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Thesis statements:

Thesis statements: . Tenacious, Defendable, and Specific. What is The Purpose of a Writing a Thesis Statement?. The Dartmouth Writing Program states: You need to develop an interesting perspective that you can support and defend. This perspective must be more than an observation.

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Thesis statements:

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  1. Thesis statements: Tenacious, Defendable, and Specific.

  2. What is The Purpose of a Writing a Thesis Statement? • The Dartmouth Writing Program states: You need to develop an interesting perspective that you can support and defend. This perspective must be more than an observation. • A paper—research, response, compare/contrast, argumentative—needs a reason to be written and that reason is articulated in the thesis statement • The thesis statement comes from research on the topic which inspired the paper, i.e. adolescent lit, teen sex, gender issues, family dynamics, peers issues, etc. • It is carefully whittled from a broad idea to a specific, easily (or not) researchable issue

  3. Easy Examples From the UNC Writing Center • Not Good: In Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain develops a contrast between life on the river and life on the shore. • Better: Through its contrasting river and shore scenes, Twain's Huckleberry Finn suggests that to find the true expression of American democratic ideals, one must leave "civilized" society and go back to nature.

  4. Questions to Ask Yourself From The Bedford’s Guide for College Writers • Is your question debatable? • Can you find enough current information about your question? • Is the scope of your question appropriate — not too immense and not too narrow? • Have you worded your question concretely and specifically, so that it states exactly what you are looking for? • Does it allow for a range of opinions so that you can support your own view rather than explain something that is generally known and accepted? • Will you be able to answer it given the time you have and the length limits for your paper? • Will your discoveries interest your readers? • Is it interesting to you?

  5. Effective or Ineffective? • Sex > teen sex > an adolescent girl’s decision to have sex > an author empowering (or not) a young woman with her own sexuality • Katherine is a teen faced with the decision to have sex. • The young, female protagonist in Judy Blume’s 1974 novel, Forever, is initially portrayed as an independent minded teen, but how much do her perceived obligations play into her decision to have sex?

  6. Which Answer the Questions? • Bloom's Forever is a story about teen love. • Written in 1974, the underlying moralistic nature of Forever reflects the tone of some contemporary adolescent literature advocating abstinence, but overlooks the possibility of teens as responsible enough for their own sexuality. • The first scene in which Katherine and Michael has sex in Forever is realistic. • Although Forever was written to convey that teen sex performed responsibly has less negative consequences, Trites and other critics argue that the portrayal of sex in young adult literature such as this is carefully placed to teach the reader an important lesson about power and the abuse of power. Now, prove it with your research.

  7. Class Exercise • Sex > teen sex > an adolescent girl’s decision to have sex > an author empowering (or not) a young woman with her own sexuality • Sex > teen sex > an adolescent girl’s decision to have sex > ???? • Ask yourself the questions • Relate it to Forever • Relate to Trites • What do we have?

  8. Work Cited Birkenstien, Cathy and Gerald Graff. They Say, I Say: The Moves That Matter in Academic Writing. New York, London: W. W. Norton & Company, 2006. Print. “Developing Your Thesis.” Dartmouth Writing Center. The Institute for Writing and Rhetoric, n.d. Web. February 2, 2010. Hodges, John C.,Winifred Bryan Horner, Suzanne Strobeck Webb, Robert Keith Miller. Harbrace College Handbook: With 1998 MLA Style Manual Updates, 13th Revised Edition. 13th Edition. Chicago, IL: Harcourt Brace College Publishers, 1998. Web. February 2, 2010. Kennedy, X. J., and Dorothy M. Kennedy, and Marcia F. Muth.  The Bedford Guide for College Writers.  8th ed.  Boston:  Bedford/St. Martins, 2008.  593-595. Macintosh Dictionary Widget. N.d. Online. February 2, 2010. The Modern Language Institute. MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers. New York: The MLA Association, 2009. Print. “Thesis Statements.” The Writing Center. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 2007. Web. February 2, 2010. “What Makes A Good Literature Paper?” The OWL at Purdue. Purdue U Online Writing Lab, 2010. Web. February 2, 2010. “Writing Literature Paper: Avoid the Obvious.” Writing @ CSU. Colorado State University, 2010. Web. February 2, 2010.

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