Critical Lenses
Critical lenses help students engage with different perspectives with which to approach the reading and interpretation of a work. Each lens contains questions that provoke thinking regarding the way different social groups, ideas, conflicts, and styles are presented in the work. There are many sources available to support a study of critical lenses; this resource by OWL Purdue is open source, and provides guiding questions for students to work with. Additionally, the Teacher Support Materials on My IB also provide guidance on using critical lenses.
Students can apply critical lenses with key passages or texts from the work, or they can apply them to the work as a whole.
Process
- Formulate small groups of 3-5 students, assigning each group a different critical lens (or allow students to choose their lens/groups).
- Provide students with a written explanation of their critical lens as well as the accompanying guiding questions. Ask them to individually read the material.
- In their small groups, ask students to paraphrase their understanding of the critical lens, discuss it generally, and ask clarifying questions. The teacher should move around the room to offer support, if needed.
- Ask students to apply the critical lens questions to the passage/text or work/body of work being studied. In answering the questions, students should support their responses with references to the work.
- Ask the group to synthesize their findings based on their responses to the questions.
- Share: Students can either share in jigsaw groups (with one student representative from each of the critical lenses), or groups can share out to the whole class (or make a video sharing their findings).
- Ask students to reflect in pairs, small group, as a class, or in their portfolios: Ask students to reflect in their portfolios: What new thinking or insights about the work did you develop from this activity? What other lens would you be interested in exploring further?
Credits
Photo by Dominika Roseclay from Pexels
