Blog #9
November 15, 2007
connorsa351
When thinking about writing a thesis statement for an assigned paper, I feel that many students at the college level have no idea where to start. I find it fascinating that so many upper level students have never been taught how to write a successful thesis statement to place in an assigned paper. After having a lecture on how to write a thesis statement, I began to contemplate over why a large portion of college students are unable to write a thesis statement. Is it because middle schools and high schools are not teaching their students this important aspect of writing during English classes? Are they not teaching it in a way that students are able to grasp and understand? When thinking about trying to teach how one should write a thesis statement as a furture teacher, I find this task to be extremely difficult. It is not a simple thing students can read and memorize, or do examples of until they get that one correct answer. It is something that students have to understand the importance of, and how they need to make a successful claim that a reader could argue with. How do you explain to students, without losing their interest, that a thesis statement is not just a fact or statement, and that it must be something arguable? By passing out handouts and giving them practice examples to read, I do not feel students will be able to read and completely understand how to write a thesis. I also do not think practicing in their own writing is effective because students will not understand exactly why what they wrote in not a thesis statement.
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1.
dlenny | November 15, 2007 at 10:37 pm
I thought your blog was very interesting. I completely agree with you, I feel like english teachers never focus enough on teaching well written thesis statements. I think that starting from middle school, thesis statements should be taught, reviewed and practiced each year in great detail. I feel the only way for students to become strong thesis writers, are for students to start learning in middle school. To this day, I find the hardest part of writing an essay, is the thesis statement.
2.
slutzky | November 15, 2007 at 10:39 pm
I have to disagree a bit with your last few statements… I think the handout we got in class this week about weak and strong thesis statements is a very good resource for teaching how to construct a successful thesis by example. I always struggled with this aspect of writing, and the materials we were given Wednesday really clarified a lot for me.
3.
nessa20 | November 16, 2007 at 12:30 am
When thinking about writing a thesis statment I think that most educators believe that we already know how to. I think that if you don’t know how most teachers are not willing to help, but instead are willing to give you references to look at instead. I know that when I was in high school my AP teacher assumed we new everything about writing until we got our first paper back then she decided to do a review of anything we wanted to learn which was helpful to us and I think more teachers should be willing to review information with us because how are we ever going to learn. I know there are many websites out there that can help you write a thesis.
4.
Lauren | November 16, 2007 at 11:06 am
I can agree with you that alot of people really have no idea how to write a good thesis statement. I feel that I fall under this category because up until my freshman year of college, I never really had to write a paper with a well developed thesis statement.
5.
vagelec625 | November 16, 2007 at 11:34 am
I agree with you and think that a lot of people do not how to write a thesis statement. I often find myself writing a paper and then going back and revising my thesis statement because I didn’t really prove my original statement. My boyfriend is just finishing up his thesis for grad school, and I do not know if I will ever be able to write a thesis paper if I cannot even write a simple thesis statement. I think teachers do need to start teaching students in middle school about thesis statements, so that in college they do not face the same problem we are seeing.
6.
martink852 | November 29, 2007 at 7:04 pm
I feel that teacher’s just expect students to know how to write a thesis statement. This is the first class where we really talked about what a well thesis statement consists of. I think that it’s not fair because thesis statements can be very confusing and stump many people, and if you don’t have a teacher who is willing to take the time during class and explain what a well written thesis statement is, then you are at a disadvantage.
7.
jennifer | November 30, 2007 at 11:12 am
Well, first off I really enjoyed the conversation that ensued from this post. I think that by talking through and communicating with your peers (especially helpful I think would be having a reader who is himself writing writing a graduate level thesis, but of course, not all of us have this) about this topic you can get at a more clear vision of what thesis is, can be, should look like, etc.
I am curious to hear more about your suggestions for how teachers might begin to adequately teach thesis statements to students. I tend to think most about learning by doing — that is, practicing writing arguments, writing them in different ways/forms, arguing against them (in writing). Other ideas?