Question-asking in brazilian portuguese reading comprehension textbooks

Abstract

“The proper business of school is to teach students to think!” has been the most widespread cliché in education over the last two decades (Squire, 1983; Paris, Lipson & Wixson, 1983; Spires et alli, 1993; Littlewood, 1996; Collins, 1998; Yang, 1998; Shneiderman, 1998). That is the bad news. In fact, despite all the rhetoric surrounding the major role assigned to education, the reality is that it is still struggling in the midst of a fundamental shift. The good news is that the cliché has a good chance to become more and more tangible among educators, materials designers and policy makers, who are starting to realise that in today’s Knowledge Era to think [critically] represents an asset which drastically shifts the traditional paradigms of power. Without a doubt, a learning environment which gives priority to the training of skills aiming at making students become critical thinkers can create and strengthen vantages of independence and autonomy for the students/future citizens belonging to that environment.