The knowledge and information-oriented society of this 21st century demands higher order thinking. As an important educational content to improve the ability, essay writing education is presently highlighted in the actual spots of education. Essay wri...
The knowledge and information-oriented society of this 21st century demands higher order thinking. As an important educational content to improve the ability, essay writing education is presently highlighted in the actual spots of education. Essay writing education is considered to be essential in elementary education based on the high interest in it. However, the essay writing education in the elementary curriculum hardly enables the students to have higher order thinking but simply deals with writing technique, in fact. Accordingly, in order for the essay writing education to be performed as maintaining its original significance, integrative essay writing teaching methods should be groped for through reconstructing the curriculum.
This study aims to figure out how historic essay writing education affects elementary school students’ critical thinking ability and educational achievement in the subjects of Korean and society by teaching them historic essay writing integratively in society class.
For this, it selected two groups of students having similar critical thinking ability and educational achievement in the subjects of Korean and society. And one of them was taught historic essay writing integratively in society class while the other took traditional society lessons in the class. The society lessons in which historic essay writing was integrated were provided total 18 times for a semester.
To verify the purpose of this study, after the 18 times of lessons were completed, the students’ critical thinking ability and educational achievement in the subjects of Korean and society were evaluated. Critical thinking ability was measured as it was divided into critical thinking skills and critical thinking tendencies. In addition, teacher’s observation was performed during the class, and their portfolios of learning outcomes were analyzed. A questionnaire survey of the historic essay writing class was also conducted to the students.
The overall result of this study is as written below.
First, according to the result of evaluating their critical thinking ability, the historic essay writing education in the elementary school society class affected the students’ critical thinking skills positively. However, it did not have a positive effect on their critical thinking tendencies. And based on the result of the student questionnaire survey, they did not feel their critical thinking ability was improved. On the other hand, the teacher’s observation and portfolio analysis showed that the students’ critical thinking skills and tendencies were all improved during the historic essay writing class.
Second, according to the result of evaluating their educational achievement in the subject of Korean, it was shown that the historic essay writing education in the elementary school society class did not affect the students’ educational achievement in the subject of Korean positively. Moreover, the teacher’s observation, portfolio analysis, and student questionnaire survey also showed no improvement in their educational achievement in the subject of Korean.
Third, according to the result of evaluating their educational achievement in the subject of society, the historic essay writing education in the elementary school society class did not influence the students’ educational achievement in the subject of society positively. And based on the result of the student questionnaire survey, they did not think their educational achievement in the subject of society was improved. On the contrary, the teacher’s observation and portfolio analysis showed that the students’ educational achievement in the subject of society did improve.
In consideration of the result of this study, if teachers with expertise design their lessons as systematically and integratively with historic essay writing as possible, it is expected that they can affect students’ critical thinking tendencies or educational achievement positively. Furthermore, it seems to be necessary hereafter to study the effect of historic discussion class on students’ critical thinking ability and the effect of historic essay writing class on their higher order thinking other than the critical thinking.