Critical Thinking and Innovative Writing The

Critical Thinking and Innovative Writing
    Good morning, everyone. Currently, we are having a heated discussion in China about the efficiency of English teaching and learning. Among all the major problems you may have already observed, how to develop critical thinking of students has long been a bottleneck (瓶颈) issue that has not received due attention and appropriate treatment in our education for long. Besides, how to write a science story in our writing class depends on how you look at the relationship between creative expressing, imaginative writing and critical thinking.
    Firstly, we should think about the following question: What goes wrong with the traditional way of teaching? In a traditional classroom, we just urge students to memorize what we give them and seldom encourage them to think about a given issue from their own perspective. The unfortunate result of such ignorance is that some potential abilities in the development of creativity, critical thinking, and individuality might be suppressed.
    Besides, some major problems caused by the lack of emphasis and training in this aspect can be summarized as follows:
    1. Students fail to learn how to think independently.
    2. Their autonomy (自主能力) in creation and production is jeopardized (危及，损害) as well.
    3. Their research potential is not activated.
    4. Learning becomes a process of passive transition of knowledge.
    5. Self-evaluation and self-management do not receive due attention.
    Another question we should consider is: What goes wrong with the traditional writing class? We have observed for long that a serious problem our student writers encounter in their writing is not "how to write" but "how to think". More specifically, this statement implies the difficulty in knowing how to take a position independently and how to express oneself on a well-informed, objective, and critical foundation of argument. This could be the case especially when student writers are engaged in argumentative or academic writing.
    As writing instructors, we have the same problems in our work. There have been so many competing theories in our field that we do not know which is good for our immediate concerns. There are also so many methods that we do not know which is suitable for our class. In a situation like this, we need some critical thinking to come in and help us make a sensible decision.
    For student writers, the same thing is true. Meanwhile, we have to admit that English writing is a rather demanding job. A good performance in this aspect means a lot of things. Creativity, imagination, motivation, life experience, language proficiency, and proper practice are some major factors that will make successful writer in English.
    In relation to the focus of our discussion, you may well raise a question like this: "Yes, critical thinking could be something I need. But how can I relate it to my training in English writing?" This is a really good question. In your case, all you need to do is: Try to be different on a reasonable condition if you want to have some critical thinking in your writing practice. How well you can make a balance between the two will definitely be a good indication of how well you have succeeded in using this magic power—critical thinking—in your writing training. Thanks for your attention.