Thinking about Critical Thinking

A large portion of this course has been the refinement of critical thinking skills. For my analysis piece, I have chosen my identity paper which was titled "Family as a Contributor to Self-Identity". In this paper I argued that the largest contributor to a strong sense of self is a person's family. Reading the excerpt from Queen Latifah's book greatly shaped my thesis. In Ladies First: Revelations of a Strong Woman, she described how her mother's response to her being teased influenced her. Instead of telling Latifah to turn the other cheek, so to speak, she encouraged her to stand up for herself. In my paper I considered how the trajectory of her life would have been changed had she instead acquiesced to the teasing and allowed others to define her and shape her sense of self and worth. I wrote, "It would be hard to imagine a leader in women's rights or women's self-esteem who simply shrugged her shoulders if referred to as a bitch or a ho."

Analysis is an important part of any idea or paper. It is easy to summarize someone else's point of view, but to analyze it and apply those lessons to different situations is the foundation and hallmark of a good education.