The paper compares and contrasts how Chinese ESL students and American students work on a same descriptive English writing assignment that requires critical thinking. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the similarity and difference between English composition teaching in China and English composition teaching in America in regarding to incorporating critical thinking, as reflected in the use of this assignment. The study uses descriptive analysis of student writings as well as quantitative analysis of questionnaires, student grades given both from the author and several other researchers who are invited to participate in the study. The cognitive abilities in critical thinking basically consist of logical thinking, dialectical thinking, and creative thinking abilities. The study reveals that Chinese students＇ works generally flow well and they use a language that is coherent and clear. However, the study also reveals that Chinese students have difficulties in implementing critical thinking at English composition learning, and the difficulties lie in creative and dialectical thinking. To cultivate critical thinking, we need to employ affective strategies, meta-cognitive strategies-macro-abilities, and cognitive strategies-micro-abilities. The paper concludes by giving concrete examples in the area of cognitive strategies-micro-abilities in order to cultivate critical thinking.
