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Response Paper: Critical Thinking

“Here’s a basic question: What has the discipline of critical thinking and composition to do with you?”

There are two buildings on Samsung Street. They are exactly the same. They stand at the same height. They are the same width.

They have the same architectural design and are the same color. But there is one distinction between them. Building A is rooted in a strong foundation, while Building B has no foundation. It was simply built above the ground.

One day, without warning, a hurricane hits Samsun Street. After the rain stops and the wind calms, Building A is seen still standing strong. However, tragically, Building B has been destroyed. It lies in ruins next to its neighbor, Building A, who now claims all of Samsung Street for itself.

Critical thinking and composition are the foundations of most forms of communication. Without them arguments fall apart bit by bit. In speech and in writing composition holds thoughts together; presenting ideas, notions, and/or arguments in a comprehensive display that will hold against opposition. Critical thinking, on the other hand, provides one with the ideas to base an argument.

To think critically is to think for oneself. It is the act deciding what is significant and what is unnecessary. With it one can pick apart presumptions, assumptions, assertions, and so on. Critical thinking is so common that people use it everyday without recognition.

I use it in forming opinions about presented topics while distinguishing between what is true, what is false, and what is important, what is not. Using critical thinking I attempt to find out what is really going on at school, or at work, or at home; everywhere, everyday.