 A topic is not a thesis.  I assign a topic; you develop a thesis from it.  The topic is designed to be general, to allow each student to develop his or her own ideas and understanding of the text into his or her own point of view on the topic (but you must support it with evidence from the text).  One way to know if you have a strong thesis is to ask yourself, "Could anyone disagree?"  If not (or if the disagreement could only be slight or weak), you probably have little or no thesis.

 You will realize from this that a paper about a literary work (whether it contains research or not) is very different from a report.  A report might be about the way women were treated in ancient Greece.  It would contain a lot of information, but it would have no point--except, of course, to summarize other people's work on women in ancient Greece.  Reports are uncreative.  They do not tax your brain--only your ability to shuffle paper and present information correctly.  They are a pain to do but not very useful for gauging a student's insight into a subject or work of literature.

Topic: Gatsby is a hero. Report: You retell the story – BAD Possible Theses: 1. Gatsby is a working hero. (weak, why?) 2. Fitzgerald presents Gatsby as the perfect hero, but he also shows that he is a very human young man. (show both and contrast) 3. The two motivating forces for Gatsby, his desire for money and his love for Daisy, force the reader to evaluate Fitzgerald’s idea of what constitutes of a true American Dream.

 A thesis (stated in a complete sentence, or possibly two) is what your paper is really about.  In other words, there are as many theses to be constructed on the basis of any subject as there are students to construct them.  Some will be stronger than others (some of my suggestions for theses probably seem contradictory).  You may agree or disagree with any of them, but a thesis must contain an idea/position/attitude that is yours. That is the point

 Without imagery the story would be dull and boring. Imagery is what takes you to places when you read. (Way too general--and unprovable.)  Tragedy is a key part of Hamlet  The Great Gatsby demonstrates the American Dream.  Hamlet demonstrates bravery when avenging his father’s death.

 A word to the wise: the narrower (more specific, more focussed) your thesis is, the more likely it is that you will write a good, sound, meaningful paper.  Choosing the largest possible subject = writing the most superficial essay.  If your thesis does not force you to get into the text up to your armpits, i.e., force you to quote specific passages and explain them, you are in trouble.

 And another: if you find yourself retelling the story in your essay, something is wrong with your thesis--or you are not sticking to it.  If you find yourself stuck in the storytelling mode, try reorganizing your paper so that you do not deal with your ideas in the order the story goes.  By forcing yourself to begin with something that happens in the middle and then taking examples from the early part of the work, you will break up the "pull" the story has on you.