Do Now: Get out your WPQ #1. Underline your claim and your two pieces of evidence.

Homework: Revise WPQ#1 to have a level two or three thesis statement. Make sure to underline your thesis and your two pieces of evidence.

Today’s Plan What is our objective? Students will be able to define and create different levels of theses. Why are we doing this? To make our thesis statements (and writing) clear. How are we doing this? Practice forming evidenced based opinions and then revising!

A thesis statement is an original statement of opinion that needs to be defended with evidence against objection. A thesis is: Adolescents are frequently motivated to do well in school when grades are used as encouragement rather than punishment.

Level One Thesis Statements: Restate the prompt Answer the question “what do you think?” Contain your opinion Contain a major claim which is your opinion. Must be debatable to be a claim. Example: Prompt: Describe how another person helped you learn to do something that you do well better than you did it before. Thesis: My friend Raymond taught me how to play lacrosse better than I used to.

Level Two Thesis Statements: Answer two questions “What do you think?” and “Why do you think it?” Contain your opinion and the reason you have that opinion. Your opinion is the major claim and the reason is the minor claim. Example: Prompt: Describe how another person helped you learn to do something that you do well better than you did it before. Thesis: My friend Raymond taught me how to play lacrosse better than I used to by teaching me to do drills for fundamental skills every day.

Level Three Thesis Statements: Answer two questions “What do you think?” and “Why do you think it?” and Give the logical connection between those answers. The logical connection is a principle that shows why your reason is relevant to your opinion. In other words, the principle explains the logical connection between the major and minor claims in your thesis. Example: Thesis: My friend Raymond taught me how to play lacrosse better than I used to by teaching me to do drills for fundamental skills every day. Athletes who do drills for fundamental skills perform those skills automatically in games and under pressure.