation of critical thinking in writing.Among three kinds of research,most of them are about the relationship between critical thinking and writing,and the research objects are mainly college students,while the research on how to evaluate senior high school students' critical thinking in writing is relatively few,and the research on exploring senior high school students' developmental features of critical thinking is also less.Based on the background above,this paper attempts to evaluate senior high school students' critical thinking in English writing.Through the analysis of the differences among three grades,as well as correlation analysis,it makes further empirical research on the relationship between critical thinking and writing.This paper seeks to answer the following questions.(1)Is there a significant difference in critical thinking disposition among three grades?(2)Is there a significant difference among three grades in critical thinking in English writing?(3)Is there a significant correlation between senior high school students' critical thinking and English writing proficiency? Is there a grade difference in this correlation?The subjects of this study are 180 students in three grades of a key high school.Among them,there are 60 students in each grade.All participants underwent a CTDI-CV survey and writing test in the same week.A total of 151 validly matched questionnaires and writing materials were recovered.Twenty-nine were rejected because of too much missing content.The collected writing materials were evaluated by two researchers based on the English writing critical thinking evaluation scale(adapted UF / QCTS)to evaluate the performance of critical thinking in the composition.Students' compositions were evaluated based on the English Composition Scoring Criteria for College Entrance Examination.The final data were analyzed by SPSS 24 software for variance,correlation,and regression analysis.Results show that,firstly,there is a significant difference among three grades in overall critical thinking disposition.Senior two and three are significantly higher than senior one.Senior two is the critical development period.As for specific dimensions,there is no significant difference in truth-seeking,open-mindedness,systematicity and maturity among three grades,but there are significant differences in analyticity,self-confidence,and inquisitiveness.Analyticity and self-confidence of senior two and senior three outperform senior one and the inquisitiveness of senior two develops best.Students' analyticity,self-confidence and inquisitiveness grow rapidly from senior one to senior two.It indicates that the second school year is the critical development period.Secondly,there is no significant difference among three grades in overall critical thinking in English writing.However,there are significant differences in interpretation,analysis and inference skills among three grades.Interpretation and analysis skill of senior three are significantly higher than senior one and senior two,and the inference skill of senior one and senior three outperform senior two.Students' interpretation and analysis skill grow rapidly from senior two to senior three.It implies that senior three is the critical development period.Thirdly,there is a high positive correlation between senior high school students' critical thinking in Englishwriting and English writing proficiency.However,with the increase of grades,the correlation gradually decreases.As for specific skills,explanation,inference,and analysis have a great influence on the level of English writing.As students grow up,their English language skills and knowledge continue to accumulate.At the same time,due to the pressure of further studies,students receive more writing training.Therefore,with the increase of grades,critical thinking disposition of high school students and critical thinking in English writing generally show an upward trend.However,inference skill regressed significantly in the second grade.This may be caused by teacher's insufficient attention to how to guide students to draw reasonable conclusions in writing teaching.The above research provides the following implications for the teaching of critical thinking in English writing.Firstly,the cultivation of critical thinking of senior high school students should grasp the critical period,and the emphasis of each grade's cultivation is different.For example,senior two students focus on fostering critical thinking disposition,especially analyticity,self-confidence,and inquisitiveness.Senior three students focus on developing interpretation,analysis,and inference skills.Secondly,teachers can test students' critical thinking through English writing to find problems in writing teaching and improve them.In addition to focusing on critical thinking skills in English composition,teachers can also encourage students to cultivate their self-confidence and curiosity in writing teaching.