Crafting a Thesis for College Level Essays

READ THE PROMPT: Many students want to read the question quickly and move on to writing. However, college level essay prompts are challenging. They ask students to perform specific writing tasks and will require you to identify specific and important information prior to constructing a response The questions also contain qualifiers that guide and restrict your answer. Rather than taking 10 seconds to read the question, you would be better off spending 45 seconds reading, re-reading, marking, and analyzing. Remember, a mistake in understanding a question could make the rest of a student’s effort almost worthless.

FORMULATE YOUR THESIS:  The purpose of a thesis is to clearly lead the reader through your essay. A solid thesis will clearly make a claim or argument and provide organized/categorized  evidence to forecast what the essay will be about.

Think of your thesis as the “road map” to your essay. It will provide the reader with the stops along the way to the final destination—the conclusion  

Thesis/Claim: Student responds to the prompt with a historically defensible thesis/claim that establishes a line of reasoning.  To earn a THESIS POINT on the AP Rubric, your thesis must make a claim that responds to the prompt rather than restating or rephrasing the prompt. The thesis must consist of one or more sentences located in one place, either in the introduction or the conclusion. 

The opening PARAGRAPH should have three identifiable elements:

Element #1: Set the Historical Context

This should be to 2-3 sentences setting the historical context for the essay prompt.

Element  #2:  State Claim/Argument

This element should tell the reader what the argument or claim you will attempt to prove. 

 Element #3: Organized your Categories 

This element should organize your evidence and forecast  what the essay will be focusing on.

Be sure to make your C.A.S.E in your thesis statement 

C  - Establish the historical CONTEXT

A -  State your ARGUMENT 

S -  Organize SPECIFIC

E -  EVIDENCE 

Practice: The Coffee Thesis