The use of critical thinking is important in various areas of everyday life, especially in education. This study contributes to Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) number 4, which refers to ensuring quality education and SDG 5, which seeks to achieve gender equality. This research aims to structure a strategy to contribute to the development of critical thinking skills among students in the Basic Education university program. The study, grounded in a qualitative approach, has a descriptive scope. An intentional and non-probabilistic sample of students (n = 22) from the Basic Education program participated. Additionally, observation and semi-structured interviews were employed as techniques. The main outcome of the research is the construction of a strategy for the development of critical thinking among Basic Education students. This strategy utilizes the eight elements of critical thinking applied to the analysis of text reading. While a strategy has been developed to contribute to the development of critical thinking, it has been initiated using short academic essays. From the observation of the strategy’s application and the information gathered from the semi-structured interviews, it is established that students relatively easily identify four of the eight elements of critical thinking: purpose, information, key concepts, and points of view. They showed difficulty in identifying the main question, inferences, assumptions, and implications of the text.