Too often, Critical Thinking is equated with things like 'Check your sources'; 'Be critical'; 'Consider alternatives' etc. All good things certainly - all important things - but also too partial and not detailed enough.

A well-known definition is Ennis': ‘Critical thinking is reasonable, reflective thinking focused on deciding what to believe or do. The emphasis is on reasonableness, reflection, and the process of making decisions’ (Ennis 1996). That process is informed by logic, close observation, and open-mindedness. As Ennis also says, 'All thinking is about something'- Thinking is content, content is thinking. We already know what that 'something' is for us: the material in the text (characters, situations, events, plot development, reactions, thoughts expressed, attitudes shown, decision made, context and contextual information are just a few of them). That 'content' is what we have to think: think from/on the basis of; think about.

Ultimately though, it is crucial to realise that thinking doesn't come from nowhere, and that our reactions are often based on who we are as individual - what we know, what we like, what we grew up with, what we're used to, what those we love and respect think etc. That is why its important to remember that Critical Thinking starts with ourselves, and with an solid, honest, clear-headed understanding of how we think as individual: What do I believe? How do I think? How do I analyse a situation, make sense of a reaction? How do I tend to interpret what happens? How do I usually react myself, and why? What are those beliefs that I hold without, perhaps, realising it myself? (you can see here how closely that is related to the beliefs held by teachers as well).

Richard Paul (2012) reminds us of how many sides there are to Critical Thinking, and therefore how and why our thinking often goes wrong - that is, how often our thinking is not critical in any way:

'When our thinking goes wrong, it is often because we: 

• jump to conclusions; fail to think-through implications; lose track of our goal; are unrealistic; fail to notice contradictions

• accept inaccurate information; ask vague questions; give vague answers; ask loaded questions; ask irrelevant questions

• confuse questions of different types; answer questions we are not competent to answer; come to conclusions based on inaccurate or irrelevant information; ignore information that does not support our view; make inferences not justified by our experience

• distort data and state it inaccurately; fail to notice the inferences we make; come to unreasonable conclusions; fail to notice our assumptions; often make unjustified assumptions

• miss key ideas; use irrelevant ideas; form confused ideas; form superficial concepts; misuse words

• ignore relevant viewpoints; cannot see issues from points of view other than our own; 

• confuse issues of different types; are unaware of our prejudices; think narrowly; think imprecisely; think illogically; think one-sidedly; think simplistically; think hypocritically; think superficially; think ethnocentrically; think egocentrically; think irrationally

• do poor problem solving; make poor decisions; are poor communicators; have little insight into our own ignorance'

This is a long list, and a painful one when considered honestly. But it is imperative that we should also recognise how our own thinking works, what we do not do well, what we forget to do: it is imperative that you should first know how you think, and what makes you think that way.
Critical thinking starts with oneself, and with a careful appraisal of how one thinks - and how one fails to think critically. Recognising your own biases, your own assumptions, your own lack of attention, must be the starting point of any critical thinking about others.

Fiction is therefore a wonderful place to do all this, as we have situations experienced by people in well-defined conditions; we have relationships, actions and reactions, decisions made and things said and thought. How we understand all this will first be based on reactive, instinctive thinking: the interpretive process will enable us to go beyond ourselves and think about how and why characters act and speak; how else they could do so, what else they could do and why, how else they could speak and think. 

That, in turn, will allow us to compare, evaluate: not only what others say and do, but what we say and do. Is there a difference? where could that difference come from?

That necessitates paying close attention to what is happening, to what is said and not said, to what is done and not done - and paying close attention is certainly a crucial starting point for critical thinking.

As this entire site is dedicated to that question, we will focus here on some slightly conceptual aspects - the practical aspects are spread out all over the site (In practice; Identify the differences; How to ask questions, and which; How to interpret etc.)

First, fiction simply offers a wealth of material to think with, and to think from: different characters, each with their own idiosyncrasies, thoughts, ideas, perspectives, motives and inner life - each with their moral quandaries, doubts, fears, hopes and ambitions. Reflecting on those is bound to present readers with questions about others and themselves: 

• 'She thinks that way: what does it mean about her, and about me who may think differently?';

• 'He feels that way about this, while I feel differently: what does that mean about him, me, us, and others? Is that difference common?'. 

• 'They see the world this way, whereas I see it that way: can those differences be understood, explained, reconciled? What do those differences mean about the world/society/culture I'm in?'

We saw that one needs knowledge to think from - one needs something to think about. Fiction offers all types of people to think from and about: most of those people will not be like the reader (but some will), and it is in those differences (and sometimes, similarities) that we can find understanding of others, and ultimately, of ourselves.

Second: Fiction is a safe place you can always return to during class. Imagine the text you're discussing with your learners touches upon a difficult topic - something that affects people in the real world, something some learners might have experienced themselves, or something they may have heard about without knowing too much about it. Your learners are bound to personalise that topic, that is, relate it to themselves, which will lead them to think about it in their own terms. That, in turn, will lead most of them to only consider what they think or feel, without thinking about why others may disagree, or see the situation differently, or want something else. in other words, they may well become blind to the possibilities of thinking differently - and typically, that may lead many to harden their own stance and refuse to - intellectual;y - consider alternatives.

That is where Fiction is so powerful, as characters are - and remain - inventions: the  world of the novel, however close to our world it may be, is always a fictional world. Characters may resemble real people, but they are not real; their thinking might resemble real people's thinking, but it remains fictional thinking. So when a discussion becomes too personalised, too strident, too close to home, you can always go back to the story as story, and insist on the fact that what happens in the text is only in the text; that characters in the text are just that, and not a member of your family, group or culture.

(Incidentally, that is why science-fiction and Fantasy can be such powerful texts to use in class: an alien does not exist, a far-off planet has never been visited etc. Such settings introduce a distance between the reader's world and the fictional one which then enables that reader to reflect on their own world (Suvin's famous Cognitive displacement/disjunction model)).

Third: in the real world, people never quite say everything they think or feel, and you usually have to 'read between the lines' to know what they think: you have to interpret people in real life too. We do that pretty automatically, often unconsciously, and usually very quickly as well: we react to their facial expression, their tone of voice, their words (or their silences) their body language, their clothes, their smell and attitudes...and their ideas and opinions. Remember the last time you met someone for the first time? How did you form an opinion of them? Based on what? Using which elements of your interaction? Did that person really express everything about themselves clearly, in words, saying e.g. 'I am like this, I think like that, I fear this and love that'? Or did you have to do the work in interpreting them, or reconstructing who they may be from all different elements?

Well, it's basically the same in fiction: characters say things (or don't), they have faces and clothes and habits, they express fears and desires - but not always directly, just like in real life. They will reveal what and how they think but they may not say it directly; they will reveal what they want and hope and hate and fear, but not always in words - sometimes their face will say it all, sometimes their deeds, sometimes their thoughts. A regret expressed may say more about who a person is than many empty words; a fear revealed in an aside may say a lot more than two long descriptive paragraphs...

Fourth: a novel is a thought experiment, a What-if situation. A novel is typically a complex world (complex the way ours is), with competing ideas, interests, desires and personalities; it usually contains situations where one would react this way, while another would react that way - and yet another would react in yet another way. This complexity is an echo of the complexity of our world, where we take so much for granted that we often forget to think about it, to reflect on it, to ask questions about and of it: does it have to be like that? Can it not be some other way? Is this inevitable? What is my role, what can my role be? Do I have a role to play at all? Do I really have to resign myself to this, or can I fight it? Is the solution offered the only one, and do I need to accept it without discussion?

We could easily refer to Brecht of course, and his argument that Art (and in particular of course, theatre) must be a call to arms for citizens: Art must make us think, it must make us participate, it must make us question - Art must be used to open our eyes, not to close them. Art must be used to prod, to sting, to stimulate, and not to lull us to sleep or sell us acceptance. There's no need to go all Marxist on this though: thinking about citizenship is enough - thinking about participation, what it is to be human, what we could achieve, what we could do better, differently. Fiction is all that, and offers all that.

Go further: a very incomplete bibliography

Citizenship issues

Biesta, G.J.J., Lawy, R. & Kelly N. (2009) Understanding young people’s citizenship learning in everyday life: the role of contexts, relationships and dispositions, Education, Citizenship and Social Justice, 4(1), 5-24.

Biesta, G.J.J. (2007) Education and the democratic person: towards a political understanding of democratic education, Teachers College Record, 109 (3), 740-769.

Council of Europe: Reference framework of competences for democratic culture: key descriptors (https://rm.coe.int/prems-008418-gbr-2508-reference-framework-of-competences-vol-2-8573-co/16807bc66d) 

Geboers et al. (2012). Review of the effects of citizenship education. in Education Research Review, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.edurev.2012.02.001 

Eidhof, B.B.F. et al., Youth citizenship at the end of primary school: the role of language ability. Research papers in education, 2017, vol.32, n.2, 217-230 

Lawy, R. & Biesta, G.J.J. (2006) Citizenship-as-practice: the educational implications of an inclusive and relational understanding of citizenship, British Journal of Educational Studies, 54 (1), 34-50.

Nieuwlink, H. et al. (2017).  Growing into politics? The development of adolescents’ views on democracy over time in Politics · September 2017.

Critical thinking:

de Bie et al. (2015) The Halpern Critical Thinking Assessment: Toward a Dutch appraisal of critical thinking. Thinking Skills and Creativity. In Volume 17, September 2015, Pages 33-44, Elsevier.

Ennis, R. (1996). Critical thinking dispositions: their nature and assessability. In Informal logic vol.18, n.2&3 (1996): 165-182.

Lai, E. (2011). Critical Thinking: a literature review. Pearson Research.

Paul, R. (2012). Critical thinking. http://www.criticalthinking.org/

Critical thinking, Citizenship and Literature:

Guth, K.D. (2015). Assessment of higher order thinking skills in a literature-based curriculum: challenges and guidelines. PhD thesis, University of South Africa.

Hernot, V. Literatuuronderwijs, kritisch denken en burgerschaps-vorming: De perfecte driehoek. Levende Talen 106 (2019) 8. https://lt-tijdschriften.nl/ojs/index.php/ltm/article/view/1982

Hernot, V.  What I think about when I think about literature: Eenvoudige vragen voor een effectieve(re) literatuurles. https://lt-tijdschriften.nl/ojs/index.php/ltm/article/view/2314 

Moeyes, P. (2020). Literatuuronderwijs, kritisch denken en burgerschapsvorming: Van kritische lezer tot volwaardig(er) burger. Levende Talen 107 (2020) 1. https://lt-tijdschriften.nl/ojs/index.php/ltm/article/view/1994