sunthistles; just keep reading, writing, reading
What are the two C’s?? Creative thinking and Critical thinking. In the School of Liberal Arts here at Siena, freedom rings to those who are creative enough to make it by using their imagination. But in reality, everybody needs an effective critical thinking side to do more than just get by.
How did our very own Professor Lin-Greenberg master them you ask?
1. She established how a creative mind is one that is aware of present settings and culture…
In Lin-Greenberg’s latest collect of short stories title, Faulty Predictions, her settings and plots are always so innovative and vary from story to story. In Kuhn House on September 25th, 2014 Professor Lin-Greenberg read aloud a story to us about a boy who would go to the grocery store, not to buy anything, but to simply crush aged loaves of bread. But how did she think of this? She was listening to the radio one day when she lived in Philadelphia and the broadcast was about a man who was constantly going to grocery stores all over Philadelphia with the intention of ruining thousands of dollars of baked goods. When Lin-Greenberg heard this, she was immediately inspired to write a story based on this event.
2. She recognized research is a necessity in the mind of a critical thinker…
While creativity strives on an imagination, to be critical you must be valid and credible. In the story mentioned above, Lin-Greenberg admitted that she had to research how companies mark their loaves of bread in order to signify their age. Through her research she discovered the different colored ties on the bread signify how old the bread is. That is why, spoiler alert, the boy in the story only crushed loaves with white ties because that means they were the oldest.
3. She made the most of her imagination…
Lin-Greenberg’s creativity bleeds from the pages of her stories. She explained her characters as 90% imagination and 10% research. When asked how to creates them she explains how she doesn’t try to make them like herself, she creates a new person with their own goals and tries to imagine what “he or she” would do in certain situations. With the use of her imagination she puts herself in the character’s shoes instead of letting the character come from where she stands. Strictly researched characters have no emotion. Strictly imagined characters have no credibility. It is the happy medium between these two aspects that make the most interesting characters.
4. She understood the foundation of how exactly one writes a story…
Lin-Greenberg is a renowned author and professor here at Siena College. But she didn’t get there from not knowing what she was doing. In order to write successfully you must understand what it is exactly that you are doing. She understands how plot builds and how setting, characters and point of view effects that. Lin-Greenberg’s ability to switch point of view from story to story is a trait of a critical thinker. She read us a story in second person about a bus driver on Halloween who deep down is suffering from a traumatic experience from that past that still haunts him. Second person is when the story is told through the “you” point of view. It is a difficult writing form but she explained it as her way of letting the reader have a private and intimate relationship with the main character. This process is much more critical in the break down of the type of story that deserves second person and whether or not the story plot and characters are significant enough to fulfill second person point of view.
In conclusion, every liberal arts student must stay true to their creative side while they gain the skills to think critically throughout their journey at Siena College. Finding the happy medium between Critical thinking and Creative thinking is just one of the many ways Liberal Arts Students become successful in all their endeavors.