A Review of Research on the Use of Higher Order Thinking Skills to Teach Writing

This paper reviews the literature on the teaching of higher order thinking skills to teach writing in Malaysian context. The issues pertaining the usage of higher order thinking skills to teach writing are also discussed in this paper. ESL teachers are only trained to ask Higher Order Thinking Skills questions where the teaching of writing is concerned but most of them have very little knowledge on implementing the pedagogical knowledge of higher order thinking skills. Despite having multiples of programs to help teachers to infuse higher order thinking skills to teach writing, past studies have reported that teachers were not prepared to teach higher order thinking skills in their own classrooms. Hence, this paper further analyses the need to investigate the issues that are related on the usage of higher order thinking skills to the teaching of writing which needs immediate attention.