Some Methods for Helping Students Find a Thesis
Bruce Ballenger
Department of English
Boise State University
DRAFT
May 31, 2003
The So What Question
Ultimately, every essay must answer the "so what?" question. In other words, just because the writer had a good or bad experience in the 8th grade, or cares about cats, or believes the play was "really good" or "really bad," he or she must provide reasons why the reader should care. Often, the answer to the So What? question has something to do with an idea or meaning or interpretation that arises from the writer’s experiences or observations that might be interesting to someone else. "I thought the play was awesome" isn’t a bad starting place for answering the So What? question. But, really, who cares that you liked it? You have to dig a bit more deeply.
Ultimately, writers hope to make readers see things the way they do. And just sharing an opinion, a feeling, of generalization doesn’t give readers enough information to do that.
Here are some exercises that might help:
What are Your Criteria? What makes something good or bad, helpful or not so? We often have our reasons but rarely examine them. We come out of an action movie and say to our friend, "That movie sucked." Why? What are our assumptions about the qualities of a good action movie? If possible, before you read the book, attend the performance, evaluate the movie make a list in your notebook of five qualities that make that category of thing "good." Be as specific as possible. Your instructor may provide you with information that will help you think about this.
Then and Now. When we make a judgment we often look back on the thing we’re evaluating from the present moment. We just came out of the movie, or attended the play two days ago, or just finished reading (or writing) the story. Use this vantage point. After all, you have more information now then you did when you started. Write one of the following sentences five times in your notebook, filling in the blanks with new thoughts every time:
What I understand now about __________, that I didn’t understand before I saw/experienced/read it is _______.
I once thought ________ about _______, and now I think __________.
Narrative of Thought . Another way to exploit the shift in your understanding between then and now is to tell the story of your thinking. In your journal or notebook, begin this way:
When I first saw/read/observed _____________ I thought_____. And then I thought________. And then…And then….
Follow this narrative of thought until you feel moved to digress to explain more why you thought something. When the writing stall, use the phrase And then to get you going again. When you’re done telling the story of your thinking, skip a line and answer this question:
What is the most important turning point in the story?
This might point you to the most important idea that emerged, and a thesis around which you can build a draft.
Questions as Knives. Imagine that your initial feeling or idea"the play was good," or "true friends are hard to find" or "politics is corrupt"is a whole onion. As you know, onions have layers. So do ideas and feelings, and to get closer to the heart of them you need cut through the most obvious outer layers to reveal what is less obvious, probably more specific, and almost certainly more interesting. Questions are to ideas, as knives are to onions: they help you slice past your initial impressions. The most important questionthe sharpest knife in the draweris simply Why. Why are true friends hard to find? Why did you like the play? But there are some other "W" words with keen blades, too: What, Where, When, and Who. For example:
- Why exactly did you like the play?
- When was it most compelling?
- Whose performance seemed to speak to you most strongly? When?
- What were the elements of that scene that contributed to its power?
Believing and Doubting. Quite understandably, we often feel that a thesis involves picking sides"the play was good" or "the play was bad," or "the novel was boring" or the "novel was fun to read." Instead of either/or, consider both/and. This might bring you to a more truthful, more sophisticated understanding of your subject, which rarely is either all bad or all good. One way to do this is to play "the doubting game" and the "believing game." Draw a line down the middle of a page in your notebook. First, on the right side, make a list of the things in response to the following questions:
The Believing Game Give the author, performer, text, performance the benefit of the doubt. Suspend criticism. The Doubting Game Adopt a critical stance. Look for holes, weaknesses, omissions, problems What seems true or truthful about what is said, shown, or argued? How does it confirm your own experiences or observations of the same things? What did you like or agree with? Where is it strongest, most compelling, most persuasive? How does it satisfy your criteria for being "good" or "useful" or "convincing" or "moving" What seems unbelievable or untrue? What does it fail to consider or consider inadequately? Where is the evidence missing or insufficient, or where to the elements not work together effectively? How does it fail to meet your criteria for "good" in this category of thing? Where is it the least compelling or persuasive? Why?
From this work in your notebook, try to construct a sentencea thesisthat is more than a simple statement of the worth or worthlessness of the thing you’re evaluating, but an expression of both its strengths and weaknesses:
Though ___________ succeeds (or fails) in ______________, it mostly ___________________.
For example: Though reality television presents viewers with an often interesting glimpse into how ordinary people handle their fifteen minutes of celebrity, it mostly exaggerates life by creating drama where there often is none.