Soji Cole’s Embers and Its Implications for Critical Thinking and Development

Abstract

Reading literary texts help to develop critical thinking skills; but this fact is taken for granted inliterary education by both teachers and students alike and this is the problem projected by thepaper. Critical thinking itself trains minds towards solving problem and the ability to solve theproblems that life presents is the key to success, according Robert Harris. The objective of thispaper was to show that with literary texts, readers and students can be taught to think critically.To demonstrate this, Bobkina and Stefanova’s four-stage model, Situated Practice Stage, TheOvert Instruction Stage, The Critical Framing Stage and Transformed Practice Stage, of usingfiction to teach critical thinking were used. It was concluded that the human mind or brain usesthe simulation effect as in computers to orientate itself to social realities as reflected in literarytexts and that as a result literary texts are very effective in cultivating critical thinking skills in.