Critical Thinking 101

In American Studies, we often are challenged to think critically about a passage or a theme.  But what is thinking critically?  According to the Oxford English Dictionary, critically means, "With critical judgement or observation; nicely, accurately, precisely."  Basically, we look at the precise words the person said, based on their definitions and connotations, we interpret what the person maybe was trying to say.  But here we run into some grey area.   Some people look at the connotations of words and decide that the author was trying to say something that may or may not have been the intent.  Perhaps the author writes, "The sky turned black."  Someone may want to interpret that the color black has the connotation of evil and that they can foreshadow that something evil will happen soon.  However, maybe the author didn't mean that at all.  Maybe the author was reporting fact.  The truth is that we really don't know, so it frustrates me when people try to assign a meaning to a passage that can't be assigned for sure.