Thesis Statements

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Thesis Statements

• Huuh? Whaaat? This is hard
• Get out your notes and prepare to write!

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Thesis Statement

• Writing a thesis statement is the most important
  task in completing a successful essay assignment.
• Without a good thesis statement, you will not
  have a way to organize tour thoughts! (You will
  make it much harder on yourself than it needs to
  be)
• Everything in your essay should stem from and
  refer back to the thesis statement it is the
  essay's anchor.

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1. Understand what a thesis statement in general
needs to accomplish.

• Narrows your subject to a main idea
• Makes a specific claim
• Previews the arrangement of ideas
• Must be presented as fact
• Answers the question the prompt asks

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1. Understand what a thesis statement in general
needs to accomplish.

• A thesis statement is a conversation starter with
  important information.
• A thesis statement needs to be presented as a
  fact to be disputed.

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2. Define your point of view.

• Once given your prompt, free write/take notes in
  order to sort out your thoughts on the issue at
  hand. (No longer than 5 minutes.)
• create a list of ideas you want to discuss before
  you make your final decision on what to focus on

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3. Write your thesis statement in the form of an
organized and clear complex sentence.

• Consider the following sentences
• I hate Tennessee weather.
• While Tennessee is considered to have a mild
  climate, the fluctuation between hot and cold in
  the winter, the abundance of humidity in the
  summer, and the short Springs and Falls make
  living in Tennessee almost unbearable.
• Which one is a better thesis. Why?

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Basic Tips

• Be specificit should cover only what you will
  discuss in your paper and should be supported
  with specific evidence.
• It usually appears at the end of the first
  paragraph of a paper.
• You may need to revise your thesis statement to
  reflect exactly what you have discussed in the
  paper.

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Example 1

• An analysis of the college admission process
  reveals two principal problems facing counselors
  accepting students with high test scores or
  students with strong extracurricular backgrounds.
  
• What specifically will the paper that follows
  this thesis discuss?

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Example 1

• The paper that follows should
• explain the analysis of the college admission
  process
• explain the two problems facing admissions
  counselors

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Example 2

• The life of the typical college student is
  characterized by time spent studying, attending
  class, and socializing with peers.
• What specifically will the paper that follows
  this thesis discuss?

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Example 2

• The paper that follows should
• explain how students spend their time studying,
  attending class, and socializing with peers

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Example 3

• High school graduates should be required to take
  a year off to pursue community service projects
  before entering college in order to increase
  their maturity and global awareness.
• What specifically will the paper that follows
  this thesis discuss?

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Example 3

• The paper that follows should
• present an argument and give evidence to support
  the claim that students should pursue community
  projects before entering college

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Now write your own thesis statement!

• Please read Stonehenge by John Hudson Tiner and
  Stonehenge by Marjorie Frank.
• You have now read two texts about Stonehenge.
  Write an opinion essay about which of the two
  authors best uses reasons and evidence to support
  ideas about the mystery of Stonehenge. Be sure to
  develop your point of view with reasons that are
  supported by facts and details from both texts.
  Follow the conventions of standard written
  English. Write your essay in the space provided
  on the next pages.

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Revise your Thesis statement!

• Did I name the subject at hand and make a claim
  about it?
• Did I CLEARLY communicate my subject and claim to
  my audience?
• Does the reader have to ask So what? (If so,
  revise!)

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Essay Introductions

• Essay introductions serve a particular purpose
• All introductions should draw the readers from
  their world into your world.

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Essay Introductions

• A good opening paragraph has several important
  tasks
• It focuses the readers attention on your topic
  and gets them interested in what you have to say.
• It specifies what your topic is and implies your
  attitude.
• It is concise and sincere.

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Essay Introductions

• Strategies for hooking the readers attention
• Use a vivid quotation
• Offer a surprising fact or statistic
• Create a visual image
• Ask a provocative opinion or question
• Define a word central to your subject
• Make a historical comparison or contrast

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Quotation example

• It is difficult to speak adequately or justly of
  London, wrote Henry James in 1881. It is not a
  pleasant place it is not agreeable, or cheerful,
  or easy, or exempt from reproach. It is only
  magnificent. Were he alive today, James, a
  connoisseur of cities might easily say the same
  thing about New York or Paris or Tokyo, for a
  large city is one of the paradoxes of history. In
  countless different ways, it has almost always
  been unpleasant, disagreeable, cheerless, uneasy,
  and reproachful in the end it can only be
  described a magnificent.

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Intriguing fact example

• The peregrine falcon was brought back from the
  brink of extinction by a ban on DDT, but also by
  a peregrine falcon mating hat invented by an
  ornithologist at Cornell University. If you
  cannot buy this, Google it. Female falcons had
  grown dangerously scarce. A few wistful males
  nevertheless maintained a sort of sexual
  loitering ground. The hat was imagined,
  constructed, and then forthrightly worn by the
  ornithologist as he patrolled this loitering
  ground, singing, Chee-up! Chee-up! and bowing
  like an overpolite Japanese Buddhist trying to
  tell somebody goodbye. . . .(David James Duncan,
  "Cherish This Ecstasy." The Sun, July 2008)

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A vivid description example

• Canada is pink. I knew that from the map I owned
  when I was six. On it, New York was green and
  brown, which was true as far as I could see, so
  there was no reason to distrust the mapmakers
  portrayal of Canada. When my parents took me
  across the border and we entered the immigration
  booth, I looked excitedly for the pink earth.
  Slowly it dawned on me this foreign different
  place was not so different. I discovered that the
  world in my head and the world at my feet were
  not the same.

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A provocative opinion example for real this time

• I've finally figured out the difference between
  neat people and sloppy people. The distinction
  is, as always, moral. Neat people are lazier and
  meaner than sloppy people.

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Openings to avoid!!!

• A flat announcement DO NOT start your essay
  with the purpose of this essay is or In this
  essay I will
• An apology Such as Im not sure if Im right
  but or I dont know much about this, but
  Write with confidence!