While reading “Teaching Thinking by Teaching Writing” by Peter Elbow, I discovered that many of the ideas he favors are how which I start my writing for most writing assignments. I tend to write freely when I get out of my thoughts without being interrupted by a stranger looking in or sources to lead to. Then, once I'm done, if the assignment requires sources or I just feel like I need another opinion and feel like I'm looking for additional help, like needing sources to include in my writing. I think my best writing comes when I write for free first. I realized that what I have practiced for many writing projects is called first-order thinking, and then I later apply second-order thinking for accuracy. First order thinking is when you write freely without any real direction or control. Second-order thinking is controlled thinking and what many call critical thinking. Elbow favors first-order thinking because he believes that is when people's best work is done. Elbow says that when we write in the first order, we really don't have a clear direction or structure and this makes our writing worthless. Now that I have noticed the drawbacks that he has drawn attention to, I agree with what he said because I always write without much direction because everything seems to flow when there is no direction. However; I structure it later, which is another point where second-order thinking comes into play. Elbow had a lot of negative things to say about second-order thinking, but he recognized that first-order thinking had drawbacks, he is therefore better to use both orders as a team. They work well when the commands are used together and in the right way. They are not perfect when used separately, but they can have a good chance of creating excellent work when used separately.