Generating Thesis Statements and Subtopics (a review lecture)

Thesis statement:

• The sentence that states the main point you are making for the entire essay. All points made in essay are meant to support this statement (sometimes posed as a question).

• Use specific language over abstract/too general words, whenever possible.

• Use an action verb to indicate to your reader how dynamic you are looking at your subject (in Essay 1, Ishmael Beah's morality). 

• The more action on the subject, the more you transform our view of it. The more you can pose questions about subject with that verb.

• something is  v. something illustrates.

• DO NOT BE ELUSIVE. DO NOT TEASE YOUR READER!!!

• One of the most ineffective thesis statements is the type that only suggests ideas but doesn't actually identify what ideas will be developed in the body paragraphs:

• Poor, poor thesis teaser:  Beah's memoir challenges the definition of morality in many ways.   (Pray-tell, what are those ways? You haven't said anything we don't already know. You haven't made a point, a statement, an idea.)

• Better little thesis: Beah's actions and choices show that defining morality is a difficult task. (This one gives us two general-specifics in "actions and choices," which more clearly outlines where the writer will go in the body, but each could be more descriptive and specific.)

• Best of the three: Beah's having to steal and kill in order to survive the war illustrates how morality is dependent on circumstances. (This writer provides the clearest focus for the essay, and we look forward to seeing how their claim that theft and taking a life may not be immoral! They have the clearest position on the topic!) 

Thesis subtopics do the following:

• Develop the thesis point

• The thesis is the whole car; the subtopics are the car door, tires, steering wheel, etc.!

• 'Show up' in introduction

• Either in thesis statement or introduced as part of the contextual information provided in the entire opening paragraph....

• Each subtopic is then reproduced as a topic sentence of a body paragraph. By "reproduced," we do not mean that you simply re-use the same sentences. We want new sentences that add new information to an idea that was already laid out. 

To generate starter subtopics (before you write an essay draft), here are some (only some) things that strong essayists do to organize their messy thoughts:

• Make a list of things that you see repeated throughout a text. Actions, words, images, etc. Then, ask critical questions on those simple patterns you see.

• For example:  1. Beah steals food multiple times. 2. Rebel kids shoot and kill adults.

• Be Socrates. Be curious. One critical question on the text should lead to answers with more questions. 

• For example: If morality includes right behavior, what does Beah do that is right?  Answer: He attempts to avoid joining RUF and becoming a killer. Question that spawns from that: If Beah believes killing is wrong, then how is he moral if he does end up killing people? ...and so on down the rabbit whole of critical thinking!

• From all of that work, make a list of three to four big ideas you feel are related and fit together. This is both hard and easy. You must be willing to think critically about the text, your own beliefs, and decide the best set of directions for your essay. 

• In narrowing down your body paragraphs to 3-4 subtopics, you have to decide which ones are repetitive, which ones are most relevant to thesis, which ones show the most variety, etc. Your job is to give a dynamic set of directions.