This study investigates the effect of community dialogue in building students' critical thinking skills in essay writing and their perceptions after learning through community dialogue. The experiment with pretest and post-test design was employed, and 42 students participated. Two YouTube videos were used to provoke students' critical thinking and the students acted as presenters and reviewers in the community dialogue activity. When the intervention completed, the students had to develop a five-paragraph essay consisting of introduction, body, and conclusion. A non-parametric testing with Wilcoxon Signed Ranks Test revealed that the statistical evidence comparing the students' essays in the pre-test and post-test shows a significant statistical difference (p=0.001). A questionnaire was distributed to the students to get the data of their perceptions towards the implementation the community dialogue. The result of the questionnaire reveals that the majority of the students felt confident when they presented their outlines, though there is quite a high percentage of students who experienced anxiety at the same time. As for the reviewers, the students learned to think critically in order to find both the problems and the solutions in their peers' outlines and by doing so learned from their friends' work and revised theirs as necessary. Finally, the students concluded that the community dialogue was helpful in a writing class.