Learning to recognize the thesis statement in the writing of others can help students understand what should go into a thesis when they write one. In this lesson, break up two or three short essays into their component sentences and mix their order up on a sheet of paper. Instruct students to search for the three thesis statements, placing a number from one to three on each. Afterward, students will label the rest of the sentences on the page with the corresponding number of the thesis statement they belong to.
The first thesis statements that students write should answer a simple, direct question. On the board, write three or four questions that students will answer with thesis statements. For this beginning exercise, ask questions that students will be able to answer using evidence from their own experience or common knowledge. For example, "What is the most important quality in a teacher?" Ask for volunteers to share their responses with the class and offer feedback, making sure to point out that a thesis statement should explain "why" as well as "what."
Ultimately, not all questions can be answered with common sense or personal experience alone; sometimes, you need concrete facts in order to back up a claim. In this lesson, you will provide students with a single question they need to answer, as well as a set of relevant facts or statistics they can use to make their arguments. For example, "Should motorcyclists be required to wear helmets?" For facts, you could give statistics on motorcycle accidents, motorcycle insurance cost or first-hand accounts of motorcycle accidents.
The most common mistakes students make when writing their first thesis statements are not taking a strong position, not justifying the position, expressing more than one idea and not being specific enough. For this lesson, write out 15 bad thesis statements and 15 rewrites on note cards. Pass them out and have students find the person with the matching thesis statement. By seeing what they shouldn't do, students will be more conscious of these common pitfalls when writing actual essays. Ask students to switch cards a few times so they can see different types of common mistakes.