Health Literacy as Catalyst for Critical Thinking: Summary
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Health Literacy as a Catalyst for Critical Thinking Summary
- Full thread: Health Literacy as Catalyst for Critical Thinking
Question
Is health literacy a topic that would generate student involvement and critical thinking? Is it included in the curricula of adult literacy centers?
Subscribers explored why and in what ways health literacy and health issues can be used as a catalyst to practice critical thinking. Some noted that students become “much more involved in the classroom as a result of their engagement with the health literacy theme.”
An Example
In discussing the issue of access to health care and who has or does not have health insurance, students have a great opportunity to tease out all of these themes. Students may also examine authentic reading materials such as informational brochures available at health centers and hospitals and pose questions about them such as
- For whom were they written?
- Why were they written?
- Who wrote them - a drug company? The hospital?
- Who benefits? Who loses?
- Why don't they write so that those with limited literacy could understand?
Posing questions about who gets what type of health information/advice and discussing this is very illuminating and allows students to really think about the services they receive versus what others with more wealth receive.
Resources
http://www.litwomen.org/perspectives.html
—WE LEARN’s first publication of student writing – Women’s Perspectives – focused on health and wellness. It prompts people to think both on an individual and systemic/environmental level about their health. Example of inspiring/teaching critical thinking —asking questions that encourage people to see themselves as individuals, but also as members of a community, as people who are *affected* by how their environment and their health care systems, jobs, families, etc. are structured. Pre-writing lesson plan in back.
http://www.nelrc.org/changeagent/backissues.htm
—The Change Agent did a special issue on health about 10 years ago (and may be doing another one soon).
http://www.ncsall.net/?id=769
Provides dozens of links to NCSALL Study Circle Guides, several of which pertain to health literacy
