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Hi, I'm Sid Dobrin. In this video, I'll be talking about the Road to a Strong Thesis
feature. The road to a strong thesis feature walks
us through what might have been Lauren Brooke Horn's process for developing a strong thesis
for her argumentative essay "The First-Year Dilemma: To Write or Not To Write."
Brooke begins by acknowledging that she is required to write an argumentative essay,
but that she needed to write about something in which she was invested. She decided to
write about the relationship between writing and education.
In thinking about the topic she has selected, Brooke acknowledges that on the surface there
seems to be a connection between writing and education, but that she needs to figure out
what it is about that connection that interests her.
Through her thinking about writing classes and her conversations with her friends, Brooke
sees that not all of the students at her school have to take a first-year writing class, and,
in fact, many don't. But many of her friends who don't take the class also explain that
they didn't feel prepared for some of the writing requirements they have in other classes.
This discrepancy is what motivates Brooke's need to write about the relationship between
the first-year writing class and college education. Once she identifies her exigency, she asks,
though, is what she observes about first-year writing a local issue or do other students
at other schools face a similar situation? While reading about the situation for first-year
writing at other schools, Brooke learns that there is, in fact, a larger conversation about
the very issue that she is interested in and that there is substantial research within
a specific discipline that addresses her questions. She also begins to realize as she becomes
more familiar with the situation that she believes that all first-year students should
have to take some form of writing class when they first arrive at college.
She decides to conduct more research to see what professionals who teach college writing
say about the subject. Through this research she arrives at her thesis:
"All first-year college students should be required to take a compulsory composition
class." Borrke's thesis is clear and strong, but now
she must defend her position and use her research to show why students should have to take first-year
writing courses. Once students understand how Brooke used this
self-questioning technique and took the time to learn more about the situation through
research in order to develop her thesis, I like to show students how the kinds of questions
that Brooke asks might also be the kinds of questions they could ask when developing their
theses. I try to talk with them about the fact that theses don't just appear in writing
by chance, but that developing a strong thesis is part of what writers do early in their
writing process and that by having a thesis to work with from the outset, they will find
that they can more readily write toward their purpose and argument. I also point out that
despite the seemingly terminal point in the Road to a Strong Thesis feature, they may,
in fact, not move as ideally from beginning to end as the visual implies.
I also find it useful to ask students to actually write out their own map from the ideas they
have until they get to a thesis. This act of articulating the process to themselves
helps students make conscious choices as they identify their thesis.
Keep in mind that the Road to a Strong Thesis feature can be taught independently but it
seems to work best when teaching the Map your Situation feature at the same time.
Thanks for using Writing Situations and thanks for watching.