Zachary Lampman

24 November 2015
Professor Wright
ENC 3331
Plan of Action
Critical analysis is an art, and like art, it requires diligence, hard
work, and perception to understand. Like art, critical analysis isnt
something one can just pick up when they decide. It takes time to
understand and appreciate the work that goes into it. Linda Elders, a
leading scholar in the field of critical analysis, explains critical analysis
as people who attempt to live rationally, reasonably, empathically
who strive to diminish the power of their egocentric and sociocentric
tendencies. She continues to define critical thinkers as people who
strive never to think simplistically about complicated issues and always
consider the rights and needs of relevant others and embody the
Socratic principle: The unexamined life is not worth living, because
they realize that many unexamined lives together result in an
uncritical, unjust, dangerous world. The Socratic principle resonates
loudly with me because I believe that only through critically thinking
about larger scale situations can we eventually achieve justice, coexistence, and peace, but if we dont learn how to critically think within
our immediate communities we can never beneficially expand that
community.

My project deals with the lack of critically thinking we see at the

college level. In a study administered by the Council for Aid to
Education, they saw that 4 in every 10 college students graduate
without proficient critical thinking skills. Yet, majority of students, if
asked if they can critically think, believe they can efficiently critically
think. This is where my plan of action comes into effect. My plan is twofold. First, I will evaluate the perception a student has on critical
thinking through the use of a survey. Secondly, I will create a
informative video that explains the process of critically thinking in
hopes to further educate the viewer. Allow me to break it down even
further.

The survey portion of the plan of action will begin with asking the
student in the UCF area if they believe to be perverse in the arts of
critically thinking. The survey will then ask a few questions that will
evaluate the respondees ability to critically think. I plan to borrow
some critical thinking examples and questions from some old LSAT
tests or SAT tests that have been released and free to use. It should be
noted that these questions arent a pure reflection of ones ability to
critically think, but will give a ballpark estimation of where the student
is with his ability to do so. If the student scores a low number of the
proficiency test, then he will be asked to watch a video that will help
him understand the importance of critically thinking. I believe this test

could be administered anywhere but for the sake of the project; I will
be focusing on the immediate UCF area.

Ideally I would like to make a video that will be an informative

and fast paced. These types of videos are called infographic videos and
can be extremely influential to viewers. These videos fall within visual
rhetoric. Visual rhetoric has become increasingly important than in the
past because of the age of the Internet. But with that in mind, the need
to critically think about this visual rhetoric has become even more
essential. Visual rhetoric allows the viewer to see and believe. I think
that it will be extremely effective for the viewer to see how critically
thinking can be effective since critical thinking is more of an intangible
and conceptional art, putting an image to it can be extremely
motivating. The video will address all the components that make up
critical thinking and the importance of critically thinking. It will only
further divulge into the Socratic principle: The unexamined life is not
worth living, because they realize that many unexamined lives
together result in an uncritical, unjust, dangerous world.