working thesis

every paper needs a thesis, and in your essay, this thesis should appear as the last sentence of your introduction.

This thesis needs to have two components: a FOCUS (the aspect of the two texts your essay will focus on to provide evidence for your argument) and, most importantly an ARGUABLE ASSERTION (the argument you are making about the two texts).

This concept of your assertion needing to be arguable is a key one. Only a statement that can be disagreed with is truly arguable, so you can’t say something so simple that any reader could see it in the text. Having an ARGUABLE ASSERTION requires going into depth into the text and staking a strong position on it.

TEMPLATE FOR THESIS: You are not required to word your thesis in this way, but I’m going to offer you a very simple template for thesis construction to show you how FOCUS and ARGUABLE ASSERTION work together.

By [FOCUS], [DIRECTOR] suggests [ARGUABLE ASSERTION].

So, an example would be something like:

By depicting the conflicting forces affecting Anthony and Brianna's art careers, Nia DaCosta suggests that the way to promote social change in art is to.... [something something].

Okay, so your assignment is to choose which of the two films you are going to choose as the subject of your first essay and to take a stab at what you think your thesis might be. This is just a guess (a hypo-thesis), so you are just experimenting here. You do not have to use this thesis in your final essay. Try to create a good thesis loosely following the above template, and you'll receive full credit.