Thesis statements have always been a problem for me. The main reason is I learned a specific formula last year in AP English. Mr. Mullins talked about it last class, so I'm not going to go into detail. I am a math and science person, so once I learn a formula it is hard for me to do or think of something another way. I almost always apply that formula to every essay I write, even if it doesn't fully answer the prompt. I think I do this because I never learned any other way to write thesis statements, and I don't trust my own ideas enough to make up new thesis statements. I have always been told that my thesis statements are too broad or too specific. I cannot seem to find the happy medium between the two.
I am not very confident about creating thesis statements, but I believe that is due to my lack of practice with them. We did an adequate amount of work with thesis statements last year in AP English, but those were a different format than this year. I also felt like I did not get enough feedback to improve my statements. I can already tell that Mr. Mullins grades harder which will (hopefully) improve my thesis statements for the AP test.
I found that there are multiple sites that give examples of good thesis statements; One specific site is The Writing Center. I hope this helps!
I'm relying on my thesis formula at the moment too :/ He does grade harder, doesn't he.
ReplyDeleteThank you so much for the website btw (:
I think that I have the same problem with thesis statements also. I have difficulty trying to incorporate all parts of the prompt into one sentence. Thanks for the website though :)
ReplyDeleteI find thesis statements difficult because they have to include every element of a thesis, while also writing an original and profound idea. If the thesis is too general, there seems to be no focus for the essay. On the other hand, if the thesis is too specific, there is a lack of available examples.
ReplyDeleteYou do not know how much I hate writing thesis statements. I can never seem to get it. Especially last class, when I realized that I accidentally wrote a theme instead of a thesis statement. So I need as much help as I can get.
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