Roya Movahed - English Department Kashmar Higher Education Institute, Iran
Mostafa Bahraman - English Department Kashmar Higher Education Institute, Iran

Encouraging students to become individuals independent enough to think critically is of utmost importance in the EFL milieu. Integrating critical thinking (CT) would encourage students to take charge of their own thinking, monitoring and evaluating their own process of learning more efficiently (Rafi, ۲۰۱۱).With this regard the present study aimed at investigating the elements of CT in ۲۵ undergraduate Iranian EFL students’ argumentative essays so as to reveal the realization of their CT skills with and without sessions of learner-centered free discussions, around the writing topics, to see if the free discussions could make any significant difference in the manifestation of CT elements in their writings.Essays written before and after the free discussions, were evaluated based on Stapleton’s criteria of CT (۲۰۰۱) and results manifested a significant difference on the realization of CT criteria after the discussions which in turn highlight the importance of stimulating and arousing students to think and write critically through self- recognizing techniques used in free discussions

“critical thinking (CT)”, “argumentative writing”, “free discussions”