Using graphic tools to aid critical thinking

Critical thinking frequently calls for extensive study and analysis of
information presented in graphic formats. For instance, in his work on
adult literacy education reported in The Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Paulo
Freire helped adult learners develop critical thinking using graphic tools
in the form of drawings of situations that the adults could study and
analyze to think about their life situations. In the 1990s and 2000s  a
United Kingdom-based non-governmental organization called the International
Reflect Circle (CIRAC) developed the REFLECT approach to adult literacy
education which built upon the work of Freire and those using participatory
education methods for community development. The acronym REFLECT stands for
Regenerated Freirean Literacy through Empowering Community Techniques.

The REFLECT approach to adult literacy development makes use of "multiple
literacies", much as did Freire in using both pictures and written texts to
help adults "read the world and the word."  To assist adults in capturing
their own knowledge the REFLECT teachers show them how to draw pictures
(maps) of their communities, construct matrices, flow charts, and other
graphics to help in the critical mental work of analyzing their needs and
to assist them in arguing for needed services and social justice.

In the early 1990s Barbara McDonald and I published a series of texts for
adults with reading skills from the 4th  to the 9th grade levels. In
programs using these texts students were taught how to analyze paragraphs
of complex information and to synthesize the information into new knowledge
displays using different forms of graphic tools. Experience in adult
literacy programs showed that this was a particularly effective technique
to engage adults to work together in peer teams to think critically about
complex matters.

Transforming written paragraphs into matrices. To transform information from
paragraph form to matrix form, students had to analyze a page of paragraphs
into its different parts, and then synthesize the information by
constructing a matrix with labeled columns and cells containing the
appropriate information. The matrix is a basic form of graphic tool for
conducting a classification analysis of a complex body of information and
synthesizing it into a more easily comprehended graphic display.

Transforming texts into flow charts. Using the adult literacy texts in adult
literacy programs students were also taught to read detailed procedural
instructions, analyze them and synthesize them into a new graphic form – a
flow chart. Depending upon the situation being analyzed, the construction
of a flow chart of procedural directions may be a more difficult task than
the construction of a matrix from classification information as discussed
above. But constructing a well developed flow chart can develop deep
knowledge of important procedures, such as the procedures for administering
first aid in medical emergencies, or for analyzing who does what in
governmental offices and how these actions affects ones community, as in
the REFLECT program.

Research has indicated that even adults with weak reading and writing skills
can acquire, in a relatively brief period of time, considerable knowledge of
graphic technologies for information processing and communication and use
them to develop analysis and synthesis skills to render complex information
more understandable and usable in critical thinking. It seems likely that
with the rapid expansion of knowledge, the need for analytical skills and
the ability to use graphic displays to synthesize the products of analysis
into more communicable and usable formats take on added importance as
components of the curriculum in basic skills for adult literacy students.
Indeed, both national (NAAL) and international (ALL) assessments of adult
literacy make considerable use of  "document literacy" which use matrices
and other graphic displays of information. Learning the technology for
constructing such graphic tools is one method for teaching adults how to
read and study such documents and to use the information for thinking
critically about civic, financial, transportation, health, work, parenting
and other important life concerns.

Tom Sticht