How Do You Teach the Thesis Statement?

by Catherine
(Alabama)

How do you teach the thesis statement? Do you have any lesson plans I could use? Will one day be enough or do I need to spend two? I've never done this before. I teach eighth grade in a Christian school.

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Linda responds

The reason for teaching the thesis sentence is so students regularly use it as a tool for writing. Your teaching needs to make using a thesis statement a habit. Remember the old adage that it takes a month to build a habit? My experience is that students need about a month of writing to develop the habit of using a thesis statement.

I show students that a thesis statement combines a topic and an assertion about that statement using a simple graphic organizer: a vertical line drawn down a sheet of lined paper. I put the topic on the left and assertions about it on the right so that the two read as a single sentence. You can do this same thing in a class period.

Teaching students to use a thesis statement is a much longer process. Teaching use means not only that students can write a thesis statement but also that they do write a thesis statement without your prompting them.

I teach students to use a thesis statement by:

• Asking students to respond to informal writing prompts by providing a thesis statement


• Requiring students to produce a working thesis statement as step #1 for every writing assignment for the entire course.


• Requiring students to produce a writing skeleton™ (which includes the thesis statement) for every writing assignment for the entire course.


• Having students find the thesis statement in their nonfiction reading.


• Giving students many opportunities to practice using a thesis within the process of writing an essay.

Most college students learn to use a thesis statement about 5-6 weeks into the course. In a class meeting three times a week, my students submit six pieces of writing. I figure college students need to answer 30 writing writing prompts to learn to use a thesis statement. Your eighth graders will catch on faster but they will still require many opportunities to practice writing a thesis in the context of writing an essay before they learn to use a thesis in their writing.

I don't have lesson plans for writing topics because I rarely present "a lesson" on a writing topic. I teach other content using writing as a teaching tool. I slip writing instruction in whenever students need it to use writing to learn the other content.