Thesis Paragraphs
All three thesis paragraphs missed some fundamental elements.
Nicole’s opening paragraph reads,
Nicole’s opening paragraph reads,
Nicole's paper ends up being about Tom, Daisy and their two American Dreams. While Nicole clearly expresses that in this paragraph, she does not include any details from the body of her paper to tip the reader off as to what those dreams are or how they appear in the book. Her thesis paragraph is also missing a reflection on the larger significance of her argument (or, for short, a “so what”). In other words, while she explains that she will be exploring what Tom and Daisy’s American dreams are, even hinting to the fact that they are different, she doesn’t tell us why we should care or why Fitzgerald would have differentiated between these two dreams. She doesn’t say what it is that he’s trying to accomplish.
Anastasia’s paragraph is lacking in similar ways. She begins her paper,
Anastasia ends up writing about Nick, Myrtle and their two American Dreams. While she has a sophisticated grasp of language, she lacks all three major tenets of a thesis: specific details (she doesn’t have any and, in fact, it’s not clear who or what she’s even going to discuss), an argument (or, in this case, an answer to that final question that she poses) and a "so what" (a reflection on why Fitzgerald structured Myrtle and Nick’s dreams the way he did).
Finally, Nem’s paragraph – and its similar weaknesses – suggests that these students’ papers are symptomatic of larger, class-wide deficits. She writes,
Of the three thesis paragraphs, Nem’s is the strongest. While she does not include specific details or an argument, she does include her "so what." The paper ends up discussing Daisy and Myrtle, a fact that is not revealed in the thesis paragraph. Rather, it is only with that knowledge that the attention to “gender roles” and “sexism” in this paragraph reveals the focus of her paper as on those two women.
All three of these thesis paragraphs, though decently written, don’t contain the necessary information to launch a paper. They are not specific enough, don’t tell the reader what the papers will actually talk about, don’t reveal the underlying argument or explain why that argument matters. I shaped the unit on The Handmaid’s Tale and its focus on crafting argumentative writing to respond to these deficits.